United Kingdom - any nice rides in/around london?

hi all,

i keep seeing these nice long rides people do in the US, and was wondering do we have anything similar in or around london?

thanks

daven

There are many, e.g., surrey hills, circuits around richmond park, epping forest, etc. It might help if you joined either a weekly organised ride or a London/home counties cycling club. Condor Cycles and, possibly, Brixton Cycles will be able to help.

http://www.condorcycles.com/store.html
http://www.brixtoncycles.co.uk/find_us.html

If you're a racing snake and want to race then the BCF has a "find a club" search function.

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/BC/bchome/home.asp

Apart from the racing snakes on the club runs there're also CTC and LCC organised social rides most weekends.

http://www.ctc.org.uk/
http://www.lcc.org.uk/

cool thanks. not looking for races really, just nice areas to cruise around in!

Hi daven
Why not jump on a train with your steed and come up to
Norwich for the weekend and ride with us

I can thoroughly recommend a circuit or two of Richmond Park. You can then head down to the River by Ham or Canbury Gardens in Kingston and nip across the Thames to take in Bushy Park. Excellent off-road cycling in beautiful surroundings, there's even plenty of wildlife to look at. Worth doing any time of year, but check the park closing times, they change on a weekly basis.

Tim Snaith
Director, 50cycles Ltd
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how about trying the canal towpaths,they can get a bit crowded in good weather (!!!) and fishermen can be a pain,but the paths are usualy pretty good and you always know which way your going,also you can cheat and ride UP the canal path on way out knowing its all DOWN hill on way back in !!! very handy if not wanting to work too hard,a lot of towpath routes also link with or are close to old ex railway tracks that have been cycle pathed,towpaths also take you through some of the greenest countryside we have left and there are 2000 + miles to explore,even in inner london there are some very nice towpath rides,though not quite as pretty as out here at watford,but metropolitian line tube takes bikes outside rush hour as do most trains.
give the towpaths a try,i'd be surprised if you did'nt enjoy !!

how does north of london and south of london compare?

Richmond Park closes at 8pm (pedestrian gates at Roehampton Gate at least) every night and from what I remember does so all through the winter. Watch out after that though as the deer cull is on at the moment!

All good suggestions above but RP for me is just what I need. It's easy to do an extra loop or two or drop one depending on how you're feeling, plus you're always a fixed-ish distance from home. Nobody likes changing a tube in the cold/dark/wet/all of the above. :)

Richmond Park closes at 8pm (pedestrian gates at Roehampton Gate at least) every night and from what I remember does so all through the winter. Watch out after that though as the deer cull is on at the moment!

Has it changed? It used to be that the pedestrian gates were open all night, except in November and February when they are doing the cull, when they closed at 7.30 or 8.

I once got locked in, it's not a big problem, you just go to one of the main gates and use the phone to call to be let out. It was a stupid wait in the cold though.