Good news for cyclists: London has recently become pleasant and safe to explore by bike – at least in parts. The star is testing cycle routes across the British capital, from Buckingham Palace to Walthamstow. Part 1: the “Wandle Trail” nature trail and its architect Robert Nichols, who prefers to ride penny-farthings.
Sunny days like today are rather the exception in London, so we use the day for a bike ride. It starts at Embankment tube station in the heart of the city, right on the Thames. One of the oldest “Cycle Superhighways” runs here, the C3 cycle path, which connects the west of the city with the east. When it was set up in 2010, it was still light blue, and in some places it still is today.
Greetings from James Bond: starCorrespondent Dagmar Seeland is testing different cycle lanes in London. The first tour takes you along the headquarters of the British secret service MI5
© Montagestern / Photos: Dagmar Seeland; Catherine Delling
Luckily, the traffic planners quickly realized that paint on the street had never prevented a careless driver from parking illegally, and they now separated the two-lane cycle path from the roadway with curbs wherever possible.
Together with rickshaws, commuters in suits, tourists on rental bikes and the inevitable MAMILS (middle-aged men in lycra) women cycle along the Thames towards Parliament. It’s going to be short at Big Ben because the beautiful Cycle path, where it winds around the famous parliament building, briefly disappears into thin air in the heaviest traffic. But if you bravely keep to the left, you will find the cycle path at the end of the building complex, at Victoria Tower Park. Here we recommend a brief stop at the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst, the famous “suffragette” who won the right to vote for women in the kingdom over a hundred years ago.