Fair weather cyclist wants to bike in London-- help!

I have no experience biking in London, but maybe take a bike tour to get a feel for it before you hop on a bike share and head in to traffic. Here's an option, I'm sure there are more.

As a regular cyclist I personally enjoy cycling in London but to be honest I am probably in a small minority. The traffic can be very heavy and quite often unforgiving. However, there are now quite a large number of cycling routes, a number segregated from other traffic. You can find out a lot more about cycling in London at tfl.gov.uk.

The suggestion to start with a bike tour is a good one.

Yes John above has some good advice. It is quite a risky activity when you get out in traffic, but you just need to weigh that up as an adult and do what you can to cycle safely. Lots of people do it every day.

A bike tour might be a good idea. I also thought maybe a Lime or Santander bike hired around one of the Royal Parks and have a ride around some of the bike paths, somewhere like Hyde Park, to get accustomed. Lime is hugely popular all of a sudden this last year or two. There's lots of bikes around to pick up. The Santander bikes from Transport for London are looking a bit dated these days, lacking electric power. Both systems seem to work well, bike availability seems good, though I don't have personal experience, always having my own bike.

I think a day or so as a pedestrian observing how others are riding, and how the traffic is moving, is a good idea. There's lots of separated bike lanes, but they can be pretty hectic in central London too. Don't be afraid to get off and push if anything seems a bit daunting. Riding on the sidewalk is not advised (illegal tbh), but in reality it does happen quite a lot.

I'm a pretty fair weather cyclist too. I've only taken a bike into central London a handful of times since I've lived in London. I do a little cycling around locally though.

John mentioned Transport for London's website in his post above. Here's a link to their cycling home page -

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/cycling/

Here's their guide to cycle routes in London -

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/cycling/routes-and-maps

when the bikes were just boris (I hate the man now) bikes and I was a bit younger and foolish I used to ride them quite a lot - except when the digital key didn't work which was far too often.

pros:

you can get somewhere quite quickly especially if you don't obey the traffic laws.

you get fresh air

you can stop when you like, and change your mind

cons:

they don't come with helmets and you won't want to pack one in your luggage on the off-chance so your bonce will be skid-lid free. How risky are you comfortable with? There are quite a few fatal bike accidents every year in London.

bike segregated lanes still have to cross intersections

the biggest and most frequent hazard is other cyclists - food delivery and messengers especially, who pay no attention to red lights, riding on pavements, under taking (passing on the left, completely illegal) and weaving. There are plenty of collisions

not everybody gives tourists on bikes a lot of time or space

you will be mixing it with loads of construction trucks (don't EVER take them for granted and NEVER undertake, many of the fatal accidents involve them, even though they have warning signs and a barge board on the near side), buses, taxis, rickshaws, pedestrians including tourists looking the wrong way, traffic, and emergency vehicles

It is a question of a balancing act, weighing pros and cons...

Good luck - I hope you get your dreams to come true

I am a very cautious and not terribly experienced cyclist

that worries me

I've used the Santander bikes a few times (Boris Bikes, as we used to call them). I love them. You don't need to fight traffic; what I enjoyed was riding through Regent's Park or Hyde Park. I did used them for a few local trips on the streets as well and had no problem, but I'm not sure I'd want to use them on, say, Oxford Street.

For use on the streets, definitely check out TFL's website for dedicated bike lanes.

Please think again and again before bicycling through the central London streets if you aren’t an experienced cyclist! The streets are very crowded, other cyclists and cars are erratic to say the least, and the cycle routes, having been squeezed in after the roads were established, are usually narrow and stop or move around as space allows. I live in the suburbs, am cautious about cycling even there and wouldn’t dream of cycling in the city.

The suggestion of cycling through one of the big parks is a much better idea and much pleasanter than on the streets, anyway.

Thank you all! Lots of great advice.

I'm going to do the Transport for London (TFL) online urban cycling course (https://cycle-skillsonline.tfl.gov.uk/learnerhome.php) and a bike tour sounds like a good idea before I try a bike share.

I have a Closca folding helmet that will fit in my bag. I don't love it but it serves the purpose.

My apologies, I should have been clearer-- I've been biking since childhood but only started riding outside of my neighborhood regularly when Boston finally put dedicated connected bike lanes through the city. I live in the city and commute 3-4 miles to Beacon Hill around 90+ days a year. Of that trek, 2 miles are on a bike-only path not connected to the street, and the rest is mostly in dedicated bike lanes. I don't like cycling in traffic even where the pattern is on the right.

With that in mind, from what Nigel said, it doesn't seem likely I can use bike-share as a replacement for the tube, but maybe can do a few trips.

TFL has a decent map of where dedicated paths exist (https://tfl.gov.uk/maps/cycle?intcmp=40402) and a lot of the canals allow biking on the towpaths (https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/things-to-do/cycling)

Thanks again, everyone! Very helpful.