Trip 10: Heathrow Terminal 5

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Two and a half months, two and a half spokes, hundreds of miles, one 100-mile detour and here we are. A quick round-up list goes like this:
Best station: Uxbridge. All the Piccadilly stations seem to be classic buildings. There should be more like them and fewer like those on the Central line.
Strangest ride: Must be a tie between the first and the last. North and South London fade into suburbs and parks and so on; the industrio-airport stretch East and West throws up some frightening rides and creepy desolation.
Surprise find: the Grand Union canal towpaths, which I kinda knew were there, but had never really explored.
Furthest: Epping. Worth it? Nah.
Nearest: Hammersmith (or Waterloo). Worth it? Nah.

And so today's last jaunt mostly along the A4 which beyond Brentford has one of those handy but often annoying side-of-road bike paths. What this means is it's very safe and comfortable, but when you come to a cross road it's very unsafe and uncomfortable; you have to either stop or crane your neck around to see if anyone's turning, or usually both, and then creep across or speed across as conditions dictate. So stop and go all the way, and getting out to Heathrow was never going to be easy, was it? Especially this time of year in the dark, the merciless traffic and merciless Tube workers (no you can't go on the Underground, not even just this once). But forget all that. The elation comes with counting down the miles out to Terminal 5, until you're there underneath what can only be called the superstructure. Planes overhead coming in and out; it's both the ultimate terminus point for London and the ultimate transit point for the world. And so the bike and this challenge gets retired ... but all the rest continues.

Trip 9: Elephant and Castle, Lewisham, Brixton, Kensington Olympia, Hammersmith

Life for many in London is nasty, brutish and south. There's not many tube stations down there and in fact you can visit most of them in about an hour. Otherwise the residents have to rely on buses and other road-using transport.

I'm not one of these people who is all snobby about south London, I mean it's got a lot going for it, but traffic is not one of those things. Or rather, traffic is one of those things, as it's got it in abundance.

I took an unexpected detour down memory lane this evening, on the way to Lewisham I realised I'd be going past Goldsmiths College, where I did my MA. I hadn't been back much since leaving but there it was.

You know how things are. They don't change much except for one thing that appears to be telling. A smartened-up pub down the street was about it. And a new shop called 'Rubbish and Nasty'. Art students, gotta love em. Otherwise there were a bunch of places I never went in, the proud Deptford Town Hall (where we took the Media Law exam) and the library.

Well there's only one stop left.


View The London Termini Project in a larger map

Almost done.

Trip 8: Euston, Walthamstow Central, Epping, Cockfosters, Mill Hill East

The longest ride yet and indeed the longest ride of them all. I started out from home base in West London. Of all the stations that barely count Euston perhaps counts the least however it is the end of an Overground branch and thus must be visited and ticked off the list.

From there it was through North London back streets, coming up Highbury in front of the huge and now slightly less-than-new football stadium. Through Stoke Newington where in true cliched style I met an over-friendly drunk within five minute of crossing the Islington-Hackney border. And then to huge new Clapton developments and crossing the Lea.



On the way to Walthamstow I had a fortunate accident. Coming down a hill a bus pulled ahead of the car that was ahead of me. I could not stop in time and smashed the guy's back light out. Not his fault - mostly the bus's - but the guy was nice about it. This prompted me to get my brakes replaced a couple of weeks later. Good move.

I was expecting Epping to be, well, more of a forest. Instead a commuter town like any other, a long main drag leading to the M25. Some pretty back roads, but these were only getting me lost. It was a windy day and the gusts were coming in the wrong direction.




And the hills. Oh, the hills.






Cockfosters, Mill Hill East. On the way home I got caught behind a Notting Hill carnival float. So yes this happened in late August. But we're almost there, the end is in sight.

Trip 7: Ealing Broadway, Uxbridge, West Ruislip

A gap is not necessarily a sign of inaction. It's been a busy late summer, with a few technical challenges, and in fact one of the main reasons for the challenge, the Oxford-Cambridge ride, has been and gone. 100 miles. I survived.


This ride actually took place six weeks ago, but already it felt like autumn was around the corner. First though the familiar streets of West London, then in Hanwell a detour, back onto the canal. At times this branch of the Grand Union is lined with huge factories, legacies from when the water was a lifeline and goods were shipped all over the place using this narrow stretch of water. Or the housing estates that have cropped up in their place - sometimes on their place. It's like riding through a tunnel.



