@@Londoncycleroutes that route benefitted from being decent even before it was a quietway, which helped. Southwark made all of that estate a naturally low traffic area and it was one of the better old LCN routes in London. I used to use it a lot and loved all the upgrades that went in bit by bit as it was made a Quietway. When the Millwall path opened it felt amazing! Great to see the cycling numbers increase too along the route.
Discourse on 'quietways' very much appreciated. It's not just having an incredible ride along with you, but 'getting caught-up' on what has happened in London since the decade and more that I've been away. You're featuring exactly the routes that I'd be forced to find if I were back in London. I'm loving it!
@@Londoncycleroutes You know, you catch me in a moment of unguarded optimism, but let me go further: You make me *long* to be back in London *when it comes to cycling*! Other things about living in London? Not so much...even working in the middle of Denmark Street and that 'scene' had its limitations, albeit there were a few moments of absolute delight. (Like sitting and rapping with Noel Redding for an hour, nuff said on that, there's a lot more I can't divulge).
Most cities can only dream of what London has tried to do with cycling. No, it is not perfect, but the effort is there. It is severely lacking in consultation and execution in most places I have been here in Canada. Just lots of lines on the streets showing the cars where they can hit a cyclist if they want to.
Great video The London Borough of Southwark is currently working on Lower Road, the last section of Cycleway 4 between Greenwich and central London. The work is expected to finish in autumn 2023.
More big rants please! What's exciting about this part of London is that when I saw this vid title I assumed you would follow C4 down then go through Southwark Park, illustrating benefits of having direct backstreet cycle routes and main road ones. Also, I bypass Folkestone Gardens and the shared path by going on Trundleys road which is filtered at one end - but that does mean a few 100m of sharing with cars.
Just to warn people: there's a large section of C10 around Millwall and Surrey Canal Road that you just talked over in this video despite there being some pretty notorious problems with the route. Millwall Path is really quite bad for bike muggings, something locals are all too aware of but that lots of newbies following C10 have no idea about. My wife almost had her bike stolen there recently but was saved by a passing cyclist. The Met have confirmed they're aware of the issue and are apparently doing more patrols, but if it's dark I highly recommend not going down there as it's so cut off and hidden that anything could happen and you have no escape. At 7:00 in the video you turn right off Millwall Path onto Senegal Way, but visibility here is very poor and I've personally witnessed crashes between cyclists turning off Millwall Path and those continuing up Senegal Way. I always slow right down and right my bell before proceeding. Surrey Canal Road has some very bad blind junctions that are also worth mentioning. At 7:15 there is a left then onto Surrey Canal Road around a very tight and narrow corner, but - again - this is a point of real danger for conflict with other users and should be approached with caution. At 7:24 there is a blind junction with an industrial estate on the left which is another dangerous spot and where I've had some very near misses with vans pulling out without looking. There's almost zero visibility for anyone at that junction. Further up at 8:04 you approach the crossing of Trundley's Road to enter Folkestone Gardens. This is another notorious section as you have to pass over another industrial estate on the left before crossing the road on the right, and the road is often very busy with poor visibility both sides. Drivers speed from either Trundley's Road itself on the left or from Surrey Canal Road on the right. Drivers also have priority here and so if it's busy you're waiting for quite some time as there are no traffic lights, and the central island isn't especially wide, so can get busy with cyclists at peak times. The rest of C10 is great though. I just have serious problems with the Millwall and Surrey Canal Road sections of the route. I actively avoid Millwall now due to the bike muggings issue, and the alternative routes aren't brilliant. I'm really hoping the New Bermondsey housing development starts soon as it will drastically increase footfall to the area and will also have more access points on and off the Millwall Path, hopefully stopping this problem once and for all.
