Welcome to Bike Routes of Brum! A channel dedicated to showing safe cycle routes around Birmingham and the West Midlands – inspired by @Londoncycleroutes
In this video we will be cycling from Bearwood to Birmingham City Centre and it should take about 25 minutes to cycle. This route uses (mostly) quiet streets, the Harborne Walkway and the Edgbaston Resevoir.
The route I’ve followed can be found as a .GPX file here:
https://www.komoot.com/tour/1601454895
hi you’re watching bike routs of Brum a channel dedicated to finding safe cycle routes across Birmingham in this video we’ll be cycling from barewood to the city center and in this route we’ll be using mostly quiet streets the harborne walkway and Edge Baston Reservoir and it should take about half an hour to cycle the route’s pretty straightforward but not the most direct as we’re trying to avoid Hackley road which isn’t the nicest to cycle along there’s multiple different routes though that you could take and if you got any better suggestions feel free to comment below and I’ll get around to trying to f them at some point I’ve put a link to the rout into the description below so you can download the GPX file for yourself so we’re starting this one right outside the bear Pub and we’re going across onto sandon road now this road can be a little busy um as you can see it’s quite wide one of the big problems with Bearwood is getting from The High Street onto this bit now all these roads you can see just on your right there what they could do is put like an exemption for cycling maybe on some of the oneway bits that would be easier or take away some of the parking PS and put a little cycle Loan in there um I think there’s multiple things they could do but I can’t imagine that’s going to happen anytime soon so if you want to cycle from there you’re going to have to suck this little bit up unfortunately um one of the other ways I did have was to go along kind of the roads on your left and kind of weave through some alleys but I figured you know what let’s just stay on this for a little bit and uh see where we go because we’re just coming once you get get past that City Road Junction there there’s a nice little bit that we can turn off um you can just see Hagley Road in the distance there and our mission really is to try and avoid actually cycling on Hagley Road so we’re turning left onto carrisbrook road which is quite a nice little street but there’s um a modal filter at the end as it curves round unfortunately getting to that modal filter and crossing the road isn’t the easiest because it’s just like a raised bit of um of pavement so we’re going to have to hop up onto the pavement here and then skirt around which isn’t ideal um what they could do is try and make a little ramp there for us to get through but we drop down onto Fountain Road and again we’re heading in the direction of Hagley Road here and rather than actually dropping onto haggle Road this road curves round just past this little Junction here and we’re on to stanmore road kind of going back on ourselves now you could follow stanmore road all the way to the end and turn right onto Portland Road but I thought it’d be nice to go onto the persal road here and then join the harborne walkway which is just here or it should be known as the uh South Bearwood walkway uh now we’re going to follow this not for very long like 30 seconds I think but um it’s slightly nicer than cycling on the road so I thought you’d enjoy the greenery but like I said you I think you could nip up here but we’re not on here for for very long we’re going to come off this this little exit here you just have to build up a bit of speed cuz this little bit here is really steep to go along and once you manage to just get over the crest of the Hill weave yourself around this gate and we drop then onto Portland Road now Portland Road is quite wide but whenever I’ve been on it it’s not actually been too busy and CU we’re cycling downhill as well you can get a bit of speed um it’s all 20 mph speed limits I think don’t hold me to that but um it’s not too bad to cycle along and we’re not staying on it for too long because just at this Junction where you can see the cars coming out of we’re going to turn left and that’s onto rotten Park Road now Along Rotten Park Road Again fairly wide but it’s not too bad to cycle along and we’re not on it for very long because we’re now going to take another right and join the edge Baston Reservoir now we’re kind of on the southern tip of it and again just I feel like I’m always getting stuck in park runs when I’m filming these videos no matter what area of the city I’m going to because usually I film on a Saturday morning um it just so happens that by the time I’m actually like cycling along these places I’m getting stuck in uh in the park run so usually this place is quite quiet but on a Saturday morning at 9:00 it may be somewhere to avoid now Edge Bess and resir itself is I think it’s about a mile and a half all the way around and it’s a really really peaceful place to come now the reservoir was built in 1827 by the famous Thomas talford as a topup for the canal Network and apparently that’s what it’s still used for today now the most interesting thing that I could think of was that in 1873 there was a f famous uh tight rope artist called Charles bondan who was famous for crossing the Niagara Falls you know cook walking halfway across there cooking an omelette that kind of stuff now he did something even more impressive than that and he crossed the width or length of the uh the reservoir there it’s quite far on the type