As scenic and quiet as possible, anyway. Getting some friends with bikes out for some fresh air on Sunday. Most are North London, so I was thinking up into Hertfordshire, finding a pub for lunch and coming back again. We could end up getting a train back if it turns out the pub has particularly sticky doors…

Any suggestions* for routes or pubs? Especially nice rural pubs with good food, a snug with a log fires and board games. And secure bike storage so we don’t have to carry locks. The Sun Inn in Dedham, essentially. with secure bike storage.

Happy to change direction. South East to Kent maybe? Less keen on South round to West because it’s more familiar. Or we could plan to get the train back, and go a bit further.

Thinking aloud really, but any suggestions very welcome! Cheers!

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*I inadvertantly flicked into another window and didn’t notice I’d typed any suggestions into google. try it!

I don’t know the north side, but some other possible options:

– Thames path from Richmond/Chiswick to central area and back
– Possible ride around central London viewing the sights
– Out to Thames Barrier/Greenwich and perhaps under the Thames via the foot tunnel

Up the River Lea to Broxbourne, or Hertford if you want to get the train back. The Old Barge pub is nice, right on the canal.

When you say ‘road’, do you actually mean on stupid bikes with funny handlebars and rubbish skinny tyres, what you can’t ride on owt but smooth tarmac?

Out to Thames Barrier/Greenwich and perhaps under the Thames via the foot tunnel

Nice quiet route through Silvertown, then along the Thames Path past Woolwich and Charlton to Greenwich, but the foot tunnel lifts are out, so not the best option if you need to get back north, unless you ride up to Tower Bridge.

Cheers Elf, I’d been thinking about the Lea valley. I’ll check out that pub. There’ll be a mix of mountain bikes, and non-precious road bikes, so we should be fine on smoothish paths. I’ll be putting the tarty cream balloon tyres on, just for the lols.

Cheers straighliner, I think we want to get into the countryside a bit more. Well I do, and it’s my bike ride! 🙂

What part of North London.
When I was at school I lived in NW9 and cycled towards Ayesbury after school, though thats 40 each way.
But there are nice pockets of roads between the major areas.
Barnet/Arkley/Ridge?
Aldenham/Sarratt
Essendon?
They’re some of the areas I used.

Thanks oldgit, most of us are N4/N7, so up the Lea Valley and into Herts sounds like the quickest way out. I’m thinking a train back is the best bet, we want to get the most out of our legs and the daylight while we’re out of London and riding back into London (probably mostly in the dark) might not be the best use of either.

So up to Hertford, lunch at the Old Barge, then down to Welham Green station through Essendon. 29.5miles according to google, but we’ll be taking a wigglier route, and people can train back from Hertford if they don’t feel like the last leg. Should be good!

Feel free to suggest improvements, stop-offs, pretty diversions, otherwise, cheers for the pointers!

Ha! Trains from Welham Green stop 60 seconds from my house!

If you want to avoid the train back and make it a nice circular route,
then I’d do the Lea valley canal up to Broxbourne –
(tail wind on sunday :D).
Then head west towards Newgate Street(village,not a street),Cuffley ,then Northaw.Eventually you’ll get to the A1000 which will take you into Potters Bar (heading South). You could then re enter London Village through Barnet or Cockfosters.A little detour north of Barnet through Monken Hadley and Hadley Wood gets you close to this Farm shop-
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=TA21+0EZ&safe=images&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=N&tab=wl
Good food and coffee last time I went.
If you went with Mtb or CX bikes only then it could be a much better ride! :-)Have fun though.

Can’t help with pubs – this is my usual road loop from N4 though. It’s pretty grim for the first hour out of London but lovely after Chigwell round to Epping. Then grim again coming back in.

If your friends aren’t wild about dicing on busy roads out of London then I’d suggest getting the train out to Epping, do the route out of there in reverse, possibly extending out to some of the other little villages – it’s all nice quiet roads. Then loop back around to Epping for the train home.

Alternative if you want to go from home would be to head to Tottenham Hale, pick up the Lea Valley Navigation and head north to where the two reservoirs get split by the Lea Valley Road. Easy to head from there via Sewardstone to the lanes through Epping Forest. If you don’t mind a bit of an off-road climb there’s a bridleway that takes you up to a great view of the city and easy to pick your way from there through the Epping Forest lanes and on to the quiet rural roads.

Weather’s hopefully gonna be reasonably sunny this weekend, so it’s looking good for yer ride! 🙂

There’s a nice pub in Broxbourne by the river, can’t remember what it’s called mind.

Where are you starting from? I live in Poplar, so from me it’s up the River Lea, past the Lympic site, then up past Hackney and Walthamstow Marshes, old beam engine in Marksfield Park as well as a tatty skate park, then a bit bland past the reservoirs and IKEA Edmonton, until you pass Picketts Lock then it starts to get a bit more open and green. You’ve got the nature reserve near Waltham Abbey, and the church itself there is nice.

