London Victoria - East Croydon route

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srw

It's a bit more complicated than that...
Suppose a person was looking at commuting to East Croydon, usually on the train out of Victoria. Suppose further that the person, familiar with the problems of Southern Railways, fully expected the train to be occasionally unreliable, and wished to have a backup, using the Brompton that the person will have conveneniently about his person as he intends to use it to get across London.

What route would you recommend a person took?
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
CS5 to CS7 southbound, then turn left onto London Route 5 at Clapham Common which clips Tooting Bec Common and then shadows a railway line. It gets worse the further out from central London you get and it's annoyingly slightly uphill pretty much all the time in that direction.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
I checked a map (novel, I know) and going via Dulwich and Gypsy Hill / Crystal Palace area could be a mile shorter but it's harder climbing so I wouldn't - and indeed never have :smile:
 

MichaelO

Veteran
I work near Victoria, and cycle in from Redhill area, so (sort of) come past East Croydon. The most direct, but depressingly busy, is the A23. CS7 on the A24 to Tooting is preferable. I usually come off that at Tooting Broadway and follow the A217/A237 to & through Wallington. You could go through Mitcham Common (A236) back to EC. A bit of a loop, but as said, better than the A23.
I've never taken a route to the East (Norwood/Herne Hill way), so can't comment on that.
 

Dec66

A gentlemanly pootler, these days
Location
West Wickham
I checked a map (novel, I know) and going via Dulwich and Gypsy Hill / Crystal Palace area could be a mile shorter but it's harder climbing so I wouldn't - and indeed never have :smile:
That's part of my commute home. Hilly, but not impossible.

Depends on how much you like a climb, really.
 
OP
OP
srw

srw

It's a bit more complicated than that...
That's part of my commute home. Hilly, but not impossible.

Depends on how much you like a climb, really.
Not at all! I'm on a two-speed Brompton, and am (to put it politely) not built for climbing.

depressingly busy
When you say "depressingly busy", do you mean "like Central London" or "worse than Central London"? My old commute took me along Holborn and Cheapside.
 
OP
OP
srw

srw

It's a bit more complicated than that...
On the A23 route, the biggest hill is the col de Brixton.
Which is bypassable via Clapham Common, although looking at the map and trying to make it correspond to my confused memories of riding through South London after midnight suggests that it would be replaced by the Cote de Queenstown Road.

I think I've been to that part of London much more often in the middle of the night than during the day....
 
OP
OP
srw

srw

It's a bit more complicated than that...
I'm not going to offer a route, it would be little better than guesswork. But a thought ... Consider riding to London Bridge, or riding a route that intercepts the LBG-ECR route.
That's what I did this morning, since I hadn't properly prepped my route onwards to Croydon. But it's a good 35 minute ride to LBG, and then I had to sprint up a staircase to the platform, hoping that the train displayed on one notice board was still in, and it's still 15 minutes to Croydon.

I think another time the hour or so ride will be more pleasant, even on a very muggy day.
 

mgs315

Senior Member
I don’t actually mind the A23 too much but then again I tend to only use it between Thornton Heath Pond and just past Streatham. Mostly bus/cycle lane the whole way and I’m using it at about 6am when I do.
 
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