At other points the canal widens out and dozens of boats are moored, bobbing up and down ever so slightly. Traveling by canal, whether boat or bike, is a slow (there are numerous annoying gates, to prevent motorbikes from tearing up the paths I suppose) yet satisfying way to travel.


Uxbridge is your standard edge city but with a tube station that must be one of the most striking on the system. It is a favourite for the nicest station visited on the travels. The final award is still up for grabs.



Even six weeks ago the days were getting shorter, and it was lights on over the few suburban miles to West Ruislip.

Trip 6: Watford and Watford Junction

A broken spoke is the most annoying thing that can happen to a bike. Not fatal in itself, but potentially so if it remains untreated – another will go, then another, and eventually the wheel will collapse. And in London you can never find a bike shop that is willing to immediately take your money. It’s always ‘come back on Saturday’ or ‘our mechanic is on his month-long holiday’. Where are the friendly neighbourhood bike mechanics who do minor repairs in a few minutes? They seem to exist in every provincial town. Perhaps they’ve been chased out of the capital by high rents.





For Trip 6 I tried a new navigation system. Map out the route on Google Maps (it’s ‘walking’ directions are the best, though not comprehensive as they don’t include off-road bike paths). Study that route – study it hard. Look at it like you’ve never stared at a screen before. Then figure out the key points and write them down on a post-it note, handily available in the front pocket to check at red lights and other opportune moments. This should limit the amount of time waiting for the iPhone to find itself, co-ordinating your real-world location with the electronic map location, or just trying to find yourself on the blizzard of paper scraps that is a printed-out Transport for London map.












So here’s the Edgware road again and the back streets of Willesden, the vegetarian Indian restaurants of Hendon and the ignored 40 mph speed limits of the northern suburbs. Watford and its sibling Watford Junction, which has an ugly office building tacked to the top of it, almost like they were running a competition to see if they could make a train station look worse than all other train stations. We have a winner. But still no spoke.

Trip 5: Bank, Tower Gateway, Aldgate, Stratford, Upminster

Nobody should cycle through the City of London unless they have to. But there are three nearby stations on my list, so I had to. Dodging aggressive taxis and aggressiver city dudes, I was at the first stop in five minutes.
Now I have no objection to financial workers getting into the office on time, but I do wonder whether there was any better reason for the Waterloo and City line (of which Bank is one of two stations - and is thus a terminus) than shuttling people to work in the morning. And if that's the case, why does the Chelsea-Hackney line remain perpetually on the drawing board, when there must be plenty of nannys and baristas on East London buses?
Oh well. Public transport rarely makes sense. I went by the shiny Tower Gateway, a rare Gateways that actually looks like a Gateway, and then hiked the bike up the one-way Minories to Aldgate. After this little rat run, through the chaos and smell bath of Whitechapel, and then a straight shot down nicer roads than in my previous East London encounter.
Stratford is busy and will only get busier, and today everyone's scurrying around trying to avoid the rain. Further out, a big sign on Becontree town hall brags that the council has not raised taxes. Across the street a sad housing estate has too many windows and not enough glass. Looks like one council should probably be spending a bit more.
Upminster is an end-of-the-line station that resembles a mid-line station because of the overground that shoots through way out into Essex. Not even a chip shop, and even the WH Smith is closed at a relatively early hour (a straight ride, like I say, plus I must be getting faster).

Trip 4: Amersham and Chesham

I suggest drinking half a dozen pints then waking up early to cycle long distances. It works.
Today began not from the centre of town but from the homestead. I think I will be forgiven for this bit of cheating as today was also the longest ride yet; to the far reaches of the Metropolitan Line.



I made an early rediscovery: the Grand Union Canal. I think the next challenge will be cycling the whole length of it; Saturday morning it was quiet, and I shot out to Wembley in no time.



I managed to find a few quiet roads to get through Hillingdon (which is roughly the size of Poland). But every turn seemed to take me up another hill. My reward came on the other side of the M25. Farms, horses, blackberry bushes (although only 1 berry in 10 was edible).



But the true indication that I was no longer in London came when an absolute stranger said hello outside Amersham station. Goodbye big city.
From there it's a mercifully short couple of miles to Chesham, and the furthest extent of the Tube.


Chesham has probably the smallest station on the Underground; me, an old lady and her dog barely fit inside. We're out there all right, and it's a long way back.

