Who rides the Grand Union Canal?

I ride it from Paddington to Alperton and back on weekends, sometimes with a mate on a Carrera hybrid (with red and white all-condition pros), and have seen a few Charge Plugs and some other fixeds.

Anyone from this forum ride it?

Used to love riding the Regents Canal, cannot help you on the who rides the Grand Union though.

/useless post

Only as far as Lisboa.

Pastis de nata!

I have ridden it from brentford out west, but it's not somewhere i would ride for pleasure. I imagine it gets very busy at weekends

I rode Regents Canal once.
Got to the bit with speed bumps along all the canal boats and saw the sign to dismount, but it looked like a bit of fun (this was on a MTB)...
Was subsequently shouted at by some of the residents there: "wanker!" "idiot!" "stupid person"
I claimed I hadn't seen the sign and walked my bike back over the humps with my head down, and they started to APOLOGIZE sympathetically!

Despite that, I have never ridden that canal again.

Ridden it from Northampton to Milton Keynes but that doesn't help

almost every journey i do contains a stretch along the canals
have done all parts within the M25 and even a few bits outside
limehouse basin to brentford is a nice afternoon ride when the sun is out
been out as far as amersham going west nice rural scenery once you get outside the M25 that way

I am considering doing the stretch from Hayes to Alperton, has anybody ridden this on a fixed/single speed?

yes, many times, no problem at all.
fixed on 23's

would you recommend that I change my tyres first?

i didn't

Hayes to alperton should be fine, it's further west where it can get choppy.

Hi Ebenzo, I ride from Alperton to Oxfod Circus (where I work) but had to stop in winter since there's not enough light (and admittedly I am not keen of the cold and wet weather). Mi bike is quite old and I am planning to buy a new one this spring. On a related matter I had a crash with a guy standing in the middle of the path near meanwhile gardens and also witnessed another cyclist taken down. I will open another topic as I am looking for other witnesses. Florent

I cannot create a threat for the time being: here is a link to the Kensal Town Towpath Public Consultation: http://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/consultations/current-consultations

I ride every day from hillingdon in as far as Little Venice. Great route now they have repaired the bit on the outskirts, but a shame they covered the tarmac with chippings.

I tried riding the Grand Union Canal the other day but kept getting cought up in duck-weed. Also my bearings have now seized up

Was that you I saw doing that, sorry about chuking bread bricks at you, I thought you were a goose.

actually, that's how i ended up in the drink - being goosed

<>

Myself and the girlfriend are looking at riding from Milton Keynes to London along the Grand Union Canal on Good Friday (weather permitting). We plan the 65 miles in one day with plenty of pub stops.

I've found various snippets of infomation from cycle-route.com and other such sites and forums.

Questions: Has anyone actually ridden this route?
Any sound advice?
I gather it is probably doable on a road bike, yes or would an Mtb be better?

Last summer me and a mate rode from milton keynes to uxbridge and then to slough ( along the slough arm) finishing at windsor. It was known as the weller ride. ( come to milton keynes by the style council to eton rifles by the jam) . I rode a pomp with 30mm cx tyres. He had a cheap atb. Both bikes worked well. Some very good pubs . The rising sun in berko does great beer and a ploughmans. The section in hayes isnt very nice . Perhaps get off at harefield and ride on the road to northolt. This will miss out the west drayton /hayes / southall section. It gets nice again by scrubs lane. Hope this helps
tl

Use hardy tires as the route can be quite thorny, I rode the lot in one hit with a group of mates, we had about 8 punctures between us.

Nice one Dicky and SB. Yeah I read about thorns. Cheers..

Done Paddington to Watford on the Brompton and on a seperate occaison, Watford to Luton again on the Brompton. Both for Football games.

Cheers pain.

Ok so I rode from Milton Keynes to London today with the Mrs. Loved it. After reading a couple of threads on the internet the general census was that an MTB would be best. I took a road bike with 23's. For 80% of the ride I was happy with my choice. Fortunately the ground was very dry and mostly either that canal path hard pack gravel or uneven tarmac. The other 20% was stoney, shake your fillings out rough. There was even a 6 mile bit across just grassy field. I would imagine this to be tough in the wet.

Loads of pubs along the route and great industrial scenery, if you're into that kind of thing. I would definitely ride the route again but maybe take the 100mm XC bike.

Only one puncture and we saw a couple of gypsies fighting.