🚲 The best way to cycle to Richmond Park from Kensington

You can cycle from Kensington in west central London to Richmond Park in south west London, entirely on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes.

The route is 7km long (4.4 miles) and makes use of the Cycleway 9 protected lanes, Hammersmith Bridge, and the Priory Lane cycle path, as well as quiet streets around Barnes.

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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/1464536364?ref=wtd&share_token=a7acTTdLYKr4NR1do6JxHTrj6YwUVTQjVlXQv4upvwvdmIdVLB

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=51.480986365519584%2C-0.09561039754146461&z=13

Hello and welcome back to London cycle routes today I’ll be showing you how to cycle from Kensington in West London to Richmond Park 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 the best part of an hour so cycling is the obvious way to make this journey 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 as well then you can find a link in the description below the video all right let’s get going so we’re starting outside Kenzie inton Olympia railway station and we’re

Going to head West down Hammersmith Road Hammersmith Road has some cycling infrastructure on it mostly these one protected cycle Lanes they are a little bit rudimentary they tend to give up at bus stops and they’re not continuous through Junctions but they do tend to do

The job there are also a few sections on this road in both directions where the cycle Lane gives up and it drops you in a bus lane that’s not ideal and bus lanes aren’t proper cycle infrastructure but in my experience going down this road those sections are not too bad as

They are relatively short and they do dovetail with the cycle Lanes quite nicely so I don’t think it should be too much of a problem in the long term tfl actually has Ambitions to put a proper two-way protected cycle way down this street of a similar quality to the one

That goes through Hammersmith chisik and also is on its way to to brenford and houndslow at the moment currently under construction unfortunately I wouldn’t expect that to happen for at least another couple of years so for now you’ll have to be comfortable riding in a bus lanane like this for a short

Stretch this isn’t the busiest bus Corridor in London by any means so as you can see at certain points you will have the bus lane mostly to yourself now we’ll be joining a proper protected Lane in a moment turn up left onto this drop curb and cycle on this

Shared space here and make your way to the tucon crossing which is a Crossing that both pedestrians and Cycles can use there’s then another cycle crossing here and make sure you push the button so it knows you’re there and it’ll put you onto this lovely protected two-way cycle

Track this track weaves its way really nicely through the Hammersmith gyratory which used to be a horrible place to cycle but is now an absolute Breeze despite the fact that there are quite a few traffic lights on here I’ve actually found the timings of them to be pretty

Decent and I almost always get through this in really good time it then drops you on to King Street which is the aforementioned Cycle Way 9 which I was talking about this is a high quality two-way cycle track that extends all the way to turnam Green on this section one

Thing you’ve got to watch out for though is pedestrians walking into the track without looking including that guy with a wheelbarrow full of rocks which is a first for me but really every time I come down here there is somebody walking into the road without necessarily looking where they’re going so do make

Sure you’re careful as you go down there you then want to turn off and head down Bridge Avenue which is going to take us towards Hammersmith bridge for those that don’t know Hammersmith Bridge has been closed to all traffic except for people walking for a good few years now

And it shows no sign of fully reopening anytime soon however it has been temporarily at least reopened to people cycling and it really opens up loads of new routes here for us to do including this one which is going to take us from Kensington to Richmond Park now the

Current plan is for this bridge to be open until roughly miday but there was some uncertainty as to whether or not it would stay open to Cycles in the long term I actually have a bit of an answer for that as I put in a freedom of information request to Hammer Smith and

Fulham Council which is in charge of looking after the bridge what they said was that they expect the bridge to shut again to people cycling from miday and then more stabilization Works to take place but as soon as that phase one of stabilization works is done they will

Restore cycling on the bridge basically reverting to the situation that we have now now they do also say that they intend to fully reopen the bridge to all traffic in the long term a sort of a phase 2 stabilization but nobody thinks that that’s realistically going to happen anytime soon because the funding

Is just not there so in summary it’ll be open until miday then it’ll close again probably for a few more months and then it should open again to people cycling on the carriageway as well it is also worth saying that even when the bridges in invert com is closed to cycling you

Can still push your bike on The Pedestrian walkway so you can still do these routes that feature the bridge the worst that would happen is that you’ll have to dismount and walk your bike along the side so it would add a few minutes and not be as fun but it’s still

There as an option of course closing the bridge hasn’t just affected the bridge it’s also affected streets around the bridge most notably this one that we’re on here Castle now in this direction we have a slightly ropey and intermittent cycle Lane that’s protected by these ones and in the other direction we have

A bus lane now normally I wouldn’t really like this as cycle infrastructure it’s a little bit weak but the closure of the bridge is also meant that there’s effectively no through traffic on this street at all because it has nowhere for it to go as we’re on a peninsula so the

Riding conditions along here are really comfortable and I think most people would be happy along here we want to turn off right in a second down a street called Baron me Road make sure you look to your right and over your shoulder as you make that right turn or you can just

Pause in the cycle Lane wait for a gap in the traffic if there is any and then head into Baron m road like Castle now the side streets in the Barnes Peninsula are also really quiet thanks to the closure of the bridge there really isn’t

