Cycling in London
Cycling is a great way to see London in a way that a driver or passenger of a car, bus or tube train never can. The myriad cycle routes of Sustrans, Mayor Of London, Transport for London and London Cycling Campaign offer cyclists safer, quieter routes through the capital, often passing buildings or places of interest. So, as a former cycle courier and sometime biking commuter, nobody is more surprised than me that I have somehow turned into a car commuter. I have recently decided to ditch my company car in favour of a combined bike/train commute to do my 50 mile round trip between East London to Heathrow each day. As full-sized bikes are at best frowned upon and at worst forbidden on parts of the tube and overground network in London, I am set on using a London-built Brompton folding cycle to use at each end of the train journey. Whilst I am an experienced cyclist, I have never owned a folding bike before before so I have been reading a bunch of sites like those of The Folding Society and the BromptonTalk Yahoo group to get myself up to speed. Even though I won’t be getting the tax break advantages of one of the Government’s best kept secrets, this change will hopefully remove the stress of a daily drive through London, save me thousands in tax and congestion charges and do a bit for the environment. I wanted to have a test ride before ordering one, just in case I hate the thing. Rather than test a brand new Brompton, I opted to take up an offer from a Tower Hamlets Wheeler to test her 3 year old bike to get an idea of how they ride and how they stand up to 36 months usage. Not only was the 4km ride all I needed to confirm both the build quality and my decision to buy one, it helped me decide on the model I want. Although I had been considering a secondhand bike, I have now chosen to spend the extra to get the setup, colour and additional kit I want. Hopefully, at some point this week I’ll get along to my local dealer to order and pay a deposit, with a view to collecting it next payday.
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I don’t see how you can do it! When I was in London last, I felt sorry for the bicyclists! There are so many cars and not a single posted speed limit! How on earth can you know how fast to go?
In UK, it’s simply 30 mph in all built up areas. (There are rules about the spacing of streetlamps, which defines what a built-up area is, for this purpose).
As long as they don’t get knocked off, cyclists make better progress than cars through London streets.
> As long as they don’t get knocked off, cyclists
> make better progress than cars through London
> streets
I’ve been cycling in London, almost daily, for 15 years, on both busy roads and quiet back streets. I’ve never been knocked off. Even if I was, chances are it would not be serious.
It’s time people started to debunk the media myth that “cycling is dangerous”. UK transport stats published annually by the DfT show clearly that cycling is just as safe as walking (significantly fewer deaths per billion km, slightly higher serious injuries). You never hear people say that “walking is dangerous”, so why cycling? I’d suggest it’s simply because they heard enough other people say it.
(Of course, in fact both walking and cycling should be safer still, but it requires political guts to take on the motor lobby)