Route Advice - Bow to Shepherds Bush

Hey, UTFS allready and nothing came up - I'm sure this might have been covered before, (in a broader west to east sense maybe) If someone can point me in the right direction that would be grand.

Within the next few weeks I might be having to commute to work everyday in shepherds bush green from bow, (near bow church dlr) Have not been riding in London for long and it's about 3x the length of the commute I'm doing allready. What route would people recommend? I'm not adverse to riding in traffic, and I need a reasonably fast route as I don't want to spend ages doing it everyday (anything under an hour is good) Also I'm a bit hopeless with a sense of direction so relatively straightforward routes would be welcome rather than lots of backstreets. My initial idea was whitechapel high st/embankment/greenpark/through hyde park/bayswater/holland park - looks the most straightforward - Whats the embankment like during rush hour - I'm assuming not good.

Cheers

-Tom

I travel from W12 to N16 and when I've gone through central found it much slower than Euston Road.

How about looping past angel, pentonville rd, euston rd (including the tunnel if your gearing is right), sussex gardens, bayswater road?

This is a ride I used to do this a long time ago. I would avoid Bow, Mile End & Whitechapel roads by going via Devons Rd, Ben Johnson Rd, Stepney way. They are building a Hospital over Stepney Way

I found that going through the City to Holborn and New Oxford street was quicker and safer than the Embankment. On reaching Oxford Street I suggest you go N and ride down along Cavendish St or similar through to Marlebone High Street and then towards Paddington where you can either turn S @ Marble Arch or go onto Sussex Gardens. Ride down Sussex Gardens to Notting Hill and Holland Park and onto Shepherds Bush.

Oxford Street is Hell .

Tom I do that route you originally suggested every day as my commute, well almost.
Ealing-Acton-Shepbush-Holland Park-Bayswater-Hyde Park-backstreet through Picadilly-Northumberland Ave-Embankment-Tower Hill.
I've only been doing it a couple of months, and there's lots I want to change - but comments so far

Holland Park Avenue isn't much fun - but necessary (I haven't found a way to avoid it yet)
Shep Bush Roundabout is not that daunting once you get used to it, just pretend you're a car and pick the right lane.
Bayswater is fast but ok, I cut through Hyde Park then across Park Lane, down Brook Street and around Saville Row and pop out on Picadilly (this is sometimes v slow and clogged).
Traf Square is a pita, but once I'm on the embankment its really fucking quick - I actually much prefer it.

I used to ride through Strand,Fleet St, Aldwich,Ludgate Hill,St Pauls - don't do this, it's incredibly slow and the road surface is really bad - traffic is badly behaved and there are a lot of narrowing streets and an inordinate amount of peds (especially at St Pauls) and traffic lights. Aldwich is horrible.

Hope that helps a bit.

I'm looking for a better way coming back from the Embankment to Bayswater section, avoiding Traf Square,The Mall, Constitution Hill and Hyde Park Corner.

Cheers for the advice guys, I did think about along the the strand but expected it to be horribly busy. Euston road is one option but A it seems to take me further north than I need to go, and B It sounds a bit hellish. I was of the opinion although fast, the embankment seems wide enough for it not to be much of a problem.

Clefty - How long does it take roughly?

Also thought birdcage walk - westminster bridge as an alternative to get onto the embankment to avoid trafalgar square possibly?

I would use nthe following route: Old ford Rd, Bonner Rd, Hackney Rd, Old St, Clerkenwell Rd, High Holborn, St Martins Ln, Mall, Constitution Hill, Through Hyde PArk via Serpentine Rd and West Carridge Drive, Then Bayswater and Holland Av.

This would be the most stress free route imo

Oh and +1 to avoiding Euston Rd, The Strand (filtering is hard), and Oxford St

On a good day West Ealing to Tower Hill (about 13 miles), will take an hour for me (and I'm quite slow)
The Embankment is fine, seriously - as you say wide enough to not be too much of a problem with fast traffic- . When I went the Strand/St Pauls way it added another 20 mins to my journey.

I'll check out the birdcage walk/westminster thing thanks.

down to embankment all the way to shepherds bush via chelsea
pleasant not too busy compared to oxford street or a40

^actually yes, I use this route on my way back from South beers after Battersea Bridge and it is really fast - you mean up Cheyne Walk and Warwick Road etc Dicki?
I might try this tomorrow.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Bow+Rd%2FA11&daddr=51.4801,-0.18022+to:Shepherd's+Bush+Green,+London+W12,+UK&geocode=Ff5BEgMdlrX__w%3BFSSGEQMdBED9_ynjP8OkewV2SDFBP202xoUREw%3BFcTgEQMdb5z8_ynlj0OxxA92SDHf0NdQUAsmrA&hl=en&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=0&sz=13&via=1&sll=51.520493,-0.048409&sspn=0.064943,0.153637&ie=UTF8&ll=51.506178,-0.125313&spn=0.129926,0.307274&z=12

Sorry for the huge URL - So something like this then? One of my colleagues mentioned the wind along the river could be a bitch sometimes - Any experience of this?

No 276, then Central Line, then No 295

Have been doing this for a week now, settled on this route:

http://tinyurl.com/34p75tz

Seems to work quite well - The strand is rightly a nightmare due to dozy peds and taxi drivers. This cuts that out by going along embankment for a stretch which is fast, though a bit squashed in by tourist coaches. I cut through wellington arch and onto north carriage drive to cut out the busy hyde park junction then back onto kensington gore, I tried going through hyde park but it's fairly slow and this way I avoid the big roundabout at shepherds bush. It takes about 55 minutes door to door, But I'm not the fittest at the moment and I'm running fairly fat tyres for the winter, Hopefully I will be able to knock a bit of time off that.