London-Cambridge route help

cheers hairnet - one criterion for a route is easy viewing on mobile - any ideas how to go about it with that one?

Setup a ride with gps account. Then copy to 'my routes'. then use phone app. or just amend yours by hand as it were...

Credit for the quality of this route should go to either YourAmericanLover or Ludd, I think. Not sure where I got the base route from!

Cool giving it a go now...

Nice embedding functionality

Credit for the quality of this route should go to either YourAmericanLover or Ludd, I think. Not sure where I got the base route from!

Not I, m'Ludd. My second route was a blend of Skive's route with some local advice from local people.

this
is a great route, which is largely the same.

Beware the ford at furneaux, it's 400m long and pretty shit even in summer...

Its called Violet's Lane and is actually now part of the river rather than a ford. Its waist deep in places. I waded through it for nearly a mile last week. It was swampy, mosquito-ey hellish fun.

Big shout out to all the posters in this one... Planning the trip for Weds. and can't wait! Go LFGSS!!! xx

Rode out on Sunday and it was ace, such a lovely route. The descent out of Chrishall is one of my favourite bits of road. Wide open smooth lane with bugger all traffic.

Thanks for the route!
I culled it for a route from Highgate to Saffron Walden via 1) Essendon 2) Hertford and Thundridge and joining your route just before the lovely Much Hadham

Absolutely gorgeous after Hertford. Anyone wants this gpx, just ask.

Anyone have any recommendations on doing this in reverse? Am going to try @Greenbank 's route on the way out and am wondering if I should just do the same in reverse for the return?

straight outta hackney is a decent route back

Looks good, will give that a whirl

Tour de France surely.

https://www.strava.com/activities/166403612

Evenin', I'd like to try Dartford to Cambridge, fixed.

I rode an 82 mile loop last week and survived without blowing up or catching fire so I'm hoping this ridewithgps route isn't hiding anything from me.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/23231191

Idea is to ride to Cambridge, eat some food,drink 1 Beer, catch a train back to Kings Cross then ride back to Dartford after looking out the train window for an hour or so thinking "owwww, my legs ache, maybe I'm too old/fat/daft doing this kind of thing".

Could any of you who've ridden it a few times tell me if there's a flaw in this masterplan, please?!

The lea Valley towpath is probably a bad idea outside of midweek. It'll be very slow going and pedestrian heavy.

Hi FMOAF, I've ridden a couple of different routes to Cambridge and this is my favourite. Once you turn off Epping High Road, it's nothing but lovely countryside.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/4087168

Awesome, thats the sort of help I need, thanks as always Backstop and 7ven.

I 'discovered' the Greenway on Saturday.... having ridden past the Beckton end of it about a zillyun times without taking note (duh!) of it's directness in getting me from (say) North Woolwich to Lea Valley Towpath pretty quick and straightly (new word?).

Tempted to do midweek now that I can, yey! Flipside is I think I can't take a full sized Scobswell on the train back to London during peak hours or such like.

Given where you are starting from, I'd use the Dartford crossing service or the Gravesend ferry and avoid cycling into London. Epping is a terrible place to ride.

The peak restrictions are directional, so you can bring a bike into London 4-7pm but not the other way. Liverpool Street is also an option if you want to be slightly further east, but it's slower and more stops.

I now have a preferred route from Bishops Stortford to Cambridge which runs more directly North course to the M11, I'll dig out the route. You could join/leave it between Manuden and Clavering rather than bother with Stortford town centre. There's a farm road that runs parallel and above M11 for a bit, it's pretty cool.
And don't forget to take the "DNA path" that runs next to the train line from Shelford to Cambridge station.

I'll dig out the route.

Yes please Hoefla.

I did a 63 mile test-ride yesterday to see if I could escape East Lundun's evil clutches and make it out to the M25 boundary using a mixture of Greenway and 7ven's route. Yey, I did it. Started at '3' (where I live) and and turned around at about '1' o'clock on M25, but via Stratford and the Olympic Park. Slowly beginning to find my way around that area, the Greenway is blocked by some 'works' near the Olympic Park and there were a lot of diversions because of a big event there but I managed to get around it in the end.

Had my packed lunch just off Lea Bridge road in park chilling out watching the world and Cormorants going by, s'nice :)

You'll be fine coming back from Cambridge, there are plenty of bikes on trains that leave in rush hour.

Cool, thats good news, thanks Andyp.

Ah thanks for the reminder, I forgot. It's this - https://ridewithgps.com/routes/2521128

The bit getting out of Stortford isn't great but you could join from Stocking Pelham easily. Having said that 7ven's route is also good :)
From north side of the ferry you can head fairly directly north through East Ham (not as scenic as the greenway but functional) then from Wanstead should be able to join Epping forest route. I wonder if there's a nice way outside the North Circular, ie. through Barkingside and avoiding Epping. I haven't done it though.

Thats brill, thanks for the help Hoefla.

I live really close to the Dirtford Crossing, so, using RwGPS yesterday I madethis route up to link with 7ven's crossing at Epping on the M25 but it still 'pulls' a bit to the West...
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/23292098

Not sure if it's helpful, but when we did the Lavenham ride a few years ago, we took a rather lovely route out of Brentwood (where we met), courtesy of Stu_F, that I remember fondly:

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/214251/

It's the bit between Brentwood and Ongar here:

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1607370

I suppose if you can get yourself up to Brentwood from the Dartford crossing, which seems quite straightforward, that might be a good way of bypassing London to the east.

From Ongar, it's easy to get to Stortford or bypass it, although in the latter case I think I'd go via Dunmow, as it's a total pain to get past Stansted on its eastern side. It may look like a detour, but it's much easier.