🚲 An incredible new way to cycle from Waterloo to Woolwich

You can cycle from Waterloo in south central London to Woolwich in south east London, entirely on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes.

The route is 16.4km long (10.2 miles) and makes use of the Cycleway 14, Cycleway 4, and the Thames Path, as well as various quiet streets and paths to connect them up.

If you find this video useful or you just enjoy watching it please remember to subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon so you’re alerted to new videos, as I try to post new ones like it every week.

And if you like what the channel is doing, you can also contribute to the London Cycle Routes Patreon below. It really helps keep the channel going:

http://patreon.com/londoncycleroutes

You can see a digital map of the route and download a GPS/GPX file to use on whatever device or app you want here:

https://www.komoot.com/tour/1629302641?share_token=adwoCWFHd1LN1snwq4Fee44UTndw4nXMJF8EEm6H4t8z3P0lhu&ref=wtd

And you can find a viewer-created and maintained map of all the London Cycle Routes videos here:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1h9Hxm57fPvZmcuSXajM_Wu0G0s6f_bs&ll=51.505213496092054%2C-0.1285238120117249&z=12

I also highly recommend the Safe Cycle London map for route planning, which is compiled by @SafeCycleLDN on twitter:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1XlpvN9R-Wg7qZHyezO8y-eVlftr4e0WX&hl=en&ll=51.516975804561284%2C-0.21828576419061996&z=11

