Moving to London

Triathlon Forum
1

Looking for some general info on the tri scene in London. Wife was offered a job there and we will be uprooting and moving mid winter. I’ve only been in the sport for a couple years but I’ve got the bug bad and have seen some pretty good results working with a coach this last year… taken 10 minutes off my time this year to be 1:55 +/- for olympic so its more than just an idle hobby for me. We’re planning on being in the city for a number of years so it would be nice to find a good group, make some friends, and having some fun training.

Looking for some general info on living in the city and being involved in the sport that I can look through over the next few months too get me excited to train someplace new

Any thoughts… suggestions…warnings…

Thanks!!!

2

Avail yourself of the Park Runs.

Take/buy plenty of wet weather gear.

I’ve got nothing more specific than that, since it’ll depend on where you end up living, and my knowledge there is very limited. :slight_smile:

-Jot

3

Excellent tri scene in London. You won’t be disappointed or lack options. Tons of races and training groups. First, see http://www.tritalk.co.uk. I lived in Surrey for four years and met a few people that gave me advice on rides, clubs, etc.

Suggestion, bike gear is less expensive here. Buy rain and cold weather gear. You’ll use it. Take a mountain bike. Beautiful places to ride and a nice break from tri in the dark of winter (at least for me). I used my Conputrainer a lot in the winter as after work it is too dark for me on the roads, but summer is awesome to roll out at 7pm or so and get two hours before dark. Or leave early, early in the morning.

There are awesome routes around the Surrey Hills you can get to from London. Google Legs of Steel and see if the map PDF is still up. Leith Hill, Pitch Hill, Winterfold, Coldharbour, Box Hill, Coombs Bottom, are great little climbs. Awesome little communities like Peaslake and Shere to stop.

Check with the tri club, but if you plan to do a race in Europe, joining the national federation (eg I joined Triathlon Scotland) made it easier as if you were not a resident of the country you had to get a doctors clearance. USAT may work as well, but someone gave me the advice for the UK federations so that is what I did.

Not sure if still an option, but the London tri that was down at Xcel by City airport had an Olympic distance option where you rode closed rads all the way up to Westminster and back along the Thames. Windsor tri was cool to do as a visitor.

I am sure others that are still there and know a lot more can give more help on local clubs in London, training groups, etc. Have fun!

4

Any idea where you’re going to be living? Where is the wife’s job? Plenty of tri clubs, race and training places in and around London but its a big city so need to be a bit more specific.

5

London isn’t great for cycling, even though Londoners will disagree with that statement.

I lived there for years, I did the laps of Richmond Park, and rode out to the Surrey hills and up Box hill plenty of times, but options are limited, and you are stuck on busy roads a lot of the time.
I didn’t really run when I lived there, but there are lots of parks that should be good for running, Regents, Hyde or Richmond Park especially. You’ll still have to do laps as all except Richmond park are pretty small.

There are lots of cycling clubs, so you should have no problem finding people to ride with. The weather obviously isn’t always perfect, but not as bad as is often made out. I don’t know where you are moving from, but it’s a typical big city, so you have to watch out for buses, pedestrians and cars trying to kill you at every junction!

Suggestion would be to try the chilterns for cycling, I found that it wasn’t so full there and there are lots of good routes too. London-Brighton-London is also a good long ride with time for an ice cream at the turn around :slight_smile:
It all depends of which part of town you will live in though, somewhere like Teddington would probably be great for training, somewhere like Clapham, not so good.

6

My home is in south london - Dulwich - though I live overseas and I’ve lived in different parts of south london - wimbledon, tooting, balham, streatham and dulwich

my family lives in kent and sussex - around Tunbridge wells - 50 minute commute in to the city

cycling in london is improving - but it is a city, but to my mind certainly no worse than when i lived in Chicago and ride from Belmont Harbour to WI and back and never really leave suburbia

The big issue in london would be access to pools, I think, more than cycling or running. South London is served by Crystal Palace - about 10 minutes from Dulwich, Streatham, a bit further from Herne Hill, Balham etc

Cycling - if you’re not working you can ride out to the surrey hills but its pretty heavy traffic, once there though there’s loads of cycling on the north downs, alternatively I’d hop on a train out to coulsdon / purley and start from there if you don’t want the BS of city traffic

where you live will depend largely on what you want to do - you won’t bring prejudices like me :slight_smile: such as not being willing to live north of the river.

I’d choose to live in london but to be fair, the commute from living in Tonbridge wells or Tonbridge to central london is only 15-20 minutes longer than if you live in south london and have to take a local train or bus and tube, so you need to consider the commute

you also need to consider house prices - rental costs - a 3-4 bed where I live is approximately 800-1m to buy or 3-4k sterling a month where we the same house in tunbridge wells will be half that - give or take

I think you’ll find a good athletic scene wherever you live - and you’ll find super fast people to surround yourself with if that’s your thing - Dulwich Paragon is the largest cycling club in the UK with the associated competitive cyclists - its also 2 minutes from Herne Hill Velodrome and runs CX in winter - or did, loads of running clubs from central london out

crystal palace is an awesome pool and park for running

I am south london centric but it has everything that I want athletic, park, family, school wise whilst also being a village type atmosphere

7

This is great info! Appreciate the tips thus far!

We’re moving from Boston so already coming from an urban environment/city living, however London is a city on a whole different scale. We will most likely choose to live towards the city center (St. Pancras station area?) as both of our jobs will be towards the city center and we cant stand commuting (we both have a 5 min train or bike to the office now). Probably wont be buying a place as the current plan is to rent our condo here in Boston and then use that money to cover our rent in London for the years we’r there (and then we’ve still got our place to come back to when we return). so we’ll be renting on the minimal end just to keep costs “reasonable”, I was planning on dragging my trainer and tri bike over (living in Boston there is a solid chunk of the year spent on that thing) but will probably leave my road bike just so we have some space in our place…

Thanks again!

