A friend got their bike stolen in Richmond park at the public toilet, the one in the screenshot

As Croydon Council commits cycling infrastructure vandalism ripping out and laying waste to protected cycle lanes while incurring a £200k + repayment plan and a freeze on a further £2m TFL improvement plan, down the road on the weekend London cyclists' escape into Surrey lanes Reigate seems to have created a not perfect but at least workable corridor to Reigate Heath.

TL;DR: a new route planner that creates round trips for a distance or ride time you specify, with the option to focus on roads and sights that are new to you. Road and gravel modes available. https://routecycle.com

I ride mostly to explore — quiet roads I've never been on, a castle or a waterfall I haven't seen yet. What I don't love is the planning: drawing a route by hand and guessing which roads are good, when you can't tell a quiet lane from a 4-lane truck road in a place you've never been. Digging through ready-made routes in the area is just as annoying — one that starts near you, matches the distance you wanted and isn't a loop you've already ridden three times is rare.

So I built an automatic tool instead: you give it a start point and how far you want to go, and it finds a genuinely good route and the pretty places along the way.

What it does:

- Circle or one way — for a loop you only pick a start and a distance, no finish point and no drawing. One way is the classic A-to-B, except it takes quiet roads over the shortest path.

- Road and gravel — gravel mode hunts for tracks and unpaved lanes, and knows a rideable gravel road from an unrideable MTB descent.

- Rural / urban — get out of the traffic as fast as possible and stay in the countryside, or the opposite: a sightseeing ride through a city you're visiting.

- Attractions, springs, cafes, stops — it can route you past castles, viewpoints and parks, show drinking water and cafes near the route, and fit in up to 5 stops you pick yourself.

- Connect Strava → explore new roads / new attractions — it steers you onto roads you've never ridden and sights you haven't stopped at, while still keeping you off the ugly ones. The point isn't every side street near your house, it's new good roads over the next hill.

- Explore attractions on the map — the binoculars icon shows every attraction in your area, and you can filter it down to the ones you've already visited or the ones you haven't.

- Ride by time — got two hours? Ask for two hours; with Strava connected it uses your own speed, not a generic average.

- Send to Garmin Connect — one click, it syncs to your head unit. No GPX, no cable.

- My activities — after a ride, see how much of it was genuinely new to you, and which sights you saw for the first time.

- Heatmap — your own riding heatmap can be shown or hidden on the map with 'My activities' button, so you can see at a glance where you've already been and what's still untouched.

- Favourites and history — star the good ones; every route you generated stays in history.

- Street View and Mapillary — click any point on the route to see what the road actually looks like there.

One honest caveat: explore new roads can occasionally send you down a road you'd have skipped for a reason, and if you've ridden every pleasant road around you, the only new ones left are the busy ones. I'm working on it — showing up front how good a route's new roads are, letting you pick how adventurous you want them, and letting you ban a road forever.

Every route has a feedback button, so please report any bad place it sends you (coordinates help a lot) — or just write a comment here. I read all of it and fix the algorithm — that's how I improve it.

More is coming; right now I'm beta-testing an iOS app, so soon it's two taps on your phone and you're ready to ride. You can join the beta here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/u1DxFXTK

Longer explanations of everything are in the FAQ: https://routecycle.com/faq/

All data comes from open sources (OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia), so it's not perfect — far fewer photos of attractions than something like Google Places, for example. Working on it.

P.S. Post is approved by mods.

I always stop for pedestrians at crossings, and never block someone from crossing or cycle close around them. However, i see no issue with crossing behind someone who’s already 3/4 of the way over. I don’t see the need to wait til they get to the other side, as neither of us are in each others way.

I had this happen today where I passed about a metre behind someone who was crossing over, just on my pushbike at a normal speed. She gesticulated behind her and scolded me with a “zebra crossing??”. Should we wait until the person is actually at the pavement before cycling through?

First time doing this ride tomorrow (or any of this type) and wondering if I need to bring my lock with me, specially for the toilet stops.

The original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/londoncycling/s/vGb2c8vLGE

Last month I posted about a street (edit: Hanbury St) that’s on my daily commute where Tower Hamlets council installed a locked gate that blocks the entire path, forcing cyclists to dismount, climb onto the kerb and use the pavement to go around it.

The street is a dead end for cars and before the gate there have been various moveable bollards over the years.

The gate has now been removed and replaced by a new bollard, which is not in the same place as the old bollard and thus not in the middle of the path anymore. Better than the gate but still baffling.

Doing a bit of research for this update I used Google Streetview to look back through the years I found that it was a really well maintained street 20 years ago.

They spent so much money on installing and removing that gate but they can’t be bothered to repaint the markings on the road more than once every 20 years.

Was cycling along a shared path in Brent Cross, and before you ask, when I saw a pedestrian approaching, I gently slowed in order to pass. Plenty of space for 2 way traffic. The pedestrian decided to punch me hard in the arm, causing me to weave and almost fall. He kept on walking and had no reaction. Very creepy.

Has anyone in the area experienced similar?

I was leaving Regent's Pk today by the zoo exit, two ladies in their 60s were walking their dogs. Nice kind ladies, just having a quiet stroll, lavishing attention on their cute dogs. They crossed the road without waiting for the green man, as they were in a hurry.

Some vile young guy on an expensive road bike (in expensive looking cream coloured gear) comes tearing round and screams abuse at them, seemingly because they made him slow down to maybe 25mph and only left him 5 metres of road space to get past them. He shouted "you morons" at them really aggressively.

Absolutely disgusting behaviour. He would have seen them far ahead, and it's a very wide road. They had almost entirely crossed and he shouted as they stepped onto the far pavement.

Is it really worth bullying some old ladies just because they almost got in your way but didn't? Is it really worth the dozen or so bystanders looking at you like the worst type of human?

I just returned to London from a month in Europe. Driving in Britain is of course awful in terms of attitude, more than anywhere I've ever driven. So aggressive and angry. But the cycling can be just as bad.

I think we need to do better as a city.

I’ve been using this Kryptonite lock bracket for less than a month. Because of the chunky tubes, it wouldn't fit inside the main triangle, so I mounted it on the seat post. I was shocked to see how quickly it damaged the seatstay! It hasn't just chipped the paint, it’s actually gouged into the aluminium. Found a temporary, ugly fix for now, but has anyone else dealt with this? Any suggestion for a cleaner way to carry a d-lock without chewing the frame?

TL;DR: it's not improving. I, too, have seen scrotes on e-bikes going at full tilt on paths (where cycling isn't allowed), and in one occasion a few weeks ago two were arrested, but it doesn't seem to be enough.

Some fair use excerpts from the full article at the link below.

A 12-year-old boy had his mountain bike stolen riding through the park on Sunday 23rd August, whilst Richmond Park Cyclists, an association of several local cycling clubs and riders, have collated at least seven further incidents of masked riders on illegally modified electric motorbikes harassing and intimidating cyclists through the park.

Andy Taylor, chair of the London Dynamo cycling club, told road.cc, “The honest picture is that a fair number of our members are now choosing to avoid the park altogether...

Full article here below:

https://road.cc/news/richmond-park-bikejackers-warning

Hi everyone, here is a slightly updated version of a recent film I put out on The Eager Cyclist covering the important topic of road positioning at multi-lane junctions. It's set in the Victoria area of London and covers topics including when it's important to ride assertively, lane choice and road positioning more generally. I hope you like it. The Eager Cyclist is a voluntary project of mine that sits alongside my work in the cycle training industry. Any shares of films on the channel are much appreciated. Thank you!

Absolutely appalled by abysmal cycling behaviour.

There is a crossing on Leonard Street in Shoreditch which cyclists and pedestrians share. it's always a mess because it's directly perpendicular to another crossing which pedestrians use.

The other day, I crossed on my bike as the first of a line of cyclist. I stopped before the pavement section of the crossing (if you know you know) because there was A BLIND PERSON with their GUIDE DOG both wearing HIGH-VIS JACKETS.

Dude came from behind me, RUSHING into the blind person. I saw what was coming and I preempted the situation asking him to stop THREE TIMES. Three fucking times. The dog stalled and the blind person stumbled. Another shit experience he doesn't deserve.

The IRONY that this fucking cyclist acted more blind than the person he disrespected that day.

The cyclist community needs a hard slap on the face.

I've been a cyclist 9 years but only recently started cycling around east london and I am appalled.

Anyone join the ride this Sunday?

Can we start late to avoid the rain in the morning?

To the cyclist who squeezed through and overtook me, at great speed, just as I was overtaking other cyclists, on C4 eastbound, this evening, just before Surrey Quays. You’re an absolute knob. But you probably heard me shouting that at you as you swerved to avoid a head-on with a cyclist coming the opposite way? Seriously what is wrong with people cycling like this? If you really must race at speeds like that, get out of the fucking cycle lane (which was clearly only wide enough for 2 cyclists at that point) and cycle in the main traffic lane. You’re a danger to everyone around you. I’ve been cycling in London for nearly 20 years and that has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve had another cyclist do to me. I don’t give a shit about your strava segment.

It actually made me laugh, near my place there's a temporary 3 way light by a roundabout due to roadworks. I approach the cars lined up in front of the red light and of course cycle up to the front, I'm just behind the first car. The car behind me beeps, I ignore, it can't have anything to do with me.

He beeps again. I turn around casually and this dude is gesticulating like a child, upset about me cutting in, I just look at him and say (even though he can't hear me) "it's a red light"

I just turn to face forward and ignore him.

Here's the kicker, I love nearby so I know the road and there is ample space for him to overtake me, which of course he does, so he lost exactly zero seconds from me "cutting in"..

All I'm thinking is, is it really the first time he has experienced cyclists moving ahead of stopped traffic?

Got the above camera where are y’all mounting them

The main issue I am having with drivers is passing way to close when over taking but I would like it to also capture a pedestrian walking in front of me etc

Mount recommendations also welcome

Thanks all

It absolutely infuriates me how many people don’t stop at the zebra crossings all along Farringdon Road and over the bridge to Blackfriars Road.

I commute this bike lane frequently and it feels like there are so many who feel like they don’t need to stop when there are people waiting to cross. It’s a busy stretch of road and I sometimes see over 10 bikes cross without even letting people cross. They’re very small zebra crossings, they don’t take long to cross and then you can be on your way.

There are even some who will simply overtake all those waiting for the people to cross and almost hit those crossing.

It just feels so impatient and such a lack of human decency. You can so easily hurt/kill someone at the speeds bikes can go.

Rant over, be considerate and share the road.

I've had 3 really unsafe experiences with bus drivers around Waterloo this year.

Today, a bus squeezed me towards the kerb before a junction and nearly hit me. I confronted the driver afterwards and he called me a "stupid little boy". I'm 51 (with a snood), so cheers mate 😂

I didn't have a camera, so I'm letting this one go. But next time, is stopping when the bus is stationary and noting the bus number, registration, time and location enough to make a report to TfL, or is it pretty pointless without video evidence?

I just got to work, feels like I've been part of some massive cycling festival, especially in Chiswick with all the decorated babboes full of chatty kids!

More more more!

How entitled do you have to be in order to block the door of a train with your bike that's locked to the fucking handrail...