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Route directions PDF (right click to download)
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Glorious Bike Rides
Glorious Bike Rides
Route directions PDF (right click to download)
GPX file (right click to download)
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What a great ride! We started at Broadway Market – the market is only open on Saturdays, between 9am – 5pm. (We needed to put the bikes in the car, so free car parking nearby, and no congestion charge at weekends), and spent far longer than planned wandering around the lovely stalls, and looking around the area. The route was easy to follow, with plenty of opportunities for stopping to admire the views. The book refers to a free ferry at Woolwich; we would suggest an alternative route, as close to the ferry is the entrance to a foot tunnel underneath the Thames, which only took a few minutes, and avoided waiting for the ferry.
We really enjoyed this ride.
Just tested this out in anticipation of a ride with my ‘ever lovin’ wife’. Wow. Very foggy autumn Sunday morning so no ferry but the foot tunnel is just fine. Forgot my map print-outs so had to navigate on 30 years in London and hunches… so yes basically I kept getting lost…
I’ll do this again and follow Jack’s suggestion of lunch at Anchor and hope just near Woolwich Arsenal.
Clockwise would be good in the morning with the Sun at your back as you get to Greenwich.
For a long summer evening anti-clockwise will see the skyline lit up as you take in some pubs along the way.
NB Lock no.7 is no longer open. Just a cafe there now instead.
Cheers!
Mark in Hackney
Started/Ended this in Greenwich. The market isn’t as good as Broadway, but it’s near where I live.
You can definitely smell the Greenway is on top of a sewer, but it’s a nice little run with a trailing wind.
I don’t know why why anyone would choose to take the foot tunnel when there is a free BOAT, surely you get more points for dual transport trips?
Was good to explore north of the river, will definitely give it a bash anti-clockwise too.
Cheers!
As an East London local I’ve done parts of the ride previously, however I thought I’d give the whole route a try this time. It was nice to discover new places that I was not accustomed to and I feel people will enjoy the mixture of the old and new London. However London being London I had to diverge from the route a number of times due to road closures. All in all not my favourite but plenty to others to discover.
I’ve done this ride more than a few times now, including with young-ish kids. Lovely ride, loads of variety, GPS is definitely useful for route finding! One thing other readers may wish to note – some new bits of cycleable route are now available that were not present when this route was published. You can now ride all the way along Royal Albert Dock, staying dockside the whole way. Also Q14 has opened a new route around the Thames Barrier, so there’s no need to divert toward the Woolwich Rd. Thanks Jack for an excellent route!
I cycled this route today and loved it.
Broadway market and the canal tow paths get very busy on a fine Sunday morning so consider an earlyish start if that’s the day you ride. Also, be prepared for the Woolwich ferry not to be running at weekends as carrying the bike down to the footpath tunnel and up again was a bit of extra cardio I hadn’t bargained for!
My first time using the Lost Lanes rides but certainly won’t be the last. 😁
Rode this today. I modified the start and end in order to get the train to Seven Sisters, so took a short road section and then followed the NCN1 route south along the canal to join up with the main route east of the market which I skipped. Really enjoyable route, I was amazed how little road was involved and how much green space there is when you aren’t in a car on the main roads. A lot of changes in the east end since I lived there 30 years ago! The route could be updated now – you can follow the riverbank pretty much continuously including the section by the airport, so fewer diversions away from the river compared with the published route. Managed to just grab the Woolwich ferry which was excellent, didn’t fancy the tunnel.
Not too many refueling stops directly on the route, although there will be more options when some of the new build work has finished on some sections.
It’s extremely busy on the river/canal side if you pick a day (like I did) which is lovely, warm and sunny, so be aware that your average speed will be way lower than you might expect due to congestion.
Ended up having lunch beside the Greenwich tunnel.
If I were to do it again, I’d probably pick a cooler/off-season day, so it’s less crowded, but an excellent and mostly off-road route.