Elephant & Castle...

clairelc

...Roundabout. Is it going to be as bad as I'm dreading, or should I just man up? the thought of it is scaring the heeby-jeebies out of me, having not been round it before on a bike. :?

I'm heading round there a little after 9pm...hopefully traffic not too heavy?

rjsterry

It's OK, but don't dawdle, and keep your eyes peeled. Lights and Scotchlite help a lot.

EDIT: Don't bottle out once on the roundabout though. If you feel like it's not going to work then pull in before the railings make it impossible.

AidanR

I went round it yesterday. Just know your lane and stick in the middle of it. Ride assertively and make it clear where you intend to go. It's really not that bad.

the_hundredth_idiot

Don't go around that roundabout. If you are at all uncertain about that roundabout, don't go around it. It's horrid - the four-wheeled numpties will try and kill you. *

There is no need to go around the roundabout anyway. There are loads of ways to avoid it by using side roads. Many of those side roads are marked up explicitly for cycle use. Much more relaxing way to do it.

What direction are you coming from and heading to?

THI

* Okay, I'm exaggerating for effect. But only a little. Though, doubtless, someone will post soon that it's fine.

snooks

A few options

Be assertive, take your lane and make yourself seen.

Find a route to avoid said roundabout

If in doubt, bottle out before you get to it and convert yourself into a pedestrian

Just because you have a bike it doesn't mean you have to ride it everywhere

clairelc

thanks for your thoughts

I've been sitting on street view all afternoon looking at ways home. I''ll be coming from the city towards clapham.

It looks fairly straightforward (i;ve walked around the area before so it's not completely unknown).

dhope

Not too bad in my experience (used to live just off New Kent Rd), just make sure you know what lane you need to be in for your exit and get your position sorted before you arrive. Same as you should do everywhere else really but the more lanes and more cars (and so greater chance of numpty) just make it more important.

Stuey01

Err, Cycle Superhighway 7 goes from the city, skips past Elephant and Castle and goes on to Clapham.

just follow the blue tarmac.

boneyjoe

Friend of mine regularly does the Elephant with her 2yr old on the back of the bike

Personally, I prefer using the by-passing routes as mentioned above

If you must go round, its not that bad tbh - I think the main things are to be highly visible and assertive, and try move at the pace of the traffic. It can also help to stick with other cyclists, but be careful, as they'll sometimes do the unexpected...

jonny_trousers

boneyjoe wrote:

Friend of mine regularly does the Elephant with her 2yr old on the back of the bike

Wow! Your friend can't be that fond of her child.

I've not cycled around Elephant and Castle many times, but when I have it has been quite fun. I did observe the advice above regarding being assertive and as visible as possible, however, and I also made sure to power through at a speed as close to that of the traffic around me as possible. That said, it doesn't matter how wise or skillful a cyclist you are, there is a special kind of idiot motorist round that part of London and there is no way on earth I would be prepared to risk anyone's life other than my own by riding among them.

d.n.f

Is it worse than Hyde Park Corner?

rjsterry

I'd say not as bad - nowhere near as big.

d.n.f

took me a while before I attempted that one.

clairelc

hmm..well after a bit of jiggery-pokery on the route planner and getting tfl's website to work, i figured out how to find the cycle superhighway from where I was in the city to get back. not sure why the route planner didn't throw that up earlier as an option (or maybe it didn't, and i just didn't realise :roll: entirely possible).

was dead easy really, and quite glad i took that option in this glorious rain. perhaps I'll give E&C a try in daylight if/when the need arises.

Cafewanda

I find shoulder checking lots works to temper drivers' speed (or maybe that's wishful thinking on my part :roll: ). Having recently discovered the bypass route towards Clapham I use that on the homeward journey. I enjoy mixing it with other road users of a morning

Especially this one. Given the amount of extra cyclists and vehicles I was amazed there weren't any accidents. A number of near misses though and that was between cyclists!

kelsen

Try not to build it up to be some fearsome monster. It's just a busy roundabout where you use common sense as with any road junction. Don't take unnecessary risks, wait a bit longer if you have to, and be assertive. Positioning yourself in the correct lane minimises the risk of having to cut across lanes. I find shadowing cars and buses that are entering and exiting the roundabout at the same time as you to be quite helpful. You have to be prepared to get out of the saddle and put the power down though.

Clarion

I work near E&C, so go round it twice a day.

It's crap, and there are always stupid drivers on it.

But, that said, it's not as bad as HPC or Marble Arch. With E&C, the trick is to keep to your lane. London drivers have no idea what lanes are, but stick to yours, and you should be right. Watch out for lorries trying to skim past you into an exit. That's how someone got killed there, because there are railings all round.

There are ways round, which I would say are improved now that CS7 goes through, but it's still fiddly and slow.

If you're commuting from Clapham to the City, you should probably be more worried about Stockwell and Oval.

clairelc

it wasn't a regular commute, i just needed to be up in the city last night after work, then get home.

Not sure why you would say Stockwell or Oval would be worse though? I live not far from stockwell (borders of stockwell/clapham north) so have been round there plenty. Oval not so much, but didn't seem bad at all last night. *shrugs*

Gussio

d.n.f wrote:

Is it worse than Hyde Park Corner?

To my mind, yes.

Dudu

clairelc wrote:

...Roundabout. Is it going to be as bad as I'm dreading, or should I just man up? the thought of it is scaring the heeby-jeebies out of me, having not been round it before on a bike. :?

I'm heading round there a little after 9pm...hopefully traffic not too heavy?

IMO, assuming you;re keeping your wits about you, your eyes peeled and, if it's dark, you've got lights on, it's far safer to approach a roundabout on a bike quickly, then speed up as you get onto it. Then you're going as fast as, if not faster than, the motorised traffic and can ride around the roundabout in the Highway Code-approved manner like any good driver.

nich

kelsen wrote:

Try not to build it up to be some fearsome monster. It's just a busy roundabout where you use common sense as with any road junction.

Ah, this is exactly what I did before I started commuting. Thanks to google street maps I spent quite a while analyzing roundabouts on my trip, thinking about alternative routes so I could avoid them.

After all that I found them a piece of pish. I only do a couple of biggish ones (jamiaca rd, lewisham), and they've turned out to be a fun part of the commute - cos cars are always gridlocked around them :twisted: