Rode to London this morning

gurdas said:
if you want to use your own car in the day time
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I don't want to use my car, I want to use my motorcycle which takes up hardly any space and sips petrol (60mpg).

My complaint is that London is rubbish for motorcycle riders when it should be bike friendly. Bikes are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Why do we have to follow this reasoning that busses and trains are the one and only solution to our traffic problems?

Take Reading for example:
Bikes allowed in ALL bus lanes
Lots of FREE bike parking close to the center

Concequently lots of people use scooters and bikes to get to work, thus easing Reading's considerable traffic issues.

If London did the same then many would be tempted out of their cars and on to two wheels. As it is, there is very little benefit to riding as it's not that much more convenient than using a car.

I ask you though. Have you ever commuted in to London from the west to get somewhere for 9am? If so, I don't know how you can honestly state that it's not that bad. Many times I have to wait for 2 or 3 trains to pass Twyford because they are so packed I physically can't get in to the carridge. The tube is a cakewalk in comparison.
 
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Wood Street isn't ideal for parking, my company has an office there and every time I've visited it looks manic in all the bike bays. Not sure whether it helps having the big police station and the police cars + vans parking along all the streets....
 
Rilot said:
I don't want to use my car, I want to use my motorcycle which takes up hardly any space and sips petrol (60mpg).

My complaint is that London is rubbish for motorcycle riders when it should be bike friendly. Bikes are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Why do we have to follow this reasoning that busses and trains are the one and only solution to our traffic problems?

Take Reading for example:
Bikes allowed in ALL bus lanes
Lots of FREE bike parking close to the center

Concequently lots of people use scooters and bikes to get to work, thus easing Reading's considerable traffic issues.

If London did the same then many would be tempted out of their cars and on to two wheels. As it is, there is very little benefit to riding as it's not that much more convenient than using a car.

I ask you though. Have you ever commuted in to London from the west to get somewhere for 9am? If so, I don't know how you can honestly state that it's not that bad. Many times I have to wait for 2 or 3 trains to pass Twyford because they are so packed I physically can't get in to the carridge. The tube is a cakewalk in comparison.
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I understand your difficulty but with the large number of people in the place, it's bound to get congested and there is only so much physical space to work with. I can't say I have commuted from the west, when I have to, it's from the North and I find the transport link fantastic.
 
Whoever said the tube in the summer is only 'slightly' unpleasant, you must be a... small glass bottle used for storing preserves.

The summer on the Central Line is a nightmare, if I was pregnant or unfit i'd be collapsing every day. That big fan at the top of Bank does nothing! I thank God I have to drive up to Cheshire every week, it might be annoying but nothing compared to every day hour odd melting with lots of lovely rude people melting too. Maybe one person I see on the tube a day will have and use their P's and Q's.

And then in the summer we seem to get delays on the line all the time, probably because everybody is collapsing! Standing there, underground somewhere, rammed in, God knows what the temperature is.

Great.
 
gurdas said:
there is only so much physical space to work with
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One can fit about 6 bikes in one car space. Why don't they convert a few of the old meter bays? In Wood Street the bike bay is in the middle of a double yellow zone that seems to be there for no good reason. Extending it a few meters each way would hardly cause a problem.
 
Rilot said:
I ask you though. Have you ever commuted in to London from the west to get somewhere for 9am? If so, I don't know how you can honestly state that it's not that bad. Many times I have to wait for 2 or 3 trains to pass Twyford because they are so packed I physically can't get in to the carridge. The tube is a cakewalk in comparison.
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I know how you feel about the trains that go through Twyford. I used to have to go to London quite a bit for work and got the train from Cholsey (which goes through Twyford) and they are so full! On the way back home from Paddington I often had to stand because there were no seats!

This country really needs sorting out and something needs to be done for cyclists.
 
i never had problems when working in central london but i could walk to work every morning :o

the place is horrible though. its like nearly everyone lost there manners on the way in. expensive. horrible air

from supposedly the worst place in the uk and its like paradise compared to london
 
cyclops12 said:
london is like any other part of the country
there's good and bad bits
you lot are talking about central london and yes its not nice
get out of central london and its not bad
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To be honest Central London, though it is awful, is as good as it gets in the main. Go further out and you either get prohibitively expensive or you get slums.

London is without doubt the worst area in the country. I'd put it top 10 worst in the world for large metropolitan areas.
 
Even when I was a tourist there, London sucked.
Dirty ( nose was full of black **** at the end of the day).
Impossible to transport yourself comfortably, always had to stand as all the trains were always full.
Congested ( the small bit I was riding as a passenger in a car caused a delay of 30 mins)
And loads of old rubbish buildings ( by that I mean every single house in central London, and the ghetto style suburbs like in Lewisham ( or somewhere near that place...), I don't like (urban/medium density) buildings older than 30-40 years.

The only positive is the nice amount of burger kings, kfc's ,MacDonalds and Tesco's there.

If I'd go back to the UK sometime, it won't be London that's for sure.
 
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snowdog said:
The only positive is the nice amount of burger kings, kfc's ,MacDonalds and Tesco's there.

If I'd go back to the UK sometime, it won't be London that's for sure.
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I would not bother, sounds like you love precisely what I'd not miss about the place!
 
I love fast food, and London had it all every couple of blocks :D.
Hate walking for ages searching for my fav fats food joint, or lookign for a general
supermarket :(. I don't really like any big cities except for the reasons above.

I like clean & quiet places with not many people around, where you can move around freely, comfortably and fast, but I do like having all essential shops/joints near though. London was everything that I hate about a big city, but a lot worse.

But oh well, each to his own.
 
You like quiet and clean places, with fast food joints and supermarkets dotted everywhere? You can tell its legalized over there can't you!
 
I just meant, I don't like to ride ages to fast food joints/ supermarkets, my supermarket is 3 mins walking away, and the macdonalds is 5 mins cycling.

Yet I like living in a peaceful place, where my nose doest get full of soot, and where there's a bit of green, and no high density buildings. Where I can sleep without hearing any noise from the streets but a car driving by once in awhile...

Like this kinda ( view from my room window):



 
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