You can cycle from Stratford in east London to London Bridge south hoo the river entirely on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes.
The route is 8.4km long (5.2 miles) and makes use of Cycleway 2, Cycleway 3 and lanes on London Bridge
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/2738392721?share_token=aPD3B4hXkuZn37pRF2GWkvGM1kMikpLiXLlkWJbXskEMD6hDKf&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=51.505213496092054%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=0%2C0&z=12
30 Comments
Great video! – although I will admit it takes me <20mins on the jubilee line
I did cycleway 2 recently from Stratford to the city. It was the most perilous route I've taken in London so far. Had a moped in the segregated lane forcing past me as if I was the one in the wrong and about 3 cars turning left across my path.
Thanks so much for this. I was always very nervous thinking about how to head West from Stratford by bike because of the roundabout. Your videos are so helpful!!
👍🙂
@2:30 "I've always felt that this stretch seems desolate" . That was my immediate observation too, although you qualify the comment (gist) "it does get better". It certainly is bleak compared to what comes after.
To be honest, when I'm in London next (soon I hope) many other routes you've described will come first, but this episode is still very helpful in re-familiarising myself in how to handle UK traffic. Not every 'therapy session' can be as pleasant as the last, but I really did enjoy that.
Thank You, as always.
7:06 Could it be that service road and grass verge are not owned by the council? Certainly that land used to be privately owned before the houses there were demolished.
Does anyone know if Arthur Street at London Bridge – which gives access to Thames Street – has been re-opened yet? I believe i was due to be finished.
There are plans for ilford to refurbish the river roading which will provide future pathing potentially towards Chigwell.
This river passes under ilford hill which directly connects to romford road.
The TMOs for Arthur St state the restriction comes in from tomorrow. Is that not the case?
That route’s a bit sketchy in places
Jon, where would you put a cycle lane from the river straight up to Stratford from Greenwich or North Greenwich – 1) Manchester & Preston Rd from Mudchute 2) Abbot Rd and the Blackwell Tunnel Northern Approach or 3) Manor Rd? Also, are there any proposals for this?
One of the best videos. I thought the infrastructure on the first part (c2) looked good and much better than the later parts. I felt when you had to mix it with cars and pedestrians later it was a bit of a mess. London bridge looked no better than Westminster Bridge and needs a major rethink. Thanks for the video.
Used your route through the island to Canary Wharf on Friday 👌🏻 I strongly believe the C2 and C3 should go all the way to Havering, that area seems to be severely lacking in infrastructure.
Love watching your videos every Sunday. Even nicer to watch on a cold winter night. Nicer to watch when they’re filmed on a sunny day. Great work. Keep it going 👍
Hi, would you consider uploading this style of video with non sped-up footage? I know that would make the videos about twice as long but it would allow the viewer to take in more of the environment
Great video! Could you please do a Clerkenwell to South Kensington route on quiet streets? Thank you so much ☺️
This is a really nice route. Thanks
My advice for this route is to make sure you have a bell! You will need to warn pedestrians that you're coming. Other than that it's a great route and it's nice having the skyscrapers in the distance as a waypoint.
3:18 Is that curb as bad as it looks in the video?
Decent route. Although the bike has been in hibernation recently given the ice rink-like conditions! Happy new year!
12:16 old school, experienced cyclist with Carradice saddlebag….
quick question, as xmas day there were no trains running in London, were there more cyclists around or did you stay indoors?
How do you tell if pavement is shared space?
I used to be a courier back in the late 2000s and remember the cycle super highways being introduced. The CSH1 that goes from Tower Bridge to the Island/Canary wharf was a real help.
How well gritted are the cycle routes in the winter?
Interesting to see you didn't take the dropped kerb cut across to Mansell Street but went on and turned left.
Because of the way the signal phases work at that junction, and because there's no left turn into Mansell Street, doing it the way you did in this video means going through a green man for peds to cross (you can see the green man at 10:52).
Judging by the closed Pret on Mansell Street, the traffic backed up for Tower Bridge (Blackwall or Rotherhithe southbound being closed are usually the reason for this), and cars on London Bridge, I'm guessing it was shot on a weekend, so not an issue for you this time, but I've seen several conflicts there particularly at rush hour.
It's far from an ideal situation either way when busy because not everyone knows it's a shared space and not all cyclists realise the way to turn there is the cut across.
As an ex Londoner this makes me more hopeful on cycling if I revisit my hometown
This is definitely going to inspire me to race my friends from Stratford to London Bridge (safely of course!) – they'll take Tube while I'll cycle this route!
You should have stopped for those pedestrians at the bus stop
Hey Man, what desk microphone do you use?
Ty