Secret escapes from London

[ian]

Jurek is probably right, Escape from London is the sort of thing you need Snake Plissken for. Getting to the North Downs involves big roads or a lot of circumlocution. I know of only two routes, the Wandle Trail from Wandsworth Riverside will dump you unceremoniously in Croydon, which means an A23 run down to Coulsdon which can hardly be described as pleasant (but it's better than the A22, though that's like debating which kind of poo tastes best). Or there's a clamber up to Sanderstead and then Limpsfield Road and 60 mph traffic (there's a shared use pavement along the fast section post-Warlingham that just about makes it to the top of Titsey Hill).

The other is the Waterlink way (the aforementioned route 21) from Greenwich which gets you all the way in the most part off-road, but on variable surfaces and some circumlocution and occasional fuck-this-get-off-and-pushing. Dull soul-sapping suburban streets after South Norwood and the feral youth of New Addington are the delights that await. There's a nice whoosh down Spout Hill. Less fun if you're coming the other way. Another stiff gradient by footbridge over the A22. I'd suggest borrowing a helicopter.

[telstarbox]

That shared use bit past Botley Hill is useless because the council hasn't keep the vegetation cut. It's even difficult to walk along it at the moment.

[ian]

Tandridge did the verge opposite my house the other day, so I reckon in a couple of months they'll get there. The shared use path down the side of the A22 usually suffers the same overgrown fate. Neither road you'd want to cycle on, unless you're particularly passionate about being overtaken at 70mph.

[telstarbox]

Stretching the rules of the OP a bit, but Foots Cray Meadows is a good little escape just inside the M25. There's a bridleway which is easily passable on hybrid or gravel bikes.

[drossall]

Stretching my own rules slightly, last weekend I rode down from North Herts to Rickmansworth for a friend's boat warming. At St Albans, I joined first the Abbey Way and then the Ebury Way, which are part of Sustrans route 61.

I can hear legions of Rickmansworthers pointing out that they aren't in London, but they are inside the M25, and this could connect with at least one route suggested above. It's actually a quite enjoyable mixture of remarkably quiet country lanes at the north end (at least on Sunday when I was riding), and a railway path at the south, with some perfectly good housing estate roads connecting them. Only a short section at Chiswell Green was the low-grade, twisting, winding, narrow gravel track with poor sight lines that you sometimes get.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Comment from a non-Londoner: it strike me that the difference between London and other cities, in terms of getting out of it (or even into it), is not just its size but its "sprawl gradient". Almost every city has outskirts and suburbs which once had separate identities but there always comes a point where you can say This is (currently) the last building in this city; beyond here is fields, woods, heaths, whatever, until the next lot of buildings just over there, which is a different town/village/whatever. But London doesn't seem to have any such point, at least not in any direction I've ever entered it from. It just has miles and miles of suburbs which merge into the next identifiable separate town without a break. It's not so much that there is no greenery but that the greenery is not a place.

[orienteer]

That's what the green belt is for, it's quite a distinct border most places, but inevitably some built-up areas join up.

[Wowbagger]

It is possible to ride from London to Southend (45ish miles) with, probably, less than 10 miles of open country, between Upminster and Langdon Hills. Langdon Hills is now part of Basildon and there is scarcely a break from Pitsea (also part of Basildon) and South Benfleet, which gives unbroken urban sprawl all the way to Shoeburyness.

[ian]

Comment from a non-Londoner: it strike me that the difference between London and other cities, in terms of getting out of it (or even into it), is not just its size but its "sprawl gradient". Almost every city has outskirts and suburbs which once had separate identities but there always comes a point where you can say This is (currently) the last building in this city; beyond here is fields, woods, heaths, whatever, until the next lot of buildings just over there, which is a different town/village/whatever. But London doesn't seem to have any such point, at least not in any direction I've ever entered it from. It just has miles and miles of suburbs which merge into the next identifiable separate town without a break. It's not so much that there is no greenery but that the greenery is not a place.

If you pass into the outer boroughs, you'll find yourself amongst small towns and greenery very quickly yet still be within London. Villages like Downe (home to Darwin, and now spit, Farage), for instance are in Bromley.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Well, yes. It's both not-London and London.

[Jakob W]

It feels like this thread should result in a printed map.
...Ideally on silk and secreted within a Monopoly board.

If only we knew a mad* artist-maker with the requisite skills and tools!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

*In the non-pejorative and awesome sense, of course.