Help me become a Londoner!

[Paul Makepeace]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 3:49 PM, David Cantrell <david at cantrell.org.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 11:53:57AM -0800, Paul Makepeace wrote:
>
>> Yeah, I'm not dinging TfL, and yes, they do provide a reasonable means
>> of getting around London with the caveat that you check for line
>> closures on every journey (something that I don't recall methodically
>> doing 10 years ago).
>
> That's because ten years ago they weren't bothering to do any
> maintenance.
>
> And you don't have to check before every journey.  I certainly don't
> bother.  Just check at weekends.

YMMV I guess. I was using the Tube pretty heavily throughout the
weekend & week day & night during my last few months in London
July-Sep and it seemed pretty heavily under (re)construction.

>> It's that your own two wheeled transport is just so much quicker. The
>> earlier-quoted w9 to w2 3RL journey would be about six minutes on
>> a(ny) bike, and no walking.
>
> Provided you've got somewhere to park it.  And don't forget the extra
> time/hassle of having to cleanse yourself and change your clothes
> afterwards.

That's true altho' parking's rarely an issue IME. A Strida or fold-up
seems to bypass pretty much all of that.

>> Where a bike really excels however is at night. If you go out late and
>> need to get home the ratio between time on night bus and bike can be
>> upwards of 10x.
>
> Only if you're sober.

Bug or feature :-)

P