Commuting to London

[Crawf]

So I finally got a job in this god forsaken country and after only 1 week on the trains I had a had a gutful of shite overpriced public trains, so after a big layoff its time to get some km's into the legs.
My commute is 56km a day, thankfully not through central London, but from the South up to West London, working odd shifts patterns means half of my commutes are on dead quiet roads which makes a massive difference!
Thankfully I've also had a Garmin 705 to help me out, trying to remember 28km's of London streets is a little tricky for a foreigner, but it took about 4 days and many, many wrong turns to memorise the route. Should be interesting with winter approaching and... the snow.

I've started a bike journal to log my km's, anyone know how to add that into your sig?

[Tale]

Good luck - I've toured in England and ridden a few days in London, and it's a lovely country to ride in, but a tough and smoggy city to ride around. Fortunately they limit car traffic and have better public transport than Sydney, so it's far better on the roads than it might have been. I lived a winter in Glasgow, Scotland, and kept up cycling through winter with longs, a fleece and a goretex cycling jacket, but stopped when it snowed (started again when the cycleways were clear, but snow was piled up on the sides). It's very satisfying to have done a long ride in weather like that, when everyone else barely ventures outdoors! Nice warm traditional pubs are your friends.

[gavinr]

London is a lot more bike friendly than Sydney, although that has only been the case in the last few years, since the Congestion Tax forced people to rethink how they got around.

You might want to check out the Cyclists' Touring Club who are the main cycling support/activist group in the UK. The name is historical, they promote and support all kinds of cycling.

[KenGS]

Should be interesting with winter approaching and... the snow.

Down south you wont get all that much snow. And its only a problem when its the wrong kind of snow.
Lived in Woking for 6 years and had only a couple of days snow each year. The ice on the other hand.......

[pickle]

I've started a bike journal to log my km's, anyone know how to add that into your sig?

For your viewing pleasure: http://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14221

How is the ride through london? I only spend a few days near the centre of it when I was there, so I don't really know what it'd be like out in burbs.. Must be a completely different experience to Aussie land?