Sorry to hear about your wife’s experience! This is all good advice and thanks for taking the time to write it down - I have talked about it in previous videos but I know not everyone will have seen them. I’m looking forward to Cycleway 4 being opened to provide an alternative to C10- there is clearly some kind of risk on Millwall path and I know some people have had bad experiences there, though it’s obviously hard to quantify exactly how risky and a lot of people do use the route every day with no problem. Worth avoiding later at night for sure though
@@Londoncycleroutes a good alternative, I’ve found, which avoids the worst part is to divert onto the old NCN 425 route, which avoids the part leading to the station and the path itself (where the majority of incidents have happened). It’s still relatively traffic free. It’s the route I used to take anyway, before the millwall path opened. Have to say though I use C4 if I’m going towards the city end now, more often than not (even with the incomplete section) because I feel safer. I have encountered some dodgy characters around Bermondsey station in the past.
8:28 is one example of why I find the idea of becoming a cycle courier quite tempting, but I'd never want to drive a van as my livelihood. You often see professional drivers struggling to find somewhere to park up and take a break, often resorting to stopping somewhere illegally just to eat their lunch. Meanwhile this guy has just gone straight into a park and sprawled himself out onto a bench (which thankfully doesn't have a design hostile to such uses).
Last time I went New Cross/Lewisham it was was some hellish main road sweeping down 🙄 i got the tube or train back - it was so expensive! I think I go vauxhall - oval Camberwell so the first bit is okay but not after probably wrong direction for this 😅 x
Man, London makes me feel so jealous. Even if progress for cycling isn't as quick as it could be, a lot of improvements have been made. Currently, 2 new cycleways are on the way (C9 and C4) and a bunch of new LTN's have been put in by boroughs over the past few years. It's clear that London still has a long way to go, but it's definitely getting there. If you're wondering why I'm feeling jealous of London it's because the city in which I live in (Belgrade, Serbia) is doing exactly nothing to improve cycling. Why? Because, funds that could go to cycling and public transport end up going into the pockets of corrupt politicians. Now, I just want to say that I didn't write this comment so that you feel bad for me. I just wanted to show you all how much progress London has made towards cycling.
That’s a really interesting perspective - I have been to Belgrade once and thought it was a really excellent city in many respects, though I didn’t cycle while there! One thing that stood out to me was that I thought it was quite smartly kept compared to some other big cities in the balkans. Next time I go back I should see what it’s like on a bike!
@@Londoncycleroutes I'm really glad you enjoyed Belgrade! The city does have a lot going for it. A growing business sector, tourism, rich history and overall a good geographic position. Also, you're right, a lot of areas are quite well kept although some are worse than others. I really think the city has great potential for cycling and public transport, but not until we get our political shenanigans in order.
(Just got back from a train trip around Europe and am catching up!) Loved the Quietways discourse - Q3 certainly isn't up to much. Tiny quibbles which I don't think others have pointed out: Q3 doesn't go through Westminster, it just barely crosses the A5 into Camden; and at 7:23 you mean the excellent Q2, now Cycleway 27, not Q3.
Thanks, really interesting analysis of the Quiet Ways, thanks for your thoughts. I had been confused how this quiet way turned into C10, so can kinda understand a bit more about why. I remember doing this route before the Quiet Way interventions and it was much less convenient, I was very impressed with the interventions that they put in which really helped make this a really easy cycle. Oooh, just a suggestion, would be very cool if you had a webpage or custom Google Map which could show all the routes you've convered as it would help if I'm planning a new cycle I could check to see if you've done a video on it as these are AWESOME! Thanks for all your efforts, look forward to the next one.
Thanks so much - that’s really interesting that you remember it before it was made a quietway. I’m guessing most of the crossings are new? I think the bridge before South Bermondsey station might be as well? Re; maps, there’s a link to one in the description below the video with all the different routes on it! Enjoy
I always use the door to door figure from the start and end point of the videos according the Citymapper - it’s time taken getting to and from the station etc
Not to sound like an anti-cyclist, I’m really not, indeed I want to work for Active Travel England when I’m older. I love cycle infrastructure. However, I couldn’t help but notice at 1:15 at the traffic lights you travelled straight across the junction despite an arrow saying that you could only turn right. This meant that the pedestrian phase was green when you technically illegally cycled through it. From my perspective I don’t really care, the likely hood of injury from a pedestrian getting hit by a cyclist vs a car going the wrong way at a junction is low, however I wanted to point this out for a number of reasons: 1) the met police often fine cyclists for breaking rules and I don’t want one of your viewers to get fined 2) such that you Jon could notify the local council/TfL to let them know that this junction needs re-working such as to allow a straight ahead cycle movement as it’s clearly a useful route. 3) such that in the meantime you can alter the route until a suitable fix is found. As I said, I don’t want to come across as a “oh look cyclists never follow the rules”, but more so that you can make better and better videos and cycle infrastructure can improve more and more around London. Thanks
Interesting, I hadn’t noticed that sign on the light but I don’t think your reading of the junction is quite right here- you can see the pedestrian light if you pause around 1.18 and it is red so there doesn’t seem to be a conflict. Given there is specifically a contraflow cycle lane in the direction we want to go, I can only assume the right-only was intended to refer to cars and indicate the street is one way for them… (which doesn’t make much sense either as there are no car flows from that direction) - it seems like it might be an error on the signage to be honest. Given there is no conflict and the lane goes that way I am OK cycle that way, but it’s an interesting thing to point out!
I think I've worked out why it's like that by the way - if you go back and look at Streetview from February 2018 they have put in the protected lane in the tunnel, and the cycle light we're talking about is installed with the RIGHT TURN ONLY sign, because there is no contraflow on the section of Bermondsey Street (so it's one-way and you shouldn't cycle down it) However in January 2021 the contraflow lane we use is installed, but they seem to have forgotten to change the sign under the light. The reason you can tell it's an oversight is that if you're approaching that junction from any direction, turning into that street is banned on the traffic lights (e.g. coming from the left there is a NO LEFT TURN) so they have technically installed a contraflow that is illegal to use... given there is no conflict with pedestrians either I'm confident it's intended for cycles to be able to go straight on here - but well spotted!
I think you should stop doing 60fps. It makes the video laggy as it's sending too much data for my provider to deal with. You do know that The Fast and The Furious (indeed all cinema) was filmed at 24fps, don't you? If it doesn't affect their car chase sequences, it's highly unlikely to spoil your 2x speed cycling footage. Your footage will improve in quality for those with slower download speeds as well. And just think of the file sizes on your SD cards and hard drives. Win-win.
Oh no sorry to hear you’re having this problem! I’ll be honest I did a few videos on 30fps a while ago and it didn’t look right to me - have you tried turning the quality down eg to 1080p?
@Londoncycleroutes On the phone, I get no higher than 1080, but on PC, if I go higher than 1080, it starts to lag. 1080 is fine if played at normal speed. If I double it, I get buffering. Aren't higher frame rates for playing back in slow motion anyway? BTW, your older videos look just fine to me.
From what I remember living around New Cross about a decade ago, when the Overground was relatively new, the trains into London Bridge are always rammed at peak times. So maybe to get a bit of fresh air and personal space?
A big rant about quietways: my favourite kind of London cycle routes content
Plenty more where that came from haha
@@Londoncycleroutes that route benefitted from being decent even before it was a quietway, which helped. Southwark made all of that estate a naturally low traffic area and it was one of the better old LCN routes in London. I used to use it a lot and loved all the upgrades that went in bit by bit as it was made a Quietway. When the Millwall path opened it felt amazing! Great to see the cycling numbers increase too along the route.
Discourse on 'quietways' very much appreciated. It's not just having an incredible ride along with you, but 'getting caught-up' on what has happened in London since the decade and more that I've been away. You're featuring exactly the routes that I'd be forced to find if I were back in London.
I'm loving it!
So pleased and thank you for watching!
@@Londoncycleroutes You know, you catch me in a moment of unguarded optimism, but let me go further: You make me *long* to be back in London *when it comes to cycling*! Other things about living in London? Not so much...even working in the middle of Denmark Street and that 'scene' had its limitations, albeit there were a few moments of absolute delight. (Like sitting and rapping with Noel Redding for an hour, nuff said on that, there's a lot more I can't divulge).
@@stephensaines7100 there’s a lot to like about the city beyond cycling imo!
Most cities can only dream of what London has tried to do with cycling. No, it is not perfect, but the effort is there. It is severely lacking in consultation and execution in most places I have been here in Canada. Just lots of lines on the streets showing the cars where they can hit a cyclist if they want to.
Great vid. Completely agree with you on quietways. Clifton rise should be made two way before the end of the year.
That’s good to know!
I usually turn right into Batavia road, from Clifton rise and follow that round to New Cross road. You’re allowed to do that aren’t you?!
@@a1white yes you can.
A little bit of emotion there, good for you.
It is good to let it out every now and then.🖖
Another, nice video.
Thank you as always!
Great video The London Borough of Southwark is currently working on Lower Road, the last section of Cycleway 4 between Greenwich and central London. The work is expected to finish in autumn 2023.
Yes I can’t wait to show it off! Got loads of routes planned
More big rants please! What's exciting about this part of London is that when I saw this vid title I assumed you would follow C4 down then go through Southwark Park, illustrating benefits of having direct backstreet cycle routes and main road ones. Also, I bypass Folkestone Gardens and the shared path by going on Trundleys road which is filtered at one end - but that does mean a few 100m of sharing with cars.
Interesting, I’d not considered Trundleys Road, I’ll look at that as a future option!
Use this all the time when coming back from central to Bromley. Agreed C10 is definitely some of the best cycling I've seen in the city so far
It’s such a chill ride!
I bet the route deteriorates a bit more as you head into car centric Bromley 😬
@@a1white Bromley is pure shit for cycling ;)
Hey, I’m about to to start commuting by bike from Bromley. Any chance you could share your route 🙏
Just to warn people: there's a large section of C10 around Millwall and Surrey Canal Road that you just talked over in this video despite there being some pretty notorious problems with the route. Millwall Path is really quite bad for bike muggings, something locals are all too aware of but that lots of newbies following C10 have no idea about. My wife almost had her bike stolen there recently but was saved by a passing cyclist. The Met have confirmed they're aware of the issue and are apparently doing more patrols, but if it's dark I highly recommend not going down there as it's so cut off and hidden that anything could happen and you have no escape.
At 7:00 in the video you turn right off Millwall Path onto Senegal Way, but visibility here is very poor and I've personally witnessed crashes between cyclists turning off Millwall Path and those continuing up Senegal Way. I always slow right down and right my bell before proceeding.
Surrey Canal Road has some very bad blind junctions that are also worth mentioning. At 7:15 there is a left then onto Surrey Canal Road around a very tight and narrow corner, but - again - this is a point of real danger for conflict with other users and should be approached with caution. At 7:24 there is a blind junction with an industrial estate on the left which is another dangerous spot and where I've had some very near misses with vans pulling out without looking. There's almost zero visibility for anyone at that junction.
Further up at 8:04 you approach the crossing of Trundley's Road to enter Folkestone Gardens. This is another notorious section as you have to pass over another industrial estate on the left before crossing the road on the right, and the road is often very busy with poor visibility both sides. Drivers speed from either Trundley's Road itself on the left or from Surrey Canal Road on the right. Drivers also have priority here and so if it's busy you're waiting for quite some time as there are no traffic lights, and the central island isn't especially wide, so can get busy with cyclists at peak times.
The rest of C10 is great though. I just have serious problems with the Millwall and Surrey Canal Road sections of the route. I actively avoid Millwall now due to the bike muggings issue, and the alternative routes aren't brilliant. I'm really hoping the New Bermondsey housing development starts soon as it will drastically increase footfall to the area and will also have more access points on and off the Millwall Path, hopefully stopping this problem once and for all.
Sorry to hear about your wife’s experience! This is all good advice and thanks for taking the time to write it down - I have talked about it in previous videos but I know not everyone will have seen them. I’m looking forward to Cycleway 4 being opened to provide an alternative to C10- there is clearly some kind of risk on Millwall path and I know some people have had bad experiences there, though it’s obviously hard to quantify exactly how risky and a lot of people do use the route every day with no problem. Worth avoiding later at night for sure though
@@Londoncycleroutes a good alternative, I’ve found, which avoids the worst part is to divert onto the old NCN 425 route, which avoids the part leading to the station and the path itself (where the majority of incidents have happened). It’s still relatively traffic free. It’s the route I used to take anyway, before the millwall path opened. Have to say though I use C4 if I’m going towards the city end now, more often than not (even with the incomplete section) because I feel safer. I have encountered some dodgy characters around Bermondsey station in the past.
8:28 is one example of why I find the idea of becoming a cycle courier quite tempting, but I'd never want to drive a van as my livelihood. You often see professional drivers struggling to find somewhere to park up and take a break, often resorting to stopping somewhere illegally just to eat their lunch. Meanwhile this guy has just gone straight into a park and sprawled himself out onto a bench (which thankfully doesn't have a design hostile to such uses).
Lol I wish I had pointed that out, glad he was able get a little rest
Thanks for your very informative rant, something I did not know!
Thanks for watching!
🤩 *Millwall path* and Woodpecker Road 🤩
Lovely smooth tarmac!
Last time I went New Cross/Lewisham it was was some hellish main road sweeping down 🙄 i got the tube or train back - it was so expensive! I think I go vauxhall - oval Camberwell so the first bit is okay but not after probably wrong direction for this 😅 x
Oh yes the main road around there is horrible
Man, London makes me feel so jealous. Even if progress for cycling isn't as quick as it could be, a lot of improvements have been made.
Currently, 2 new cycleways are on the way (C9 and C4) and a bunch of new LTN's have been put in by boroughs over the past few years. It's clear that London still has a long way to go, but it's definitely getting there.
If you're wondering why I'm feeling jealous of London it's because the city in which I live in (Belgrade, Serbia) is doing exactly nothing to improve cycling. Why?
Because, funds that could go to cycling and public transport end up going into the pockets of corrupt politicians.
Now, I just want to say that I didn't write this comment so that you feel bad for me. I just wanted to show you all how much progress London has made towards cycling.
That’s a really interesting perspective - I have been to Belgrade once and thought it was a really excellent city in many respects, though I didn’t cycle while there! One thing that stood out to me was that I thought it was quite smartly kept compared to some other big cities in the balkans. Next time I go back I should see what it’s like on a bike!
@@Londoncycleroutes I'm really glad you enjoyed Belgrade! The city does have a lot going for it. A growing business sector, tourism, rich history and overall a good geographic position. Also, you're right, a lot of areas are quite well kept although some are worse than others.
I really think the city has great potential for cycling and public transport, but not until we get our political shenanigans in order.
Great video - and really helpful. Could you possibly do London Bridge station to Paddington station?
Yes definitely! Thanks I’ll put it on the list
(Just got back from a train trip around Europe and am catching up!) Loved the Quietways discourse - Q3 certainly isn't up to much. Tiny quibbles which I don't think others have pointed out: Q3 doesn't go through Westminster, it just barely crosses the A5 into Camden; and at 7:23 you mean the excellent Q2, now Cycleway 27, not Q3.
Oh yes good point about the numbers
Great vid'! 👍
Let's not call it a rant, more an expression of your expertise on a particular subject! 😉
A 'discourse'.
Haha too kind!
Thanks, really interesting analysis of the Quiet Ways, thanks for your thoughts. I had been confused how this quiet way turned into C10, so can kinda understand a bit more about why. I remember doing this route before the Quiet Way interventions and it was much less convenient, I was very impressed with the interventions that they put in which really helped make this a really easy cycle.
Oooh, just a suggestion, would be very cool if you had a webpage or custom Google Map which could show all the routes you've convered as it would help if I'm planning a new cycle I could check to see if you've done a video on it as these are AWESOME! Thanks for all your efforts, look forward to the next one.
Thanks so much - that’s really interesting that you remember it before it was made a quietway. I’m guessing most of the crossings are new? I think the bridge before South Bermondsey station might be as well? Re; maps, there’s a link to one in the description below the video with all the different routes on it! Enjoy
@08:12 No, keep talking about these subjects :3
I will for sure!