Trip 3: Waterloo, Clapham Junction, Morden, Wimbledon, Richmond

This was always going to be one of the fun ones. South to Wimbledon and back up through Richmond. Parks, pubs and side streets all the way. Well some of the way. Probably on the part I missed out due to getting lost.
I blame Transport for London. Unoriginal but true. For this time I decided to use their travel maps. For cycling, they're next to useless. The printer spews out sheets and sheets in near random order (always north to south, even if your route is south to north). You end up with something that is basically a jigsaw puzzle. Not the most convenient thing to be speeding around with.
Over the bridge and Waterloo first. I'm starting to wonder if by photographing rail termini, I'm attracting the attention of the authorities at all. Is anyone snapping my picture on CCTV? The cops haven't grilled me yet.





Waterloo isn't the busiest station in the UK; that's Clapham Junction. A few twists and turns (TfL suggest going over Lambeth Bridge, then back over Chelsea Bridge, then oh nevermind) and I'm there. Then it's a long smooth shot to Morden. You know the one. The end of the Northern Line, you're waiting for the Tube and you want the announcer to say 'MOR-DOR' instead of, well, Morden.



A short sprint over some tram lines, another wrong turn, and Wimbledon, and then really got interesting after that point. Through Wimbledon Park, where I took a wrong turn - totally myself to blame on this one. Thinking I had chanced upon a shortcut I went down a path signed 'cyclists allowed - give way to pedestrians'. Usually if cyclists are allowed you think the path is a decent one, ie, cyclable. This one was, but barely. I freewheeled 10 minutes down a loamy gravel and dirt track, reminding myself that I've got to adjust those brakes. No pedestrians in sight, which is good because I wasn't giving way to nothing.

It was getting late and I was put further behind by Richmond Park closing at the odd hour of 8:10 p.m. Around the park then, the long way. Even now, the days are getting ever-so-slightly shorter, and so once again it was the District Line home.
An updated map, with routes and everything, is here. More than 26 miles and that doesn't include all the wrong turns, so this one was longest ride yet.

More visuals

List of stations now on Google Maps. Watch as visited stations magically turn from red to green.

Trip 2: Edgware Road, Edgware, Stanmore, Harrow & Wealdstone

I was going to do this in a logical, methodical way, going counterclockwise on the map starting in the south-east. But that would mean this trip would have covered some of the same ground as the last one so for variety's sake I'm mixing it up.
Trip 2 started the way I usually go home on a normal day, down The Mall and through Green Park, avoiding death at Hyde Park Corner. Instead of carrying on through the park I went north to Marble Arch.
I never thought about Marble Arch the same way after I learned it was the site of the Tyburn gallows, and thus one of the most grisly places in London.
That smell is not burning flesh; instead it is all the shisha bars lining the Edgware Road. No one in their right mind would call Edgware Road station a terminus, but as a lame flange of the District Line stops here, it fits my criteria. Picture taken.
Then from the station up the actual road. Two questions come to mind on this Roman-straight thoroughfare, the A5. Will it ever end? And: How can people possibly eat this much fast food? But for all the chicken joints and boarded up shops there are some gems: enormous mansion blocks, Victorian pubs, the Luminaire.

I reach Edgware in about an hour. It is comically small; it looks like the back entrance to a mall. But from here it's down a series of suburban streets and up a hill to Stanmore. I just about start to feel like I'm out on the fringes now, leaving the chicken bone lined main roads behind. The houses are neat, the roads are only slightly curvy. It's not a huge hop to Harrow and Wealdstone. Wealdstone, if you squint, could be mistaken for a village somewhere out beyond Tubeland. The station is the best I've seen yet. Not saying much, but impressive nonetheless. Station road is relatively quiet until the Bakerloo line pulls in and the people flood out.