hello and welcome back to London cycle routes today I’ll be showing you how to cycle from waterl in South Central London to woit in southeast London this ride takes around an hour and you can do the whole thing on quiet streets and protected cycle Lanes by public transport the same Journey takes around 40 minutes and requires a change of line so going by bike is is a little slower although this video does start and end at two transport hubs so if your final destination isn’t the station itself you might find but there’s not so much difference if you find this video useful or you just enjoy watching it then please don’t forget to subscribe to the channel as I try to post new videos just like it every week I’d also like to say a huge thank you to all of those of you who support the channel on patreon if you’d like to contribute too then you can find a link in the description below the video all right let’s get going so we’re starting outside water station on water Road and we’re going to head right down sandal Street sandal street is actually one way so if you’re doing this journey in the opposite direction you might want to use the adjacent Alaska Street which is two-way and comes out in more or less the same place that is the only one way section of this video though and the rest of it is entirely symmetrical our route today has three main sections the first section which we’re on now goes through traffic C streets around the back of Waterloo Station through Lambeth and souk these streets have had through traffic remov from them by filters like the one which we’re going through now which don’t let motor vehicles through either with signs that prevent them from going through or bards to physically stop them from driving that way generally for the first section will be on the main carriageway of the road but traffic levels will be very low thanks to these interventions the second section of the video runs on the newly completed Cycle Way 4 that’s a cycle way that runs on the main road with a fully protected Lane all the way from around London Bridge where we pick it up past Greenwich and then on its way to Charlton where we’ll leave it the third and final section of the video will take us on the temp’s path right into woit with a fully protected path that’s almost entirely separated from motor traffic although Riverside paths can vary in quality the one in the video today is really quite good and I’ll show it to you later when we get there one really requested feature in a video that people have been asking me for is to show them how to get from cycleave 4 around grenwich to the temps path so you can continue Journeys further east than Greenwich where the main road cycle W stops I’ll be showing you how to do that in this video so do stay tuned to find out for now though we’re following a tfl signposted route called cycle wave 14 you can see that by the fact that c14 is written on the ground with bike symbols and there’s also little green and blue signs on the lamp posts which say c14 this is mostly an onc carriageway Backstreet route although as you can see on the right there there is protected cycle Lane running in the opposite direction I love the little outdoor drinking thing that nukman street has got going on with the King’s Arms Pub there with seats on both sides of the road it’s a nice place to sit especially if you like watching bicycles go past which I think some people do find quite relaxing one interesting fact about Newan Street which I didn’t know until I did some research was that I’d assumed it was named after Thomas nukman the inventor of the steam engine in fact it’s actually named after a less famous nukan called Elizabeth nukan who died in 1674 having lived nearby and left all her property in trust to feed and clothe Poor Boys and Girls the money was partly used to set up a girl school which existed on the site until 1970 when it was demolished and replaced in part by the newly constructed gu’s Hospital site which is just around there now if you look on the right of that red rip building you’ll see that above the door it says London leather hide and wool exchange that’s because leather Market Street which is the street we’re on now was the center of London’s leather industry in the 19th century which is probably no surprise given the name now if you’ve ever been to a leather Tannery you’ll know it smells terrible and that’s actually the reason why it’s here because it used to be done in the city of London but the city London really really hated the smell and it was becoming a respectable Finance Center so they didn’t want that stench permeating the streets of the city so the leather tanning industry and its Associated trade was moved to buray outside the bounds of the city of London which is where we just passed through now today as you go under this Railway Bridge in Burmy you will smell something very different and that is the smell of roasting coffeee from the nearby mby Street Market which is just on the right if you do have time and you’re just doing this as a Leisure ride I definitely recommend visiting that market is a nice place to stop and get something to eat now just coming up is where we’re joining cycle Wave 4 on the main road wait for the cycle traffic light to go across but do just be aware that cyclists traveling on cycle Wave 4 don’t have a red light when we have a green light so you’ll just need to make sure that there is a gap in the flow of cyclists when you join join that lane be careful because there will be people cycling quite fast from both your left and your right and that isn’t necessarily immediately obvious from the signage now that we’re on C4 you’ll see that it’s a really high quality piece of infrastructure and really well used by loads of people on bikes scooters and all sorts of other Contraptions this is a two-way protected cycle track which means that in both directions we’re on this side of the road mod you just use the other side of the path like the people who are coming the other way are doing who you can see I’ve talked about the advantages and disadvantages of two-way paths versus with flow cycle Lanes in other videos on this channel so I won’t go into them in too much detail generally this is a really great piece of infrastructure but there are a couple of things that you do need to be aware of when riding down here particularly from a safety perspective one is that on Junctions which aren’t signalized so those that cross side roads like the one here without any traffic lights just be extra careful of drivers turning into and out of the lane that’s because not all drivers are used to two-way cycle tracks so they don’t always look in both directions when you’re cycling across them and that can sometimes lead to them driving into you accidentally so do just keep an eye out and be wary as you cross those non-s signalized Junctions because not all all motorists are really careful around them generally two-way cycle tracks work best along rows which don’t have too many side roads running alongside souk Park here like we’re doing now is a great example of that and there aren’t really many side roads here another classic one is the one that’s built along the embankment in central London where obviously there are no side roads along the river temps but in other parts of C4 particularly as we get closer