Adventure Bike Rider Forum

I went into London on the bike yesterday for the first-time in a year because I had a couple of meetings and seeing as it was a nice day I thought I'd rather be on the bike than on the tube. Anyway, I covered about 60 miles over a 6 hour period, including stops, in a loop from Watford, to Hendon, to Park Royal, to Park Lane, to Knighstbridge, to Shepherd's Bush, to Chiswick to Heathrow, and then back up to the Uxbridge area. I only mention the route because that's a fair chunk of North West/West London and I was on a mixture of main arterial roads and cut throughs from about 10am to 4pm. However, over the whole day I only saw 2...yes 2...other bikes, which really surprised me .
Usually, I'd see anything from a fully loaded GS Adventure to a Ducati Panigale at virtually every junction... .
Has everyone stopped riding in London...?

How many scooters did you see though?

Godspeed wrote: ↑Thu Oct 14, 2021 10:39 am How many scooters did you see though?

Plenty of those ...as always...

ULEZ dun it

You won't see many between 10-4, still a fair few on the commute though. The scooter is the delivery king & who rides a motorbike in London for 'fun' , apart from you lol.

I'm sure queuing for 2 hrs 3 x a week to fill up has put a few bikes into storage, I'm using the ebike as life is too short for that kind of time wasting

P4ulie wrote: ↑Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:39 am You won't see many between 10-4, still a fair few on the commute though. The scooter is the delivery king & who rides a motorbike in London for 'fun' , apart from you lol.

... ...my experience over 25 years has been different and that's kind of why I posted...I've usually seen bikes pretty much everywhere in London, at anytime of day...but I guess times are changing

People that can afford loaded gs's and ducatis have moved out of London. I almost never see bikes on the m25 at 7pm between Heathrow and M40 turning. Even in summer and before the pandemic. Cars at snail pace.

redbikejohn wrote: ↑Sat Oct 16, 2021 1:20 am People that can afford loaded gs's and ducatis have moved out of London.
I almost never see bikes on the m25 at 7pm between Heathrow and M40 turning. Even in summer and before the pandemic. Cars at snail pace.

I guess so. Average speed is about 20mph. .

Had to really watch your speed during lockdown as it was empty. Filling up now though so there are almost daily speed restrictions. I do whatever the overhead gantry says, carving through the tun boxes on my trusty old xt660z.

That bike is doing you proud....how many miles now?