🚲 A brilliant new way to cycle from Hammersmith to Roehampton without traffic

You can cycle from Hammersmith in west London to Roehampton in south east London entirely on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes.

The route is 7.4km long (4.6 miles) and makes use of the recently reopened Hammersmith Bridge, as well as parts of Cycleway 9.

If you find this video useful or you just enjoy watching it please remember to subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon so you’re alerted to new videos, as I try to post new ones like it every week.

And if you like what the channel is doing and want to support it, you can also contribute to the London Cycle Routes Patreon below. It really helps keep the channel going:

http://patreon.com/londoncycleroutes

You can see a digital map of the route and download a GPS/GPX file to use on whatever device or app you want here:

https://www.komoot.com/tour/2614850973?share_token=ahWYE7rxBGG35ZBA4GFX6cL86v2P7XMizsEUcGzxJt7cjsnA64&ref=wtd

And you can find a viewer-created and maintained map of all the London Cycle Routes videos here:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1h9Hxm57fPvZmcuSXajM_Wu0G0s6f_bs&ll=51.50521349609208%2C-0.1285238120117249&z=12

I also highly recommend the Safe Cycle London map for route planning, which is compiled by @SafeCycleLDN on twitter:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1XlpvN9R-Wg7qZHyezO8y-eVlftr4e0WX&hl=en&ll=51.516975804561284%2C-0.21828576419061996&z=11