to Greenwich there are more Junctions some of them are like this one here which as you can see has quite recently been painted blue there’s another one coming up just here in case you missed it people have asked me about this and what the reason for it is it’s actually a safety feature and it’s a visual cue so that drivers know that there are cyclists Crossing that in both directions that’s also why it has all these arrows and cycle symbols which is to try and give them a little extra hint to expect people coming both ways now there were and still are a few cycle l in London that were painted entirely in blue that was for a different reason uh that was because the original cycle super highways program under Boris Johnson was actually sponsored by Barkley’s Bank whose color is blue and it was chosen to paint the lanes as well as the original higher bikes now we’re coming up to a slightly problematic Junction here this one outside s station is problematic because it takes a really long time for for the lights to change and I hope that those will be tweaked to make them flow a bit better this second set of Lights here is also a bit of an issue as you can see motorists tend to squeeze through the red light and then onto the crossing when they don’t have a green light to go which is obviously really dangerous I know that the local cycling campaign has called for tfl or and sou counil to reintroduce a yellow box Junction there where there’s that yellow grid and if drivers drive on a when they’re not supposed to they get fined by camera I really hope that does happen because something needs to be done to deter people from driving down there as it is pretty dangerous and really uncomfortable to have to squeeze through cars especially when they’ve got a red light and you’ve got a green one now you may notice that different parts of this Lane have slightly different construction methods the part that we just went through was largely separated from the road with plastic ones whereas this bit has a much more high quality curb that’s because it was built and funded in sections this section was built pre and during the pandemic when there was still a bit of cash around for projects like this unfortunately tfl’s finances suffered significantly and so a decision was taken to build the middle section which we just went on using what are called temporary materials which are a bit cheaper and probably meant that the project could actually get done it’s not ideal but I think they’ve made a reasonable compromise to actually get it built so fair enough overall C4 is a really fantastic route which has completely unlocked totally new areas for cycling and also just made it safe to cycle on the main road which it wasn’t before one thing that I would change about it is it would be nice if London could start using a different colored surface for its cycle ways compared to the main road that would probably obviate the need to have those blue sections outside the Junctions I think it was actually a good idea to paint the original cycle super highways blue as it did just mean that it looked different from the rest of the street and you could tell what was a cycle Lane and what wasn’t maybe blue wasn’t the best choice of color I do like the red that they use in the Netherlands and also in some London borers like wol and Forest and other parts of the country I think sford uses red as well some places in London have traditionally used green and maybe they could go back to that but red does look pretty smart so maybe they should do that it’s probably too late for this particular cycle way and I’m not suggesting that it be resurfaced right now um it probably won’t be resurfaced for quite a while now I imagine but maybe it’s something that be could be considered for future projects cuz I think it would improve the look and feel and also just the visual language of the street and make it more intuitive to for people to know what’s a cycle Lane what isn’t now the eventual plan is for this onroad protected Lane to stretch all the way to woit and actually to plumstead and abbywood there are actually plans out for consultation on the tfl website which you can go and have a look at and they do look really really good for now though the lane kind of terminates around Greenwich and then there’s a further section past Greenwich which runs kind of to Charlton sort of area it’s not immediately obvious to everyone I think how those sections link up as they’re not actually obviously contigous but you can link between them and I’m going to show you how to do it now once we cross over over the depford Creek Bridge we’re going to turn left down Norway Street and head towards the Riverside which will take us around to cyark in the future you should just be able to head straight down that road which is turned off to our right but for now we have to do a bit of a detour it’s really not too much of a problem but it will be much nicer when you can just continue straight on the main road I think that will require the London B of grenwich to rebuild Greenwich town center and I think they have plans to remove the top arm of the gyrator in the Town Center which should also make it much nicer for pedestrians and just as a general place to hang out less dominated by motor traffic but it also have huge advantages for people cycling one of those advantages will be to avoid Cy s Gardens which we’re just coming up to now if you look carefully at the small sign on the lamp post there on our left it’s quite easy to miss it does actually say Noy cing is allowed in this area and I’m reliably informed that Greenwich council do actually sometimes enforce that or at least have in the past with civil Enforcement Officers issuing fines you’ve probably noticed that not everybody does spot that restriction and quite a few people do still cycle through here and that’s not really a surprise firstly because of how hard the sign is to see but secondly because it’s actually part of two national cycle Network routes National cycle Network routes 1 and four actually meet in cyak gardens so it is a strange place to have a cycling restriction which I suppose speaks to the quality of the national cycle Network in general in these videos though we do do our best to stick to the rules so I’ve dismounted through ctis Gardens and taken the time to look at the view and the rather lovely sailing ship for those unaware that is the Cy sck which was a tea Clipper now I’m back on my bike now that we’re through that area and I’m going to go through the Royal Naval College this is the easiest way to get through this part of Greenwich as it’s more or less traffic free and has a nice wide path SL Road unfortunately it does close at night and in the very early mornings so if you come here around that time you’ll want to use the River Front which is just to our left you can access that from ctis Gardens as well and then you can turn right and join us at the end of this gate where we’re just approaching now the riverfront during peak times is not a great place to cycle down as it’s a bit narrow and can get busy but given it’ll be night time if you need to use that it shouldn’t be too much of a problem as it would of course be night and therefore not PE time however you get through that section though you’ll want to turn into Old W road which we’re on