Maybe worth contacting British waterways to find out if there’s any sections closed, but seeing as it’s now not Summer and therefore not as busy, there probably won’t be. You can pretty much guarantee at least one section will be closed during the busiest time of year and I woon’t mind, but it’ll be closed for 6 weeks or whatever, when the actual work only takes a few days. Rubbish.

Maybe worth contacting British waterways to find out if there’s any sections closed

I rode Hertford to Tottenham last Saturday and there weren’t any closures.

Good news, senor, ta! I’d just got BW’s no. off the net.

Can you clip along on that path, or is it jogging speed tops, dodging prams and dogs?

Can you clip along on that path

on the whole you can, but around the locks and car parks you get a few
dog walkists,prams and the like. Sunday afternoon is worst.
I use a bell so very rarely have a problem though.

I use lea valley quite a lot and its about as lovely as that london gets

I’m off shortly to do edmonton/cheshunt in’t dark 8)

For south west london, you can head to Richmond park, out to Kingston, esher, combham and staight down to Effingham junction, Holmbry, up to Dorking, Box Hill then Epsom and back through Chessington and Hook is a long ride (probably 60-70ish) but you have the option of getting the train back from Effingham Junction, Dorking or Epsom so you can tailor it to the distance you want. OS Landranger 176 and 187 cover it all and it’s super easy to navigate. Simmilar to this with a bit added on the bottom: http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx?course=165095. Actually any of the Kingston Wheelers routes would be a good option: http://www.kingstonwheelers.co.uk/clubrun.shtml#routes

Iain

train to Waltham Abbey (Watham Cross train station) and then ride the London to Cambridge route and train back from Cambridge (can be shortened by getting further out on the initial train ride)

What’s the surface like? A friend asked if he should bring his Fuji track bike our his mountain bike. I’d be tempted to say Fuji unless it’s too rough. Got brakes.

I wouldn’t ride the Lea Valley towpath on my road bike, surface is mostly smooth but quite a few gravelly patches.

Senor J’s route suggestion is pretty good, I often ride round that way.

Personally I get a bit bored riding up and down the bloody canal all the time and it always seems to be colder next to the water. The gravel pits are quite scenic if you don’t live next to them though I suppose.

Nuts. We’re about a third road bikes. My perfect-for-the-job Peregrine with balloon tyres will be perfect for the job (well done me), but I get the impression those on road tyres will suffer.

Considerable suffering? Shall I get people on the train to Waltham Cross and road ride from there?

Or shall I just warn them that there’s a few metres of a few metres of wobbling or pushing every so often?

Some parts (well quite a bit actually) have a gravelly surface what won’t be too great if you’re on 120psi skinny rubber baynds. Would be good to make those with unsuitable bikes suffer mind, teach them the error of their ways.

And it will be a bit busy in town, so no hooning about or some big angry bloke may well throw you in the canal, bike an’ all.

MTBS, Hybrids, touring bikes are ok. Skinny racers won’t work so well.

Shall I get people on the train to Waltham Cross and road ride from there?

Maybe get a fast train to Cheshunt or Broxbourne instead.

Hmmm. Are we taking inch+ deep, wheel-sucking gravel or slightly gritty like the Thames path around Barnes? or in the gardens at Hampton court?

Thanks again!

slightly gritty like the Thames path around Barnes?

About that really.

Ace. I’ll tell them to suck it up and deal with it, then! 🙂

I’ve already had a response from one saying her tyres were more like the thickness of a largish chorizo than a thumb, so I think she’ll be alright, and Tommy Track Bike is going to bring his mountainbike anyway.

Thanks all!

We’re 8 already, if any of you helpful chap(esse?)s fancy joining that many, we’re leaving from just inside Finsbury Park, near the station at 10:30 on Sunday. Mail me your phone no. if you want to confirm.

Cheers again!

Ed

Loads of my old cycling haunts mentioned above. Used to love riding up from Hackney to Broxbourne via 70 Acres lake, a real nice escape from the city in no time.

I’m looking to forward to doing a bit more exploring. Thread well and truly favourited!

I ride the towpaths regularly, on 32c tyres. Some of the looser stuff can be little sketchy, but it’s not too bad really.

Might join you Ned; where are you joining the canal?

ned – re the surface – they’ll be right.
there was a couple of fakey track bikes on the canal t’other week.
I’ll more than likely be coming South from Stevenage at 1.30/2pm.
so more than likely too late to say hello.I’ll keep an eye out tho’.
re exploring the area – look on the map for Monken Hadley &Trent park which you can then link up using 60% Bway to get to Wormley wood and then Broxbourne.Do a lap of Broxbourne , back on the canal to Waltham Abbey – Sewardstone and up to High Beach.Then singletrack it back to the north Circular at Woodford . I live N2 so go West through a quaint village called Tottenham . Ha.
I’d be happy to show you what I know later in the month (work 🙁 ),
if you’re still getting lost by then.

hi, been away from Friday evening. Elf, we’re joining the path here. Should be there at 11, might be later if the Faff Monster sprinkles his magic dust around the place.