I Cycled 2500km in London — Here’s What I Learned

Cycling in London has changed my life in more ways than I could have imagined. I really hope you like this one. It’s been a passion project of mine to show just how incredible cycling in London really is. I really hope you get a chance to get out there and cycle sometime soon.
Vlog channel https://youtube.com/EvanEdinger

Thank you so much for watching! Hope you enjoyed it!

Video Chapters:
0:00 Hook & Intro
1:10 The scary London cycling story at Old Street Roundabout
2:22 Is London a cycling city?
4:14 Walking vs Cycling in your local area
4:56 Cycling vs Public Transport for longer journeys
5:41 The cost of cycling vs the London Underground
6:31 Cycling’s Effects on your Physical Health
7:54 Isn’t an e-bike cheating?
8:12 Lime Bikes vs good ebikes with torque sensors
11:58 Cycling is like video gaming
13:07 Aren’t you scared of bike theft? It’s bloody London!
15:34 The Effects of Cycling on my Mental Health
19:17 Do you cycle in the rain or snow?
19:32 Conclusion
20:29 Outro

My bike lock: https://geni.us/EvanBikeLock

This is a useful guide on everything e-bikes (from American perspective) written by a redditor. Quite a lot of good info! https://geni.us/EvanUSEbikeGuide

A useful guide on some good e-bikes on the market right now (even though some of it looks quite ChatGPT-generated.) Just ignore my Cowboy bike on their list. I really don’t think anyone should buy one for the time being. My faith in the company lasting the year is VERY low. https://geni.us/EvanElectroGuide

If you’re new to my channel and videos, hi! I’m Evan Edinger, and I make weekly “comedy” videos every Sunday evening. As an American living in London I love noticing the funny differences between the cultures and one of my most popular video series is my British VS American one. I’m also known for making terrible puns so sorry in advance. Hope to see you around, and I’ll see you next Sunday! 🙂

If you want to know HOW I make my videos including gear, lighting, all the tiddly bits that connect it all together, (with cheaper alternatives and kit I used to use), I’ve listed each item, what it’s great at, and why I use it on the gear section of my website here:
https://www.evanedinger.com/blog/my-gear

Otherwise: here’s a quick list of some of my kit without descriptions from the above link:

Camera: Sony A7siii
https://geni.us/Evana7siii

Main Lens: Sony 24mm f/1.4 G-Master
https://geni.us/Evan24

Secondary Lens: Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 G-Master
https://geni.us/Evan1635

Main Light: Aputure 120d mkii
https://geni.us/Evan120d

Shotgun Microphone: Sennheiser MKH-416
https://geni.us/Evan416

Really useful SSD: SanDisk Extreme Portable 2TB
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The background music I use is all from Epidemic Sound! I highly recommend it: https://geni.us/EvanEpidemicSound

