Help me!

MrSweary

Ok, finally exchanged on our house so I will hopefully be swapping the joys of the SW London commute in favour of coming in from Beckenham. A few extra miles which is good and a few more hills which is actually good but seems bad at the moment!

Anyway, to get to the point I'm here to ask for any advice on a new route to work. I work near Green Park and I'm after any tips at all for commuting in from the south east - routes, blackspots, things to avoid etc. I usually set off for work at about 6.30am which definitely makes a big difference to traffic on the current commute. I've been doing this sort of thing for quite a few years now and I'm pretty confident on the bike and not phased by traffic.

Obviously a key concern is having plenty of SCR action and hapless nodders to scalp...

Commuting Chat Hive Mind GO!

asprilla

You are moving from SW to SE; it's the SCR desert

mtb-idle

i was thinking similar, normally peeps want to move out of SE and into SW.

Oh well, takes all sorts and all that. the natural route appears to be through Penge (I can still remember the look of absolute incredulity on the face of a graduate at work when he learned that I knew someone who actually lives in Penge: the wife's cousin) up Croxted Road, South Lambeth Road and over Vauxhall Bridge

HamishD

Which end of Beckenham? Unless you want to go via Beckanham Hill/Catford/OKR (which I sometimes do when the wind is favourable and I fancy adding 5 miles from the Eden Park end) you've got to go over Crystal Palace. Which you can do two ways - the Anerley side, ultimately coming past Cadence; the traffic is fine at 06h30 - or the Penge side, which is longer but a shallower gradient.

Then you go down College Road and either go up Sunray/down Denmark in order to get to Camberwell Green. Then either Walworth Road/Camberwell New Road to Elephant/Vauxhall respectively. Neither of which are particularly pleasant. Alternative which I have discovered over the last few days is to go down Burbage road past the velodrome and then take an illegal right turn up Milkwood and thence Loughborough/Foxley, coming out at Oval.

There is No SCR. Fugeddaboudit. Coming back via College Road you may find yourself tested. People are either v slow or quite quick with not much in between and it is a hill, unlike SW. Fatties, like myself, come a cropper here.

HamishD

PS Apropos No SCR. This is for a number of reasons. a) The Hill. b) There is an abnormal number of participants coming from the SW. Compare Vauxhall bridge W-E to those coming from the South Side. I do not know why this is... Consider the SW as the abnormality, as there is (anecdotally) also nowt coming from the North or East unless one counts hipsters...

HamishD

MTB-Idle wrote:

normally peeps want to move out of SE and into SW.

Have you seen the price of a shitty 3 bed in a particularly crummy part of SW London these days?


[Edit] - Arse - it appears I am spamming this thread. Carry on

veronese68

HamishD wrote:

MTB-Idle wrote:

normally peeps want to move out of SE and into SW.

Have you seen the price of a sh!tty 3 bed in a particularly crummy part of SW London these days?


[Edit] - ars* - it appears I am spamming this thread. Carry on

Exactly, there's a reason for this.

MrSweary

Veronese68 wrote:

HamishD wrote:

MTB-Idle wrote:

normally peeps want to move out of SE and into SW.

Have you seen the price of a sh!tty 3 bed in a particularly crummy part of SW London these days?


[Edit] - ars* - it appears I am spamming this thread. Carry on

Exactly, there's a reason for this.

Heh. Quite. The small 2 bed maisonette with virtually no garden next door to us in Twickenham just sold for well over £400k. That is just silly.

Thanks for the tips. Not worried about lack of SCR. I need to stop TT-ing it to and from work all the time. Having said that if you leave early there isn't much action even from Twickers. Mostly the fast gents here don't seem to get up until later. Which is good for my ego at least!

mtb-idle

I'll give you that then. A friend of mine at work has moved from a small terraced place in Wimbledon to a slightly larger terraced place in Wimbledon for £875k :shock:

condorman

Or you can go via Sydenham and have a go at Sydenham Hill? Not sure where you are in Beckenham but the only part to definitely avoid is Kelsey Park Road unless you'd like daily run-ins with pupils from Harris Academy (formely Kelsey Park School). My daily route from West Wickham to The Strand.