🚲 The best way to cycle from Roehampton to Kingston without traffic

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

The route is 6.8km long (4.2 miles) and makes use of Cycleway 30.

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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/2420923478?share_token=atJkaT3d731OsI826oLJLvxoY75RyE5HxbxPpL27RI6SuQ84By&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=0%2C0&z=12

Hello and welcome back to London Cycle Routes. Today I’ll be showing you how to cycle from Row Hampton in Southwest London to Kingston. This ride takes under 25 minutes and you can do the whole thing on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes. By public transport, the same journey takes over half an hour. So cycling is a great way to make this trip. 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 everybody who supports the channel on Patreon. If you’d like to contribute, too, then you can find a link in the description below the video. All right, let’s get going. So, we’re starting at the western end of Roampton High Street. We’re going to cross over to Danbury Avenue, but then immediately make a left turn into Hollyborn Avenue. The first part of our journey today is through the southern bit of the Alton Estate, which is a large housing estate in Roampton. Like most postwar housing estates, the streets around here have been laid out deliberately to minimize the amount of through traffic around here. And uh that has the effect of creating quite a nice cycle environment where you don’t really have to worry about running into too many cars. If I had one criticism, it’s that they probably need better parking control and sometimes there are a few too many cars parked on the street narrowing the roads a bit. But generally, I don’t think you should have too many problems riding around here. One thing I would say is that it is a little bit of a maze around here and I’ve really just taken the most direct route through it. So, if you need a bit of extra help navigating on these streets, then remember that you can always use the supplied map of the route uh which is linked in the description below the video on YouTube and you can just download it and use it on whatever app or device you prefer. In a second, we’ll be coming to the end of Alton Road and when we get there, uh you’ll want to turn off right onto a path which is going to take us up to the A3. I actually cut the corner here and ride on an unsurfaced pathway. Though, there is actually an asphalt surface path running parallel to the other side of those plants that we’re just going to rejoin now actually. And that’s probably a better option to ride on if you want to avoid a puncture. Either way, you end up on this slope and you join the shared pavement which runs alongside the A3. The next couple of minutes are probably the worst bit of this video. You’re literally just cycling on a pavement here. Um, you can see from the blue shared space signs that cycling is allowed here and you’re probably not going to run into too many people walking. U, it’s not a good path by any means and not the most scenic place to ride a bike either, but it is separated from motor traffic. There is an alternative which some people might consider uh which is entering Richmond Park which is to our right um at the Chohole Gate and then riding through the park either leaving at Robin Hood gate or even going all the way to Kingston Gate. Uh the big problem with doing that is that the path from Chhole Gate isn’t surfaced. Some people might not mind that, especially if you’re using a mountain bike or a gravel bike or something like that, but I’m just making you aware of it as an option in case you’d rather cycle away from the road. If you do ride on the shared pavement route in the video, then there are a couple of things that you should be aware of. Uh, one is that it crosses slip roads a couple of times, just like this one that is coming up ahead here. Um, just be very careful as you do this and make sure that you check for cars. Don’t assume that they’ll stop for you as you cross the road. The second thing to watch out for is a similar point, and that’s coming up here in front of these houses, which is that some of these uh houses have actually got driveways that lead onto the main road. So, just make sure that there are no cars coming out of the driveways as you’re cycling down the shared pavement here. Don’t worry, there is some actually really quite good infrastructure up ahead, which I’ll show you when we get to it. But for this quite short section, which only lasts a couple of minutes, you’re basically riding on a not very good shared pavement. The important thing though, I think, is that you’re not mixing with motor traffic when you go this way. As long as you pay attention at the driveways and at the slip roads, you should be absolutely fine. One slightly surprising and maybe even depressing thing is that if you look at the ground here, you can see evidence that it was previously surfaced in green tarmac, which suggests that it was meant to be an official part of the original London cycle network in the 1980s or ’90s. Um, I’m not sure that we would accept this standard of infrastructure now as part of an official cycle route, but I suppose it does show how far we’ve actually come in recent years. Now, as soon as we cross the road and we get to Kingston Veil, things do start to improve really quickly and actually quite dramatically, we actually get our own protected cycle lane in both directions here. Um, this particular lane is separated from the main traffic by a curb. There are also sections along here where the lanes are separated by plastic wands, rubber curbs, and whether at pavement level. A variety of approaches have been used here on these lanes by Kingston Council, and the overall effect is, I think, a really good one. You’re able to cycle up what is quite a busy and fast road really comfortably, including on sections like the one we’re on now where we have to pedal up quite a big hill, but where thanks to the separate cycle lanes, we don’t have to worry about a car tailgating behind us and getting frustrated with us, which is probably one of the more stressful things about cycling up a hill. I think you can really just take your own time. What’s quite impressive, I think, is that this is not the widest of roads, and yet the council’s engineers have done a good job of fitting cycle lanes in both directions down here with protection. It’s also really quite long. Um, about 4 km of cycle lanes, more or less, at this quite good quality. Um, though there are some more dodgy bits as we approach Kingston Town Center, which I will watch out for and point out to you as we approach. One feature of this route is that the bus stops have been set up as shared use bus borders like this one that we’re passing through here. This means that the cycle lanes pass through the middle of the bus stop boarding area which prevents people cycling having to overtake buses that are stopped at the bus stop. Um it does mean that people cycling have a responsibility to slow down and be courteous to anyone using the bus stop though whether those people are waiting there boarding or lighting. The setup on a shared use bus border isn’t as good as a bus stop bypass where the cycle track goes behind the bus stop as it doesn’t create separate spaces for people on foot and people on a bike. But in situations like this street where there’s quite limited space, um it may often be the only safe option available. So it looks like the right thing to do in this case. You might have noticed that we were climbing a pretty significant hill for the last few minutes. That’s now flipped and we are now going down the hill which is the fun bit in this direction. Anyway, unfortunately gradients like this kind of come with the territory in this part of town. And uh yeah, there’s not really an alternative way around the hill, but it is nice to have protected and separate cycling infrastructure, keeping us separate from the motor traffic as we tackle it. For anybody who likes to keep track of these things, if you look at that green and blue sign on the lamp post there, you’ll find out that this is actually cycleway 30. Um, Transport for London has signposted this route as a cycle way, although it was actually built before the Cycleway brand existed. I would say that that could help with wayfinding on this route, but actually the portion of today’s video that’s on Cycleway 30 is literally just in a straight line, so it would probably be pretty difficult to get lost. Um, as I said though, if you did need a bit more help on the Rohampton section, then you can always consult or download the map of the route linked in the description below the video. Uh, while you’re down there, you could also check out the map of all the different London cycle routes videos, which is a great way of browsing the different videos that I do every week on this channel. And, uh, it basically maps out all the different videos. And, uh, thanks to Isaac for keeping that up to date. It’s a useful way of checking what videos I’ve done in your area or an area that you want to travel to and don’t really know so well. And just a housekeeping reminder that if you’re enjoying today’s video, please do remember to hit the subscribe button on the channel so that you’re alerted to new ones as I post them. As I say, I do try and post them every week, but occasionally I’ll do a bonus. And uh all subscribing does is make sure that the videos appear on your YouTube homepage. One notable thing about this section of cycle way 30 approaching Kingston Town Center Santa is that this direction is a bit better than in the other direction. I think there are points coming up where the lane in the uphill direction basically merges with the pavement which isn’t ideal and the pavement isn’t actually very narrow. That isn’t really a problem further back. Mostly you do have a proper lane in both directions. It’s just that as space gets a little bit tighter on the other side, uh compromises do start to be made a little bit. That said, I do think that it is a pretty decent route on the section we’ve traveled on. Coming up as we get into the town center, though, there are a few bits that I’m not so hot on, which I’ll point out. One of those is actually just coming up here on the left where I guess because when they installed this cycle lane, shopkeepers complained about parking removal. They’ve actually put parking spaces on the pavement here. And that means that people drive into those parking spaces by going over the cycle track. So, do watch out for cars doing that. I’m also a little bit uncomfortable about the way that they’ve used these crossings here. There there are shared space signs on the approach to each crossing. Uh basically indicating that you’re meant to cycle over them to follow this cycle route and to get around the roundabout. And in practice, that works completely fine. But the problem is that officially in law, you’re not actually supposed to cycle over a regular zebra crossing. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but really those should be repainted as parallel crossings to avoid confusing people. I’m also not really a fan of the section in front of the petrol station that we just went past. Um, it basically devolves into shared space and it has vehicle access crossing over it quite regularly. It’s not very good and I prefer if there was a more sensible treatment, but it is fortunately quite short and it drops you back on this pretty decent protected cycle track quite quickly. This is, of course, a two-way or birectional cycle track that we’re on. So, whichever direction you’re going in, you’ll be cycling on this side of the road. That is in contrast to earlier when we were on Kingston Hill and uh we had oneway cycle lanes. So, you know, you’ll be cycling on a different side of the street depending on what direction you were traveling on. The cycle lane is a little bit stop and start, particularly because of the way that the bus stops have been done in shared space, but overall I think it is pretty decent at getting you into central Kingston. The final approach to the center of town is on Old London Road, which we’re welcome to here by this metal sign above our heads. Old London Road doesn’t have a cycle track on it, but it’s a dead end for cars, so it doesn’t have any through traffic. That said, there is quite a bit of parking and loading going on here. You can see when we came down here, there were a couple of cars moving around and there’s a lot of on street parking dominating the uh the streetscape. Feel like it’s maybe a missed opportunity to have a bit more maybe outdoor seating, bit of planting just to make it feel a bit nicer, but uh you know, in terms of cycling environment, it’s basically okay. And it drops us right here onto Clarence Street. The station is just there on our right, a little bit further up Clarence Street. And uh yeah, we’re more or less in Kingston Town Center there. So, thank you very much for watching that, guys. Um I’d be really interested to know in the comments what you think of that. I actually think that the Kingston Hill lanes are pretty good um in the center when you’re in the middle of nowhere. Obviously, you can run into some issues as you approach the center of town. Needs a bit of tidying up there. And I’m quite pleased with the little uh little cut through to get from Roampton High Street through the Alton Estate and then to join the A3. Obviously, that first section on uh on the shared pavement by the A3 isn’t very good either. I think it would be pretty simple to upgrade. So, I do hope that that’s something that maybe happens in the future. But uh yeah, do hit subscribe on the channel. Please do leave a like to help other people find the video. And once again, thank you so much to everybody who supports the channel on Patreon. There’s a link in the description below the video if anyone else wants to throw money at me, too. Uh, thank you again for watching and I’ll see you all in the comments or next time. Goodbye.