London has its Cycleways but Britain has the National Cycle Network - twenty thousand kilometres of specially designated routes criss-crossing the country, most of it existing roads and paths with a smidgeon of additional infrastructure to improve the two-wheeled experience.
Every NCN route is numbered and signed (using a white bicycle on a blue background) and the longest of them all is Route 1. This stretches from Dover to the northern tip of the Shetland Islands, such is its ambition, taking in such delights as Hull, Middlesbrough and Aberdeen along the way. It's an astonishing 1721 miles long. It's also the only NCN route to cross London, entering through Bexley, exiting through Enfield and passing through my local neighbourhood along the way.
So let's go for a walk along NCN1 to see where it goes and how easy it is to follow.
» Sorry it's not a ride along NCN1 because me and bikes don't mix, but I'll try and point out where the cycling experience might not be ideal.
» Sustrans, who devised and monitor the network, don't provide a map of NCN1 but they do link to an Ordnance Survey map where it's all shown.
» You may find www.opencyclemap.org easier to use - I certainly did.
Let's pretend we've already ridden from Dover to Canterbury to Rochester to Dartford (via the occasional remote estuarine path), then hugged the Thames through Erith, Woolwich and Greenwich before popping up north of the river. We'll be heading up the Isle of Dogs, then shadowing the Regent's Canal and the River Lea, only occasionally diverting through a car park.
We start at the Greenwich Foot Tunnel where cycling is tolerated but not permitted. Hopefully the lifts are working, otherwise it's 90-odd steps to the surface. Bikes emerge into Island Gardens - the riverside park, not the DLR station - where refreshment used to be available from a kiosk and cafe but currently isn't. The nicest way to go would be straight ahead past the station and across Millwall Park, but NCN1 often chooses not to go the nice way in favour of a more cycle-friendly route.
Instead it turns left up a very quiet street, then right into a very quiet street which happens to be cobbled. Cobbles are by no means ideal but we'll be seeing quite a few more of them ahead, and what is a bike ride if not a mildly exhilarating adventure? The pub on the corner, the Ferry House, opened in 1722 and claims to be the oldest pub on the island. Pretty much everything north of here would have been extremely marshy at the time.
Ahead is East Ferry Road, the Isle of Dogs' central spine. It's not normally excessively busy but it's still surprising to see it doesn't have a cycle lane as so many key routes in Tower Hamlets now do. The delights of Mudchute Park & Farm are not for us. Instead NCN1 breaks off to duck underneath the DLR (it's ok, there is a ramp) and out onto Millwall Dock. We're aiming for the single bridge across the centre and a very 80s shopping parade where green barriers span the road and an unwelcoming sign says Pedestrian Access Only. Yes it is this way.
When NCN1 was devised the next street, Millharbour, would have been less of a skyscraper boulevard. It's possibly the most highrise street anywhere between Dover and Shetland. Next comes a backstreet zigzag where watching out for blue signs on lampposts is crucial (we'd have been scuppered if travelling in the opposite direction because one of them is missing). Only the teensiest bit of busy Westferry Road needs to be negotiated and then we're back by the Thames, where we're greeted by this...
This is the western edge of the Docklands estate where the land closest to the Thames is earmarked for a skyscrapercombo that's never been built. JP Morgan bought it for a new European HQ in 2008 but only ever got round to building the foundations before deciding to pull out. A narrow 'temporary' walkway hugs the riverside, blocked at regular intervals by a yellow chicane designed to slow down pesky cyclists. It's a right pain for those on foot too, and during lockdown has made social distancing miserably more difficult. NCN1 is not at its best here.
Beyond Canary Wharf the Thames Path continues through a private housing development where riding a bike is officially not permitted. Most cyclists ignore this edict but NCN1 has to comply so instead bears off early up Three Colt Street. This leads to another lengthy cobbled street, very close to Limehouse's Hawksmoor church which cyclists can admire as their saddle judders up and down.
At Commercial Road we find a proper toucan crossing, evidence that NCN1 has bespoke infrastructure rather than simply being a line on a map. Salmon Lane has the last shopping parade before leaving London, a lowly cluster of neighbourhood essentials plus an evangelical church that brands itself The Museum of the Book. And at the far end we head down to the Regent's Canal towpath via another bespoke intervention, a ramp that absolutely wouldn't be here were it not for NCN1.
Ahead lies a decent curve of towpath, which might mean dodging joggers but cunningly avoids some much narrower sections to north and south. NCN1 then takes advantage of Mile End Park, a linear greenspace which just happens to go in exactly the right direction and just happens to have been finished around the time the route was being planned. A mile-long sinuous path weaves north, with cyclists and pedestrians directed to separate channels, and just before the Green Bridge we find this...
This is one of the 1000 cast iron Millennium Mileposts installed around the network 20 years ago courtesy of Sustrans and the Royal Bank of Scotland. There are four designs - this one's The Cockerel by Scottish sculptor Iain McColl - and each contains a coded hieroglyphic disc. These combine to form the Millennium Time Trail, "a puzzling treasure hunt with a secret code to crack", which I suspect proved much too hard for most recreational cyclists to bother with (and is no longer promoted).
Crossing the Green Bridge cunningly avoids contact with the A11, after which Mile End Park's wiggles continue. NCN1 could just have hugged the canal but instead takes this slightly longer more interesting deviation, and is all the better for it. But eventually it returns to the towpath and sticks with it under the railway, past the pub and under Roman Road. Cyclists get a separate subway to pedestrians here (not that most cyclists and pedestrians appear to have noticed).
A few more cobbles intrude at the end of the Hertford Union Canal, mostly avoidably. NCN1 might then have followed this new waterway - it would have been the most direct route - but instead overshoots to take a friendlier route through Victoria Park with no lockside gradients to negotiate. The only problem is knowing when to turn off because the only blue sign is concealed behind a tree until you're almost on top of it and, worse, is now pointing in entirely the wrong direction. Like I said, you really need a map (or else to have ridden this way several times).
Let's pause there and come back tomorrow to ride NCN1 from Victoria Park to Walthamstow Marshes (and beyond).