Any through traffic on them at all so we are going to use them to pick our way south towards Church Street which is one of the main High streets in Barnes and then over Barnes green which fortunately has a cycle path on it that you’ll see

See in a moment if you need a bit of help with the wayf finding on this part of the video or really any other part of it and remembering which way to turn then you can always download the free digital map of the rout which is linked

In the description below the video it’s in a GPX format and that should work on whatever app or device that you like to use it is a standard format and you can load that in and it should point you in the right direction although to be honest after watching this video you’ll

Probably have it in your head anyway so you may not need it we now need to Cross Church Road to get onto the common and I use this little protective Island here which allows you to cross one lane at a time it would be better to have a cycle

Crossing over that street though there is a zebra Crossing there which could be converted into a a parallel Crossing which you’re also allowed to cycle over normally there would be a dropped curb leading from Barnes green there onto the Crescent which we’re on now but unfortun

Ely someone had parked an SUV on it so we did have to push past that you are allowed to cycle on the paths on Barnes green but I find it a little bit more comfortable to go on the Crescent as there are a lot of people walking on it

And also walking dogs with leads which can make it a little bit tricky to get past but if you do look at the sign posts as you go past there are signs showing that it is a shared walking and cycling route if you look at that lamp

Post you’ll see a little blue sign pointing us down this Alleyway make sure you go dead slow down here it is a cycle route but it’s also a blind corner and very narrow so if there’s someone walking down there you don’t want to cycle right into them this is actually a

An old designated cycle route although it’s not very well signposted and one Improvement that could be made would I think be to put a little path over on the left there over that little bit of grass I don’t know if you noticed it but there’s actually a little muddy track

Going going over there because a lot of people walk and cycle over it anyway to cut the corner and to avoid that little mini roundabout that we went on it would surely make sense to formalize that I think now we are currently on Vine road which is a reasonably quiet street with

Some quite unorthodox traffic caling there’s actually two different level Crossings on here which I think makes it enough of a pain to drive down that most people don’t bother or try to do so especially that there is another parallel route as a result it’s reasonably quiet although it does have a

Disadvantage which means that when these Crossings are closed the few cars that do try and get down here tend to get bunched up at the Crossing waiting with you so while you may end up with not too many cars on the street they may unfortunately be quite near where you

Are because you’ll all get bunched up it is worth saying that the surfacing of this road does leave a lot to be designed and there are quite a lot of potholes especially around the speed bumps which could also probably do with being relayed to be a bit more cycle

Friendly now we’re going to use this tuen crossing here we’re not going to be cycling on the carriageway on PRI Lane we’re actually going to use the crossing to join this pavement cycle track now the pavement cycle track on prior Lane is pretty controversial and let me start

By saying that it is not very good at all the first thing that you’ll probably notice cycling on it is that the vast majority of people who cycle down prior Lane which is one of the ways to get to Richmond Park a very popular cycling spot for leisure cycling the vast

Majority of people do not cycle on the cycle Lane they mostly use the carriageway now there is a good argument for this not only is the cycle Lane incredibly narrow and poorly surfaced it is also arguably a bit dangerous if used in in properly in the fact that at best

It gives way at most side roads and at worst it has quite ambiguous priority When approaching side roads and driveways given it’s also a two-way cyle track this is a bit of a recipe for drivers pulling into or out of side roads and not looking in the right place

And accidentally hitting someone on a bike which is bad I personally still prefer it to riding on the carriageway but it is worth keeping a real eye out when you do being incredibly cautious and yeah just being aware that there is a bit of a risk there

Still improving the cycle Lane is a bit tricky because there isn’t really very much space and the pavement is very squeezed and far too narrow as it is as well I think having surveyed the options the best option is probably to make prior Lane a oneway Street for General

Traffic along with Clarence Lane so turning it into a little mini gyratory for General traffic that would let you use one of the general traffic Lanes to widen and build a better cycle Lane and also to widen the pavement as well because pedestrians do need a lot more

Space on the approach to the park there it’s currently a little bit of a joke I think that that street is controlled by wesworth Council so if anyone from onor worths watching do have a think about that one cuz I think it’s a pretty urgent safety Improvement given how many

People cycle to Richmond Park every week and talking of Richmond Park we’ve made it here and if this footage of people cycling on more or less traffic free streets doesn’t make you want to visit the park and it’s beautiful scenery then I don’t know what will reviewing that

Route you can see that it is incredibly direct and it’s incredible that it took me 26 minutes to cycle that when it’s pretty out of the way by other modes of Transport I wanted to get this video out this week because I thought that this

Was a really good example of the kind of longer distance route that opening Hammersmith Bridge up to cycling really enables um I did a shorter route a couple of weeks ago just showing Barnes to Hammersmith but there were loads like this and I’ll be doing more on the

Channel so do make sure that you hit subscribe so that you don’t miss any thank you so much again to everyone on the patreon if anyone is feeling generous and would like to Chuck us a couple of quids then you can find a link in the description to it below the video

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Next video thank you so much for watching in and goodbye