now old W road is a really nice quiet street and the reason for that is that it’s actually had a modor filter applied to it that means there’s a Ballard at one end of it which closes it to through traffic meaning that all cars on here are just accessing homes and properties in the area the ballards are just here and we’re passing through them now it really does quien the street down quite a lot and makes a nice parallel route to Trafalga road which is running to our right just past those houses that’s much busier and doesn’t currently have cycle Lanes on it although when Greenwich town center connection is completed as I was talking about earlier there should be a good cycle Lan on there as well and you won’t have to come this way that is still a couple of years off but what is not a couple of years off is this section of cycle Wave 4 yes we are back on C4 and yes they built several different bits in an order where they don’t actually connect to each other that might seem strange but I think it’s because the Greenwich toown Center bit is probably the most expensive section that requires the most heavy engineering you can probably tell that this bit has also been built with temporary materials and to an extent it is a bodge job although it does work quite nicely and feels perfectly safe to cycle along it’s a shame that the bits don’t already connect up as this one does have significantly fewer people cycling than the other sections but I’m sure that will change when it’s more obviously being connected to the rest of the route which can take people into Central London from here now that cycle Lane actually goes all the way to new Charlton and Charlton station but we’ve turned off it a bit early to go down Armitage road this is my little route to connect us to the temps path which will hopefully be joining in a few minutes for now you’ll want to weave your way through these streets and not miss this turning here you are allowed to cycle on this path and that Ballard we went past actually used to have a blue shared space sign on but it seems to have fallen off you can see the little cycle symbols on the floor and also on the floor here there are blue Shar space signs showing that you are allowed to cycle on that section of pavement and this path as well this section of the route is a little bit fiddly and probably does have the worst way finding out of all of it in the whole video so if you do need to work out how to follow it or you think you might forget it you can always download the free map of the root which I link to in the description below the video it’s hosted on a website called Kut so you could use that app but you can also download the GPX file and load it into whatever app or device you choose to use it is a standard format for now though we’re using this rather handy bridge to cross the blackwall tunnel Southern approach Road it’s not amazing and it does have incredibly long ramps to go up it but that’s sort of to make them not too steep whilst getting over such a big Rose and as far as cycle Bridges go in London this one is pretty good I think it’s nice and wide and yeah you are allowed to cycle on it as you see by the cycle symbols leading up to it there are some kind of weird cycle Lanes here mostly good except for the lamp posts in the path which I always find strange when you build a cycle Lane do you not think that you need to remove them I don’t know I’ve never built one after you use this pretty decent cycle Crossing to get onto Southern way you do get onto another cycle path although do be aware that the construction site here has actually closed the pavement so you will find people walking along the cycle path since they’ve got no other option it is important that you do be courteous when they do that and just give them plenty of space now there’s a slightly annoying part of this route not because it’s difficult to cycle but because it has some contradictory signage on it which I don’t think is fair note the blue shared space sign on the pole and also on the floor again but then also the no cycling sign with a red cross tur it on those lamp posts this path through southern Park is a legitimate official cycle route but for some reason the developers and the private organization appointed to manage the park have put up these no cycling signs which contradict the existing signs saying you can cycle which were installed by the council the signs they put up are not legal traffic signs and they also don’t really make any sense especially next to the signs saying that you can cycle down here so I think it’s completely fair to ignore them if you disagree you can Dismount and walk your bike or alternatively if you want to avoid the park entirely you could go right at the park entrance using the shared pavement down West Park Side then turn left down PE Treeway and you’d meet us on the route around here here is of course the temps path which will become obvious as we go around this corner with a nice view across the river I’ve always found this section of the temps path to be absolutely fascinating as there’s so few places in London where you can cycle around so much heavy industry the aggregate conveyor belt systems up ahead are particularly impressive and just look really cool a lot of the industry around here is construction materials to fuel London’s building boom and the aggregate belts up ahead are basically big conveyor belts which transport aggregate materials so things like gravel sand Etc to and from barges Which pull up on the warf on our left to these asphalt and concrete plants which are on the right it’s a cool and really efficient way of moving materials around and means that so much stuff doesn’t have to be loaded onto lorries that means less traffic which is great especially if you’re riding around town on a bike one of the downsides is that those conveyor belts do leak a bit so if you see a lot of sand on the floor in some places that’s why by the way if you’re doing this route as a Leisure ride just take note of the anchor and hope Pub which we’re passing through now it’s a nice place to sit by the river and have a pint although there are some pretty nice pubs at the end as well if you can hold on the quality of the path along here is pretty variable but it basically works it can feel a little bit tight in places and the surface isn’t always the best but there is Street lighting along pretty much the whole thing and an effort is sometimes made to separate pedestrians and people cycling although it is a little bit inconsistent by far the best thing about this path though is the great view of the temps barrier which is just to our left there that is London’s flood defense and it’s meant to stop tidal surges coming in from the EST it’s an amazing piece of engineering and also an amazing piece of architecture one thing I’m also weirdly fascinated by is the massive environment agency logo on the Control building ahead of us who built it who decided it was necessary and is it the biggest environment agency logo in the country or even the world there are some things that I don’t know the answer to now for those of you planning to do this route after 900 p.m. you’ll want to pay attention here for some reason the gate at the far end of this street which we’re about to pass to shuts at 9:00 p.m. and is locked so there’s a diversion