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is London a cycling city look at this map the average Londoner spends 38 minutes a day commuting and this map shows how far you can get within 40 minutes from where I’m standing sure it’s in a park but here’s a map of what it would be like in East London here’s a map in central the area in blue is via public transit trains buses including walking the area in red that’s with a bike now that’s also just an acoustic bike if you had an ebike well you could get even further and if you’re like me you probably assumed the tube would be fastest but this map this isn’t even the greatest revelation I’ll be sharing in this video you see this map is really what set everything off for me because I never needed to see this map to feel it all it took for me was just one ride from East London to West that opened up the entire city of London to me my name is Evan Edinger and I’ve been cycling over 2,500 km through the city and today I’m going to tell you why I stopped taking the tube and maybe just maybe why you should too this right here is the Old Street Roundabout about 10 years ago I had a job down the road and I arrived to work late only to realize well it was a special day in which we were working from a different office a 30-minute walk down the road this stressed me out cuz I was already late so I looked at Google Maps and realized “Oh I can get there in 8 minutes if I rent a Boris bike.” So I hopped on one went through this old street roundabout and was utterly terrified i got to this point where two black cabs were squeezing me out and I felt like I was either going to lose my legs or my life and this situation put me off cycling in London for quite a long time and I feel like most Londoners that have cycled in the early 2010s or even earlier probably have a similar story things have changed a lot since then even this very roundabout now has a protected cycle lane so that fearful time from my past is no longer a thing and this is just one roundabout but this has been happening all across London what effect could this possibly have the Economist recently called London a cycling city and BBC reported that cycling in the city of London has increased by 50% but stats like that don’t change people’s minds neither do maps like this neither do YouTubers like this what does change your mind however is just one ride going for one little ride for me that journey was from Canary Wararf all the way to Chisik it’s 25 km and the friends that were cycling with me for this journey weren’t exactly seasoned cyclists but from the moment we set off I remember thinking “Wait is this what I was afraid of?” It’s not scary at all actually it felt safe protected also the entire journey we’re all experiencing things that we never have before i passed over river basins I’d never seen i cycled through parks that were beautiful that I’d never gone through before
this is just lovely
it just felt like an incredibly fun and lovely experience they completely upended the notion I had in my head from that old street roundabout experience many moons ago now this is a psychopath don’t get me wrong it’s not perfect high street Kensington still exists
i don’t want to do this thank god I don’t live out that way but it’s important to note because not all of London is really up to scratch yet there are some rough patches but from my experience of cycling over 2,500 kilometers in the city I would say the overwhelming majority of paths and cycle ways are actually really safe and fun and with each journey I take I learn more i am able to cycle more safely i choose different routes or more scenic routes i’m seeing another side of the city that I never even knew existed it’s like London was invisible to me until just this past year as a Londoner if you want to walk somewhere ideally it’s somewhere within a 20-minute walk cuz usually anything within 20 minutes is easy enough to justify now if we translate that to a bike well 20 minutes via bike is such a larger area that your internal map expands so greatly your neighborhood is no longer this small 20inute radius by walking around your house but now this huge sprawling land mass it’s so exciting i could have never made my Jelly Deals video without this bike why so many of the filming locations were really poorly connected via public transport and I pretty much had to get to them with a bike now when it comes to longer journeys I found cycling completely has changed my perspective the other day my mate invited me to a flash mob wedding proposal at his place in Streathum now previously when I had to go to Streathum I’d probably be thinking like most Londoners “Oh god got to go all the way to Streathum why does he got to live in Streathum it’s just not that well connected on the underground however at this time I was thinking more oh I get to go to Stretchham you know now I get to cycle through some neighborhoods I haven’t seen now I get to cycle through some parks and learn more about that area just by passing through it’s such a more enjoyable experience rather than it being a time sync a time waste a necessary evil that I have to do to get to Streathum now it’s a fun journey now had I chosen to take public transport to get to Streathum that would have cost me £540 each way and that’s a little under £11 just to visit my friend and that’s just one day if I were commuting to work 5 days a week during peak times from zone 3 to zone 1 that would cost me a little over £150 every single month that works out to £1,800 a year of your money gone just to get to work and that’s not including weekend trips or any additional trips on the bus london is famously the most expensive public transport system in the world and it shows however if you took 1,500 of that £1,800 and invested it in one of the top-of-the-line ebikes with all the bells and whistles pun intended that would pay itself off so quickly just but besides the financial benefits and the time savings is the most obvious benefit your physical health in the years since I started cycling on an ebike mind you I’ve already burned over 27,000 calories and that equates to about 3.5 kg of body fat burned that’s crazy and what’s crazier is I didn’t do anything to go out of my way to do this that’s kind of the magic of it all it’s literally just me going from point A to point B as opposed to like oh I’ve got to remember to do a workout today i’ve got to remember to go for a run no I’m not adding anything extra into my schedule this is