room and the this is actually commemorated on a statue in the middle of ladywood um middleway which I have seen a couple of times and I’ll put a little thing there so you can see very impressive so next time we going around the Ring Road have a look for it but we’re leaving the reservoir now and we’re going past the reservoir Cafe there onto Reservoir Road and we’re going to cycle along here now we’re into Jr our tolken territory Round Here and as you cycle around you should be able to see parrot’s folley and the edgebaston Waterworks Tower which are the meant to be two of the towers um that inspired him when he was writing Lord of the Rings I don’t know how true that is I think it’s one of these things that we and berium tell ourselves to kind of make it more relevant sometimes um but yeah I think one of them maybe the waterwork tower is literally just two right there um but I couldn’t film it you couldn’t see it from the bike but we’re going to follow it take a left here onto n road now handily this bit is actually sign posted if you see the little blue signs um it’s quite well sign posted which is always good now we’re coming up to Monument Road here and the problem with Monument Road is it’s really busy um so you could hop up on the pavement but we’re going to cross when I get a chance here but we’re just going to go straight over and take the first right onto cordor Cresent so you could always just W your bike over if it is a bit too busy for you it’s not particular nice bit to cross but we’re going to go through this little kissing gate and into the park and into Chamberlain Gardens now you I think there’s multiple ways you can kind of navigate your way around um ultimately we want to get to the other side of the park so it’s up to you how you actually do it um it was really nice to cycle through in the morning with all the blossom out um by the time I’m actually recording this the Blossom’s probably gone but maybe next year you can do it now drop Ling onto Huntley Road and we’re going to follow this down then um this is a one way um I think so if you’re coming like if you’re doing this route the other way I think you’d come on a different road but it would still take you to the park now we’re going to take a right here onto Francis Road and follow it up you got Broadway praa there to your left just to give you an idea of where we are that’s got the cinemar and stuff there as well and we’re now heading in the direction of Hagley Road which we’ve been trying to avoid all this time but we’re going to take a left now onto the pavement here rather than going actually onto the road itself we’re on this kind of mixed use pathway here and we’re going to rather than go on to five ways roundabout which would be horrible to cycle on to be honest we’re going to drop down and we’re going to cycle under it so we got this little bit for bikes here and we’re going to go under the road and follow this round and then cross back under the road now this bit on Broad Street is just crazy so for bikes technically you’re not meant to cycle all the way down Broad Street instead it directs you to go round and I’ve put this on the GPX file so if you do want to follow it you would go left here and then it wants you to go all the way around instead you know what no one’s actually going to do that just cycle along but just be careful because you’re cycling along a place with tram lines so you could for like it would be easy to fall on um if you were to follow the route it would then pop you out along this bit make you cycle along the trem lines for a little bit and then you take a right down there um I think this bit now you this is the little bit that they don’t want you cycling along but then from here from that sign onward you can cycle along here again so I don’t really get what they were trying to do with this to be honest um I don’t make your own decision is what I’ll say I’m not encouraging to go down it or not I’ve put the act on the actual GPX file it will take you the proper route but we’re coming now into stiner square and past the library um I really like what they’ve done with this place over the the last few years I think it’s a really nice space now a lot better than it was when you know there was a road and um it just feels a lot better to kind of be around now but we’re going to go over here and into the paradise development um this is where the old library used to be and instead I know a lot of people quite like the old library but I think this is a much more inviting space personally and we get into Chamberlain Square where we’re going to finish our a ride so thanks again for watching the video I hope that you found it useful if you got any other ideas for alternate roots or want to mention anything that I’ve forgotten please feel free to comment below I try to upload these videos as much as I can so don’t forget to subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss any Roots thanks than again for watching
2 Comments
When you exited the reservoir you can carry on to the end of Reservoir Rd and across the crossing (Monument Rd) to Ladywood Rd which would have brought you to the Hagley Rd. It's quite a quiet road behind the police station.
I hadn't known about that statue, been passed it thousands of times and always wondered who it was. I worked in Ladywood for 30yrs too 😂
Edited to add these are great vids, and a very useful resource for the brummie cyclists.
Question, do you know of any quiet routes from King's Norton to Acocks Green? My preference is canals and cycle paths/ parks as the roads are a complete menace.