at night time if you see this purple and blue sign on the lamp post there it sign post the version just follow it this here is the gate that is locked and it seems like a silly thing to do and they should probably just leave it open I assume it has something to do with the high security status of the temps barrier but it still seems silly to me fortunately since I last came down this street the local Council seems to have patched up some of the worst potholes on Harrington Way which used to be terrible and has now been fixed up a little bit there’s also another gate here which you’ll have to go through you may notice that we’re following the q14 or quiet way 14 signage which although it really just directs you back to the temp’s path is useful on those bits where the path is a little bit more ambiguous and it kind of snakes through the roads away from the river front helps get you back onto the river front if you ever miss it of course you could just use the map of the route which I provide in the description one of those slightly annoying narrow bits that I was talking about is here you can see that lots of people are having to Swerve off the path cuz there just isn’t enough space the surface is also pretty poor and one thing to watch out for from a safety perspective are these paths leading to the housing estate to the right which emerge from the Hedge without warning obviously just go a bit slow down here as somebody might run out from there at any minute with blind corn like that I always like to imagine that a child is going to leg it out of there to encourage me to ride with the appropriate level of care by the way if you’ve made it this far in the video then you’re probably enjoying it whether you admitted to yourself or not so do make sure that you hit the Subscribe button on the channel for more videos just like it I do try and post new ones every week also Hammer the like button on YouTube it does help other people find the video as it boosts the video’s ranking in YouTube’s algorithm and recommends it to more people so yeah it is helpful one thing I also want to mention which I don’t talk about enough on this channel I should really mention in every video is that there is a map of all the different London cycle Roots videos also linked in the description below the video which you can use to help you find different routes around different parts of London there’s basically lines on the map and the lines linked to the appropriate videos it’s a brilliant way of doing it thanks to John and and Isaac who put that together for me you guys are great this is also a great opportunity for me to say thanks so much to all of those of you who signed up on the patreon whether you’re long-term patreon subscribers or you’ve joined more recently you’re all brilliant you guys do help keep the channel going whenever I’m thinking ah maybe I won’t do a video this week There’s a voice at the back of my mind going what will the patreon subscribers say so it’s great to keep me motivated but also it’s also just nice to get paid and reimburse for my time and costs if you’re not already on there and you are feeling generous then there’s a link in the description below the video we’re just passing through the woit ferry terminal here and one cool thing you might not know about it which is cycling related is there’s actually a cycle path which leads all the way out on the jetty so that you can cycle up to the ferry it’s actually marked with cycle symbols and it’s even on cycle Maps which is kind of interesting a bit of trivia here’s the ferry now it looks pretty impressive I’ve actually never been on it but I’d like to try it one day maybe I will do that I don’t really know why there are chicanes here because it leads directly onto a proper cycle path presumably when those development hoardings are lifted that cycop path will continue towards that ramp but either way I can’t really complain because the cycle track that they have built is pretty fantastic it’s nice and wide it has a great surface and it’s also even a nice color although it’s weird that they can’t decide whether it’s green or red I’m not sure why they’ve done it like that I think it looks better in red personally what do you prefer let me know in the comments below the video we’re actually going to leave the temps path now for the very final section of our video and we’re going to turn down number one street now this is a really unusual name for a street and I for the life of me have not been able to find in my research why it’s called number one street I suspect it has something to do with the fact that we’re going through the old woit Arsenal here but I can’t be sure from a practical point of view there are some cobbles here and you can bypass them with the smooth path on the left here although everybody else had the same idea too so I just went on the cobbles to go around them just north of w Road here we have almost a Town Square SL Village Green thing going on with two pubs which are both really Pleasant to sit out in these are the pubs that I promised you at the end of the bike ride unfortunately there’s not a cycle Crossing to get over W road so I’ve dismounted here I’m just going to walk to go into barisford square when Cycle Way 4 is finished there should be protected cycle tracks all the way down that road which we just crossed but for now there aren’t any and I’ve shown you the way to bypass them if you’re wondering what these construction Holdings are are here this is actually a project to rebuild barisford square and improve it as a public space which was funded with some government leveling up money as well as the council and various other sources of funding we’re going to end the video just outside wch Arsenal DLR station and uh I think you’ll agree that we’ve had a pretty long ride there I think this might be the longest video I’ve ever done on the channel it’s nearly half an hour long so if you’re still with me well done you are very committed or you just really enjoyed the video and should totally hit the Subscribe and like buttons let me know in the comments what you think of that as you can see from the map it’s incredibly direct despite the little detour that we had to do around cuty sck if you look at the Eastern end of the route though you will see that being able to stick to the main road when cycleway 4 is finished should make it even more direct I mean that we don’t have to do that little dog leg up to the river and hopefully that should save a good 5 or 10 minutes off the route which will be nice although it might be a bit slower if you have to stop at traffic lights on the main road which you don’t have to do on the temps path which is I suppose an advantage I’ve been wanting to do waterlot to wood for absolutely ages I was originally going to do it using the quiet way one or cycleway 10 route which is an alternative to Cycle Way 4 but I had to wait for for TSW to stop digging up old wch road which was that quiet Street East of the college they took absolutely ages to do that and by the time they’d finished I thought I might as well wait for cycle Wave 4 to open but then that also took ages but it’s done now so do send me your comments criticism suggestions and requests in the comments Below on YouTube thanks again to patreon subscribers and I will see you all again next time bye