Hello and welcome back to London Cycle Routes. Today I’ll be showing you how to cycle from Hammersmith in West London to Roampton in Southwest London. This ride takes under half an hour and you can do the whole thing on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes. By public transport, the same journey takes more like 40 minutes. So, cycling is a great way to make this trip, especially since the reopening of Hammersmith Bridge to bikes. If you find this video useful or you just enjoy watching it, then please don’t forget to subscribe to the channel as I try to post new videos just like it every week. I’d also like to say a huge thank you to everyone who supports the channel on Patreon. If you’d like to contribute, too, you can find a link in the description below the video. All right, let’s get going. So, we’re starting on Hammersmith Road near the Tube Station, and we’re going to head straight through the big junction in the middle of the town center, which was re-engineered for bikes a few years ago, and it’s now really easy to get through on protected lanes. There are several sets of traffic lights here for bikes, but I never really find myself waiting at them for too long. The timings are actually pretty decent. You exit the junction onto King Street, which has a protected lane on it, too. Part of Cycleway 9. Cycleway 9 is a mostly protected route that runs all the way to Brenford and will hopefully, when funding allows, and they get round to building it, reach Houndslow and Heathrow Airport one day. The next stage, extending it to Scion Park, has been consulted on. And while I’d hoped it would be built this year, it seems like construction hasn’t started yet. So, I guess it’ll be ready next year. We’re not going that way, though. And we turn off onto Bridge Avenue, a relatively quiet street, which ends in a culde-sac, and a cycle crossing here, which helps us get safely over the Great West Road and under the Hammersmith flyover. Do note that these two sets of traffic lights are on different circuits, so one of them can be green and the other one can be red. So don’t necessarily proceed across the whole of both carriageways of that road unless you get a green light for both of them. We then proceed to Hammersmith Bridge which makes this whole route possible. The bridge was closed a few years ago amid concerns about its structural integrity but after some reinforcement works was reopened to bikes earlier this year. And whatever your views on what should happen to it in the future, it’s now a huge asset for anyone trying to get across the river by bike in this part of London, more than it ever was, frankly, when it was fully opened, as it’s now a traffic-free route and perfectly safe and pleasant to go over on a bike, as well as to walk over. Now, another less obvious and less well-known impact of the bridge being closed to cars, is that the Barnes Peninsula, which we’ve just arrived on from crossing the bridge, is much less busy. Particularly this street that we’re cycling down Castle now. Although it doesn’t necessarily look it from this particular frame, there’s a few cars outside the shops and lots of buses. Um the rest of the street as we’ll see is actually really pretty quiet because the peninsula is now a dead end and so in effect is kind of its own large low traffic neighborhood. In this direction we do benefit from a lightly segregated cycle lane with these plastic ones. It’s not the best cycle lane ever, but frankly because the traffic levels are so low, it doesn’t really need to be. It’s just nice to have. There isn’t a cycle lane in the opposite direction, but there is a bus lane. You can see it there with the red tarmac. And as you can see, the bus service around here is such that you’re mostly going to have it to yourself. Although, yeah, there are a few buses occasionally. I’d love to know what the residents of Barnes, particularly these lovely villas along Castle. Now, think of the situation with the bridge because, frankly, this street has gone from being very trafficy to rather peaceful. On the other hand, there’s definitely the inconvenience aspect, particularly for people using buses, maybe to get to Hammersmith, which I’m sure a lot of people did before. They now have to take a detour, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people were enjoying the new found peace and quiet of this neighborhood. There are a few places that you can turn off castle now, and we’re going to do it on Baronme Road, which is just here. Don’t miss the turning like I nearly did here and then double back on myself slightly so that I made it. One way that you can avoid missing the turns on this route and all the others that I do on this channel is to download the free map of the route which I produce for all of the videos I do. It’s linked in the description below the video. And I’m currently hosting the maps on a website called Kimoot. and you should be able to look at them for free and download them as GPX files if you want to put those maps onto another app or device. The only thing to be aware of is that Kimoot was recently bought out by another company and they’ve made some changes to their business model and I’m still trying to work out what that means for being able to access the maps for free. I think you still can, but please do let me know in the comments if you’re having trouble as I’m keen that they remain free. I don’t mind paying to host them if that would just be a running cost of the channel, but it’s important to me that other people don’t have to pay to get at them. And if that’s the case, then I will find another solution. So yeah, do let me know if it’s working or not still. Now we are arriving here at Barnes Green, and it’s a pretty nifty way of getting where we need to go. I’m just going to use the drop curbed here over the green and head to the crescent which is a culdeac. So, shouldn’t in theory have any traffic coming down it. Um, as you can see, it’s nice and quiet. And you just run along the culdeac here alongside the green until you get to the end of it. And there’s another little path that we’re going to take which leads us to a bridge. That bridge runs over a little stream called the Beverly Brook. If you’ve ever cycled along the south side of the Tempame’s path near Barnes Wetland Center, as featured in my Putney to Hammersmith video, you’ll have seen where the brook enters the river Tames. It is in fact a tributary of the Tempames. Here it is now. In the opposite direction, that brook runs all the way from Worcester Park where it rises in the middle of Cington Recreation Ground, which you’ve probably not heard of unless you know the area. Well, we were only riding on the common pass for a second there, by the way. But just a reminder that when you are riding on them, please be mindful of people walking and go very slowly as they are quite narrow. This next section of the route is a little bit unusual, but I reckon it’s the best way to go. As you can see, there’s a little bit of traffic on Station Road here, but we’re only on it for a moment before turning right into Vine Road. Vine road does technically have through traffic on it, but it’s usually pretty quiet. The reason for that is that a lot of motorists tend to avoid it as a shortcut because it has not one but two railway level crossings on it. So whether it actually ends up being a shortcut is a bit of a gamble. This first level crossing here is over the Houndslow loop line. So railway services on that run from Waterlue out to Chisik, Qbridge, Brenford etc. And the second one here is on the Waterlue to Reading line which also serves towns like Twickenham, Stains and Ascot. Barn station is just to the left of us here. The platforms are just visible as you cross the road if you look to your left. It’s not really low traffic all the time, but this was filmed in the middle of the day on a weekday, and there were more people on bikes, as you saw, than there actually were cars, which I think is usually a pretty good sign that something is a reasonably decent route. We’re heading for the priary lane, cycle lane. More about that in a moment. I definitely have thoughts. But before we get there, at the end of this street, we have to perform a silly little dance to get to it. We’re going to use this shared toucan crossing. Note the bike symbols on the lights there to get over the street. And that’s going to put us directly on this very narrow pavement level cycle path which runs down Priary Lane. Now, this lane is quite controversial, and I know some people prefer to cycle on the main carriageway here, especially if they’re confident cyclists or sport cyclists heading to Richmond Park for some exercise. The big downside of this cycle lane, apart from its narrowness, is this. It deals with side roads and driveways incredibly poorly, giving priority to people coming from the minor roads rather than traveling straight down the main road that we’re on here. If you do choose to use the cycle lane, as I’ve done here, be very cautious and hyper aware of vehicles coming out of the side roads and don’t expect them to give way to you. I’ve been wishing for years that Onsworth Council, which controls this street, would do something to improve the situation given how many people ride down here to get to Richmond Park. It really is very busy at certain times of the week, but they don’t seem to have any plans. Uh given the pavement is also really misily. Look at that. There isn’t even one on the other side of the street. And this one is so narrow that those people couldn’t even get past each other. Um, I think the solution is to actually make Priary Lane here one way for general traffic and put a two-way protected cycle lane in the reclaimed general traffic lane and then give this whole pavement to people walking, which would rep prioritize walking and cycling for people accessing the park. The cycle lane runs out short of where we want to be. So, we’re doing a little detour via Bank Lane and Rowampton Gate to get to our destination without braving the main road. These streets around here are generally quiet, although at really busy times, particularly when the weather’s good and lots of people want to visit the park or on summer weekends particularly, I think you can sometimes see cars cruising around here looking for on street parking. Most of the time it is very chill though. When you get to the end of this little row of houses, you’ll see the Rohampton Gate entrance, one of the main entrances to Richmond Park on your right. So, if you want to get to Richmond Park, then that’s the way to go. It’s a pretty nice cycling environment in there. And you can also do onward journeys to other destinations. Like, it’s a good way of getting to Kingston, for example. Um, we’re just going to double back on Priary Lane for a second. And then we turn right into Danbury Avenue. You might have seen the no through route sign on Dbury Avenue there, and that is true. There is no through traffic on this road thanks to this bolard closure here. And it’s going to take us all the way to Roampton Gate. But despite the lack of through traffic, you might notice that it’s not the best cycling environment. There is a car there and that’s pretty typical. The thing is that although all these cars are accessing homes within this estate area off Dbury Avenue, it is a very very big estate and it is also very dense. Lots of people live here and all of the access is via Dbury Avenue from the Roampton side. So you do see a bit of traffic. It’s not busy, but there are some cars. I’m not going to pretend that there aren’t any. In that respect, it’s actually quite similar to the Barnes Peninsula, which had no through traffic on it, but again, it is a large area with lots of homes. So, there is still some traffic. The other notable thing is just the sheer number of cars here parked on every surface along every curbside, but also on the pavement at points. And uh there seems to be no control parking around here. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen anywhere which was more dire in need of control parking. It’s okay just here. Uh but where the bit that we just passed through the carriageway, as you probably noticed, is quite narrow by parked cars. So, uh it would be really good to have a little bit in the way of parking control around here. Um if the council ever gets around to doing that, but it is still a pretty decent, relatively low traffic way to get to this big horrible junction. And we just get on the other side of it. does have cycle early start lights there, so it is actually okay to get across it mostly. And uh it takes us here to Roampton High Street where we’re going to end this video. And we’ve come all the way from Hammersmith in the north there to Roampton High Street. Um it’s not much of a detour from taking the main roads, but I think a lot more pleasant to ride on. So, thank you so much for watching that with me, guys. Really appreciate you sticking around to the end. If you find the video useful, please do leave a like. It helps other people find it. And if you like what we’re doing on the channel, I post new videos like this every week. Then do make sure that you hit subscribe on YouTube. Please do let me know in the comments what you think of this route. Would you go a different way? I know you can just go straight down Roampton Lane and Rox Lane. I kind of think I prefer this one, but Priary Lane, the cycle lane is pretty rubbish and I wish that that would be improved. So maybe some people who are confident prefer to go on the main road. Um also let me know about the commute situation and whether the maps are still working for you. Uh thank you once again to everyone who also contributes to keep the channel going by sending me cash on Patreon. Really appreciate that. If anyone else wants to contribute, you can find a link in the description below the video to it. I’ll see some of you in the comments and I’ll see the rest of you next week. Goodbye.