London Bridge to New Cross is 6mins by southeastern. Not sure where the 20mins figure comes from.
I always use the door to door figure from the start and end point of the videos according the Citymapper - it’s time taken getting to and from the station etc
Not to sound like an anti-cyclist, I’m really not, indeed I want to work for Active Travel England when I’m older. I love cycle infrastructure. However, I couldn’t help but notice at 1:15 at the traffic lights you travelled straight across the junction despite an arrow saying that you could only turn right. This meant that the pedestrian phase was green when you technically illegally cycled through it.
From my perspective I don’t really care, the likely hood of injury from a pedestrian getting hit by a cyclist vs a car going the wrong way at a junction is low, however I wanted to point this out for a number of reasons:
1) the met police often fine cyclists for breaking rules and I don’t want one of your viewers to get fined
2) such that you Jon could notify the local council/TfL to let them know that this junction needs re-working such as to allow a straight ahead cycle movement as it’s clearly a useful route.
3) such that in the meantime you can alter the route until a suitable fix is found.
As I said, I don’t want to come across as a “oh look cyclists never follow the rules”, but more so that you can make better and better videos and cycle infrastructure can improve more and more around London.
Thanks
Interesting, I hadn’t noticed that sign on the light but I don’t think your reading of the junction is quite right here- you can see the pedestrian light if you pause around 1.18 and it is red so there doesn’t seem to be a conflict. Given there is specifically a contraflow cycle lane in the direction we want to go, I can only assume the right-only was intended to refer to cars and indicate the street is one way for them… (which doesn’t make much sense either as there are no car flows from that direction) - it seems like it might be an error on the signage to be honest. Given there is no conflict and the lane goes that way I am OK cycle that way, but it’s an interesting thing to point out!
I think I've worked out why it's like that by the way - if you go back and look at Streetview from February 2018 they have put in the protected lane in the tunnel, and the cycle light we're talking about is installed with the RIGHT TURN ONLY sign, because there is no contraflow on the section of Bermondsey Street (so it's one-way and you shouldn't cycle down it) However in January 2021 the contraflow lane we use is installed, but they seem to have forgotten to change the sign under the light. The reason you can tell it's an oversight is that if you're approaching that junction from any direction, turning into that street is banned on the traffic lights (e.g. coming from the left there is a NO LEFT TURN) so they have technically installed a contraflow that is illegal to use... given there is no conflict with pedestrians either I'm confident it's intended for cycles to be able to go straight on here - but well spotted!
1st to comment - my manor growing up
Nice bit of town imo some good pubs!
I think you should stop doing 60fps. It makes the video laggy as it's sending too much data for my provider to deal with. You do know that The Fast and The Furious (indeed all cinema) was filmed at 24fps, don't you? If it doesn't affect their car chase sequences, it's highly unlikely to spoil your 2x speed cycling footage. Your footage will improve in quality for those with slower download speeds as well. And just think of the file sizes on your SD cards and hard drives. Win-win.
Oh no sorry to hear you’re having this problem! I’ll be honest I did a few videos on 30fps a while ago and it didn’t look right to me - have you tried turning the quality down eg to 1080p?
@Londoncycleroutes On the phone, I get no higher than 1080, but on PC, if I go higher than 1080, it starts to lag. 1080 is fine if played at normal speed. If I double it, I get buffering. Aren't higher frame rates for playing back in slow motion anyway? BTW, your older videos look just fine to me.
Why would anybody want to ?
Perhaps to commute to and from work, see friends, or just for fun!
@@Londoncycleroutes it’s a popular route! I haven’t tried that method of linking C14 to C10 before. I need to give that a go.
From what I remember living around New Cross about a decade ago, when the Overground was relatively new, the trains into London Bridge are always rammed at peak times. So maybe to get a bit of fresh air and personal space?
@@liamness yeah there's undeniably a good rail link between these two places but it's nice to have the options!