(under)Ground rules

Some ground rules. I’m using the standard Tube map as of July 2009 (so the DLR is included, as is the Overground, but not Croydon Tramlink or anything like that). A terminus is where you can’t go any further on one particular line. That sounds obvious but it’s important. Take Woodford, on the Central Line. A lot of trains end there, but you can continue on the same line, so it doesn’t count. Barking on the other hand counts even though you can go further out on the District Line; the Hammersmith and City and Overground end there. If it’s not a train line on the map it doesn’t count; thus no East London Line – which makes sense because one terminus would be Shoreditch which is no longer a tube station and will not reopen.
By these rules there are 36 termini:

1. Woolwich Arsenal (DLR) - Done!
2. Beckton (DLR) - Done!
3. Barking (Hammersmith and City, Overground) - Done!
4. Upminster (District)
5. Epping (Central)
6. Stratford (DLR, Jubilee)
7. Lewisham (DLR)
8. Bank (DLR, Waterloo and City)
9. Elephant and Castle (Bakerloo)
10. Waterloo (Waterloo and City)
11. Brixton (Victoria)
12. Morden (Northern)
13. Clapham Junction (Overground)
14. Wimbledon (District)
15. Richmond (District, Overground)
16. Heathrow Terminal 5 (Piccadilly)
17. Ealing Broadway (District, Central)
18. Uxbridge (Piccadilly, Metropolitan)
19. West Ruislip (Central)
20. Amersham (Metropolitan)
21. Chesham (Metropolitan)
22. Watford (Metropolitan)
23. Watford Junction (Overground)
24. Stanmore (Jubilee)
25. Edgware (Northern)
26. Mill Hill East (Northern)
27. High Barnet (Northern)
28. Cockfosters (Piccadilly)
29. Walthamstow Central (Victoria)
30. Euston (Overground)
31. Hammersmith (Hammersmith and City)
32. Harrow and Wealdstone (Bakerloo)
33. Kensington Olympia (District)
34. Tower Gateway (DLR)
35. Edgware Road (District)
36. Aldgate (Metropolitan)

Trip 1: Woolwich Arsenal, Beckton, Barking

Here is the challenge. I am going to cycle from the centre of London (traditionally Charing Cross but I'm gonna start at my office nearby on the Strand) to each terminus station of the London Underground. With all the branch lines, there are by my count 34 of these.
The reasons are as follows:
1. I need to fit in some bike training as I have (perhaps foolishly) agreed to cycle from Oxford to Cambridge (or was it the other way around - reminder to check that) with my father-in-law in September.
2. I like watching the city peel away.
3. And so I figured this would be a good way to get some bike time after work and see a lot of places I wouldn't normally get to.
Today I started by going east, out to the ends of the Docklands Light Railway. Not underground I know, and some may dispute its status - but I figure, if it's in colour on the Underground map, it's part the underground.

After crossing over to the south side I followed National Cycle routes 4 and 1 through south-east London. I've gone this way before, on a ride down to Kent (rain, flat tyre, getting lost too much stuff - all bad). Those routes tend to shove you off the main roads which can be kind of annoying if you're in a hurry. But I like the neighbourhoods around there, a hodgepodge of houses and buildings, no apparent plan, usually an old boozer down a side street keeping open against all odds. And sometimes, just sometimes, you get some great river views.
Let's not get too excited. On either side of Greenwich things can get pretty grim. So I sped down the Woolwich Road towards the first stop, in fact the newest terminus terminal, Woolwich Arsenal.
It's a bright and shiny new station in a dusty square with weird chalk lines on the pavement, as if cars or buildings died and their corpses were outlined right there.
After bagging the first one I moved with haste towards the ferry terminal. I had a thought to take the foot tunnel but the rule is: if possible, always take a ferry. I recall an incident in a car with a certain friend who shall remain nameless, driving 40 miles out of the way: 'Um ... that's not a bridge; that's a ferry.' This is the peril of being so far down river: If you're stuck in Woolwich with any sort of vehicle larger than a bike, you have to go all the way back to Zone 1 if you want to get back north.

So here it is. The ferry takes about five minutes and is free and is run by a bunch of cockneys who, lacking entertainment, have made up a lot of rules that they can enforce for a bit of fun. They must be the last cockneys still working on boats.
Past City Airport and I soon come to the second DLR terminus, Beckton. Small, quiet. Doesn't look like an endpoint and that's because National Rail continues east.
There's a short path past the station that is leafy and lulls the bike rider into a sense of complacency before the realisation that in order to continue you have to go alongside a huge highway aka the A11. At this point I overshoot somewhat and have to backtrack to get to Barking, which is closing for the evening.
Barking's somehow not as sad as Woolwich, despite the boarded up houses and the fight breaking out in the station. But there's all sorts of folks milling around, getting home, waiting for a Hammersmith and City line train that takes half an hour to show up - and tonight I'm one of them.