Bicycling London as a tourist

I’m Jeff Caslake, on again off again board member of the Tempe Bicycle Action Group and recently I had an opportunity to visit London for a few weeks. Before leaving I reached out to the local (Tempe) bike community and was able to secure a folding bicycle to take with me, thanks Ryan. This meant that I could experience the city without retreating to the tube too much but also, if necessary, could take the bike on the tube without restrictions https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/cycling/cycles-on-public-transport

Getting from the airport to the flat my sister was renting is one long tube ride from Heathrow on the Piccadilly line to Kings Cross station. I guess I’m not a huge Potter fan as I didn’t go looking for platform 9 3/4 inside Kings Cross. I did avail myself of some haggis in a roll. True connoisseurs would likely tell me this isn’t the real thing and to be honest it had the taste and consistency of browned ground beef with some herbs added. Good but not surprisingly so.

As it turns out the Brompton World Championships were scheduled for late June after an extended COVID hiatus so of course I had to be in town for that. Ryan and several of his friends were racing and I got to meet some of them. With a surprise appearance of past board president PV it was a very fun couple of days. The race course was about a kilometer long with a crazy drop (they planked a staircase) into the Coal Drops Yard along the Regents Canal. You can just see the ramp behind the racers in this pic of the Gran Prix start which is a classic part of the BWC races.

Onto the riding… Before leaving for London I started thinking about riding on the left, passing on the right and other “left hand traffic” things. Like as a pedestrian you have to look right before stepping off the curb. Thankfully throughout much of central London they have “LOOK RIGHT” painted on the street to remind you. While I did the mile and a half from the flat to Coal Drops/Kings Cross a few times, the first big ride was with the London Brompton Club out to Greenwich Park. Most of the route was on a separated two way cycle track. Here’s a shot on Jamaica Road near West Lane waiting to cross the intersection as the cycle track switches sides of the street. Lower Road was the last segment in this route to get the two way cycle track completed so it was a very nice ride for all of us. The only problem was some of the signals were very short making it difficult to get many riders across.

After a nice picnic lunch on the grass I wandered the Greenwich grounds then down to the river and looked at the Cutty Sark. I couldn’t find (didn’t know what I was looking for) the entrance to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel so returned back along the route we took, over Tower Bridge and back to Islington. That evening we went down to the Union Tavern to get dinner and as we were arriving we saw a ‘regular London commuter’ headed home from work ; )

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that the speed limit through all of central London is only 20 miles per hour. This makes riding near traffic, when you have to, so much more comfortable than the 40+ MPH we are accustomed to on our arterial roadways in Tempe. London also has many more dedicated, protected bike lanes than anywhere in the Phoenix area.

There are a few more things I want to share with you. If you don’t have a bike but still want to see the city from the saddle, London has at least three bike share companies, Lime, Forest, and Santander. Most of these bikes are e-bikes so the low hills around the city are easy to roll up. If you live in a very small space in the city you might be lucky to have a Bike Hanger nearby you can rent space in installed and maintained by Cyclehoop www.cyclehoop.rentals