just a way of getting around and it’s pleasant i can’t stress that enough and no I’m not drenched in sweat either that’s the beauty of the ebike it’s the great equalizer i sure am on an ebike and so I’m getting a little bit of assist but my heart rate is still increased i’m still moving my legs i’m still getting all the health benefits all that I’m not having to worry about is the sweat inducing elements starting from stop no longer super difficult tackling a hill no longer causes me to need to catch my breath well unless I choose to actually now might be a good time to explain to you how this ebike nonsense works because a lot of you when I mention ebike are probably thinking the same thing oh you’re on an ebike isn’t that cheating well cheating whom exactly the only one cheating would be someone choosing not to cycle at all because of the perceived cons of cycling but ebikes in general do remove those cons if you so choose well depending on the type of ebike most Londoners experiences with uh ebikes for the first time will be a line bike they’re a dockless ride share program that are pretty much all over the city they’re in Paris they’re in London they’re in New York and they’re a great way to dip your toe into what it’s like to ride an ebike but they do have some cons that are obvious and others that you won’t realize until maybe it’s too late the more obvious issue with lime bikes is that many of them are not as safe as you’d expect for a vehicle that travels 25 km an hour and because these bikes weigh in at an astonishing 35 kg it means they’re much more difficult to come to a stop provided you actually have working brakes in the first place my ebike here is actually nearly half the weight of the Lime bike and you can tell that when you’re maneuvering around but also more vitally when you’re carrying your ebike up the stairs to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel because both councils that are supposed to be managing that tunnel are full of however the biggest upgrade that you will experience between a line bike and a more modern ebike is actually in the torque sensor a lime bike actually utilizes a cadence sensor think of a zero and one think about if you had a car and it only had two speeds full blast or not at all that’s basically a line bike it was able to recognize when you move the pedals and then it gives you full power this is why they come off as very jittery when you’re using them whereas my bike uses a standard torque sensor motor this is predicting how much power you are putting into the pedals and then giving you an equal amount in a linear system my girlfriend Heather’s bike here is a Temple eBike this one uses a torque sensor as well but also has a mid drive motor the mid drive motor makes it feel even more natural as if your legs are the only thing that is powering this bike when you get a good torque sensor motor it feels as if you’ve just got bionic legs and it’s there’s no motor involved you’re just really strong today once you experience a proper torque sensor motor it is really hard to go back but I will say these come in clutch so much when you just need to like get somewhere in London and you’re like “Oh it’s a bit far away by foot.” These are amazing just be sure you check the tires check the brakes check the brake lights check so much of these are broken so just make sure you’re on a safe one and hopefully give a torque sensor motor at some point a try but circling back when we compare a nice ebike to an acoustic one I’m sure most people that consider ebikes cheating are comparing it to an ebike with a cadence sensor which for all intents and purposes is doing most of the work however most modern ebikes with a torque sensor allow you to dial in the assist the way you want do you want to have a sporty trip in which you’re burning a lot more calories go for it turn the assist down you want to just have a pleasant journey not sweat at all and just enjoy the ride while still getting all the health benefits turn the assist up that’s what it’s there for after all and hey turning your assist down gets you better battery life so it’s kind of a win-win usually what I like to do is leave the assist fully on that helps me get to 25 km an hour and that’s when the assist cuts off as legally mandated by EU and UK law however at that point I like to push it and use my own legs to get to 30 kilometers an hour and then when I get exhausted I can just let it slowly go back to 25 km an hour but I’m still getting my heart rate up and it’s kind of a choose your own adventure model really but speaking of choose your own adventure I think that’s probably one of the biggest reasons that cycling has been so incredibly fun to me is it just reminds me so much of video games i love video gaming i’ve been gaming since I was 5 years old and there’s just something about the act of cycling left to go left right to go right it’s like I’m interacting with the world around me as if I’m in a video game plus you know like those really nice games let’s talk about Pikmin let’s talk about Pokemon where after you put like 3 four hours in you’ve kind of got the gist of the game all of a sudden they give you the fast boots or in Pokemon they give you an actual bicycle and then that allows you to get around so much faster how often are you still using your legs in the game no you pretty much register the bike to the select button and you’re cycling everywhere though to be fair in Pokemon it’s a little bit easier to get around and such because you don’t actually have to park your bike anywhere and I bring up parking cuz one of the questions I get asked the most is “How do you deal with parking and locking your bike in London?” It’s bloody London yeah there are bike thefts every single day in this city and the London Met do jack about it wouldn’t the fear of like leaving your bike in London overwhelm you yeah my first month of riding my bike I was actually really scared about that however a combination of two small things removed my anxiety completely the first of which being a really nice lock this is a Foldi lock forever from CT lock and it’s just got a lot more space to give than the standard Dlocks it is gold certified i’ll leave a link for this one in the description i really love him for how versatile he is all I do is I look for a Sheffield stand which is one of these guys the thick U-shaped bike stands dotted all around the city of London park my bike up pull out my lock lock it and I’m good to go also as a quick aside I have spoken quite highly about this bike throughout this video but for reasons I’ll get into in a future video I don’t necessarily recommend you buy this specific bike for the time being just not a recommendation for me despite the fact that I do love it uh but instead I’ll be leaving a link in the description for a ebike buyer guide if you are interested in uh some of the the top rated ones for good prices for the most part no matter what lock you put on your bike if a thief wants to take it he’s going to take your bike these lock ratings and such they’re really just a rating on how much time it would take a thief with an angle grinder to still steal your bike i’ve seen people online recommend using two bike locks because that way the thief will go for the nearby bikes that only have one lock but I just found cycling around with two separate bike locks so cumbersome so annoying i I hated doing it and instead I did something better i just got myself some bike insurance actually £100 a year and if anything happens to my bike someone steals it it gets damaged I get the value back and I can just get a new one what that has done for my peace of mind is so much more than a 100 pounds though don’t tell my insurance company that also I will say that a lot of modern ebikes these days actually come with GPS built into the bike in fact the one I’m on has that so if someone starts moving my bike around when I’m not nearby I will get alerted about it in my app which is super convenient also it’s a good idea to place an Air Tag somewhere on your bike so you can also access it using Find Mine i know this has been a lot of information but I was saving the biggest benefit for last cycling regularly has done absolute wonders for my mental health i could point you to studies showing that adult commuters that commute by bike have way less chance of being stressed than commuters who commute by other modes of transport and I could point you to so many other studies showing similar things but to speak personally none of that even begins to scratch the surface cycling regularly has had a way of changing the way my mind works with no psychedelics involved on the tube I always end up looking at my phone maybe listening to music or trying to read the adverts on the side of the carriage just to avoid eye contact with fellow Londoners as is London tradition but on a bike I’m actively choosing where to go i’m outside constantly i’m much more in tune with the area I live because I’m seeing it so much more regularly cycling has found a way of making it feel like every day that I cycle in London is a day I feel like I’m on holiday in the city I call my home it’s caused such a massive perspective switch that I just find it so difficult not to want to shout about it from the rooftops i’m sure my friends find me so annoying at this point for constantly posting Insta stories like I’m out for a cycle today oh come out for a cycle today it’s great to cycle in London but when you realize just how nice it is how can you not like I said I don’t take the tube anymore i don’t need to if I was leaving London maybe I’d get the train to a train station where I can leave but for the most part even if it’s like a long distance my perspective has gone from ah instead of it’s an hour away it’s now oh yeah it’s an hour away it’s a good way to spend your day it might come off as cringe but the amount of times that I’ve been out for a cycle just to get around and I have this thought pop in my brain which is this is the greatest day of my life and I always immediately reprimand it like that’s really dumb this obviously couldn’t be the best day of my life but I have that thought so often because of how much joy it genuinely brings me
oh it’s beautiful just to be out cycling in London rather than you know being trapped in my own mind like I feel like I was for a long time and it’s genuinely beautiful like I said it’s really difficult to have experienced this perspective switch and not emphatically tell everybody that you know I know this video is specifically about London but that’s just from my experience i I know the city is great for it i wish every city was and I feel like every city can be that’s just uh it’s quite a project so I didn’t expect to cry um end and day in and day out every day I’m out cycling even on the same routes I notice more and more that I hadn’t before maybe a new cafe has opened up maybe I notice how beautiful the lighting is in this specific street at this specific time of day in this specific season it’s incredibly meditative to be so present at all times which is just kind of part of it it feels like you’re more in tune with the neighborhood around you which of course as I said is a much larger neighborhood than you’re expecting i even cycled through winter scarf and all i thought I would hate it cuz oh it’s too cold and I I got a little scared about it but as soon as I got out there I was like oh my god it’s amazing rain or shine cycling is just a lovely way to see the city this isn’t an all or nothing lifestyle if the weather’s naff and you want to take the tube just do it if you want to wear what makes you comfortable do that that’s what I do there’s no uniform for cycling wear a suit wear a dress cycling in London is for everyone and I truly hope if you get a chance to you give it a shot because the more people that go out cycling in London the more investment goes into making the streets a safer place not just for cyclists but also for pedestrians and also there’ll be way fewer people in their cars therefore fewer traffic less traffic oh finally got me with a fewer lesser oh we can dream about having the well-designed streets of the Netherlands or we can just use what we’ve got now and with the cycle to work scheme giving you around like 40% off whatever ebike you want mate you owe it to yourself to at least give it a shot and I know that I’ve uh knocked them a bit through this video but line bikes are honestly a really good way of dipping your toe in to the cycling culture in London just give it a shot see how safe it is see how fun it is and hopefully hopefully I’ll see you out there someday welcome to the outro uh this is a video that I’ve put a lot of thought and feeling into as I genuinely feel like cycling has changed my life and uh I really appreciate you watching it uh if you’d like to watch another cycling video I’ve made there will be one right here either way thanks for watching and I’ll see you next Sunday goodbye