Keep out of Victoria park, Hackney at night

Kingsbury & Northchurch? What were the details? I ride this way all the time.

Sorry to hear about the Victoria Park troubles.

shit, i use three of those roads many times each week :-(

Kingsbury Road by the bridge used to be worse (there used to be a funny block on the bridge that made it very easy to block a cyclist after first hiding behind the block) and attacks have definitely gone down, but last summer there were again a few reports of muggings. If when you enter KR northbound you see people gathered on the bridge it is sometimes likely to be a better idea to turn round and do King Henry's Walk or Kingsland Passage/Kingsland Green/Boleyn Road.

There was one very nasty incident in Northchurch Road a few years ago where IIRC a woman was badly injured. There have been intermittent reports of other trouble, but not as serious. On known cycle routes, attackers sometimes lie in wait as they can be certain that cyclists will be along at certain intervals.

Most of the victims of the reported assaults were women.

Generally, even these streets are fairly safe, so don't be too alarmed but use caution. As others have said, when you're riding your bike you are far less likely to encounter trouble than if you're walking, but after dark, populated main streets are a better bet than badly-lit, narrow places like towpaths etc. If you feel really unsafe using main streets, get some cycle training.

And yes, the canal pushing-in problem continues, although I'm pleased that British Waterways have just employed their first towpath ranger, Joe Young. A very poor picture of Joe is in this PDF:

http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/media/documents/BWL_Tourism_Afloat_Autumn_08.pdf

Say hello if you see him. He came to our December Hackney Cyclists meeting and is a friendly but assertive guy. He will be a good person to report any such incidents to. He's due to build up a larger team of rangers. Currently, it's only him, for the whole of the London canal network, but that's going to change.

It's very important that public spaces are well-managed and the increased presence of such rangers will be a very positive thing for safety. With local knowledge, they will be in a much better position to follow things up than police (and involve them when necessary). But still, it's not really worth risking the canals after dark.