8

kings x st pancras is awesome, total redevelopment, however its extremely expensive if you’re in the immediate area - obviously the further north you get, the cheaper it gets as well as the area’s that border it, but cheaper is very relative given they’ve been selling one beds there for up to 800k (don’t know what rents are, guessing 2?) and the whole area is being gentrified

where are you working? location?

london minimal rents are still quite expensive, one bed in streatham is 1100 / mo, one bed in 9 elms / battersea closer to 2k / mo

anyway I cant help you anymore as its north of the river… :slight_smile:

9

Property and rental prices are absolutely nutty in the UK, particularly London, so even though you hate commuting, you may have to ask yourself whether the money you would be spending on rent is really worth the pain of not traveling daily. The prices are SO bad that you may have to compromise.

Cycling is booming in the UK at the moment and where I live in the East of England has seen our roads transformed with endless serious cyclists everywhere (a few years back, you hardly saw any). So it is a good time to come. And if you have some time off, you can make a pilgrimage to Leeds and then west to the Yorkshire Dales where all our best Olympic distance triathletes live and train. And the countryside is gorgeous…

Have fun and if you need any tips about UK living, feel free to send me a private message.

10

it is true, the dales are awesome, and if I were there and wanted time outside I’d hit the peak, the lakes as well as the highlands

from london, both north and south downs are doable and there’s plenty of cycling across surrey, sussex and kent and further afield

london prices are mental and I know a fair number of people that ride in to central london on a daily basis from 10-25 miles
.

11

Congrats on the move! I moved here 10 years ago for NY (from CA originally) and think it’s relatively easy to train here as long as you integrate the training with your everyday life. I’ve done 7 Ironman’s and been in the sport for over 10 years.

King’s Cross area has become awesome with great food and you can run to Regent’s Park (or do the 5am cycles when the gates are closed). It’s about 1.5 miles from King’s Cross. Also, I would invest in a Computrainer or indoor trainer. Overall, I think it’s the best training tool regardless of weather and conditions.

From where you will live (Hampstead), riding North will be better than going across the city and to Richmond Park and Surrey Hills (south west). I live North, but have yet to do a long ride in the area since I have 2 very small kids so end up doing more computrainer sessions.

Also, I think it’s essential you join the Better gym network, especially the All-Access Swim pass (http://www.better.org.uk/memberships). I pay like £30/month and can access all the pools in the UK. There are TONS in London. I have 2 pools (27.5 outdoor, 30m indoor) within a mile of my office in central london. You will have the 25m brand new pool at King’s Cross available as well. I often put my stuff in a backpack and run to meetings across town and shower at the Better Gyms which seem to be everywhere.

In the Spring/Summer, you can do plenty of open water swimming (about 200m) in the Serpentine Lido in Hyde Park. I used to go around 6:30-7am with tons of Triathletes, then ride to work. http://serpentineswimmingclub.com/ (about £20 for the year).

The weather can be wet and cold, but overall, I think it’s easier to train outdoors in some ways than the East coast (way too cold or way too hot). You can basically run at anytime in the Summer b/c it’s never that hot or humid. Great park runs as well.

Here are some other helpful sites to the many local events:

http://humanrace.co.uk/

http://www.thelondontriathlon.com/

http://london.triathlon.org/

http://www.regentsparkraces.org/

Good luck with the move! VERY expensive city, but it’s a great place to live.

12

St Pancras area is going to be expensive, and not great for cycling outdoors. I cycle commute 16 miles each way in from South West London/Surrey into the St Pancras area most days, so am pretty comfortable dealing with irate motorists, suicidal pedestrians, red light-hopping cyclists, etc, No way would I ever ride my tri bike in central London though, I want instant access to my brakes at all times and as much manoeuvrability as possible! If you’re going to live in central London and want to cycle outdoors I’d find a way of bringing the road bike with you if I could. If you want to do club rides then you’ll probably need a road bike anyway.

If you do go for central London then you’ll be OK for running, London is great for having good-sized parks in the centre, and the river is pretty good for running along although there are hot spots where you’ll be dodging a lot of commuters and tourists. Swimming is a bit more of a challenge, due to property prices a lot of the more central gyms either don’t have pools at all or have pretty short ones, 25 meter pools are few and far between. As above, if you’re in central London then you’ll probably either have to do a lot of training indoors (in which case your next challenge will be finding a reasonably-priced property which is big enough to let you set up the trainer without upsetting the wife) or get used to cycling or getting the train out of town a fair bit to get to some nice roads.

If you do live a bit further out, then I’m biased but I’d look towards the South-West as others above have already said. If you live centralish in the South West (places like Clapham or Putney) then you’re close enough to use Richmond Park for short to medium midweek rides (it’s a 7 mile loop with some rolling hills, not too much traffic and the occasional deer to look at). You’d also be just about close enough to good roads to be able to get out and do nice longer rides without having to catch a train first. If you go further out to somewhere like Kingston or Teddington, then you’ll get more property for your money and have much better cycling options pretty much on your doorstep. You’d also find that a 25m pool is pretty much standard for gyms in those areas, and would probably be less congested as well. But then sounds like you may not want to be that far out.

13

Yes, as others have said, it depends heavily on where you are going to be living. I won’t bore you to death, but here’s a quick run-down of my experiences:

Swimming - this obviously depends on what kind of gyms you have nearby and how much you’re willing to pay. For membership, expect to pay a minimum of £50 per month for one with a pool, but it could easily be double that or more depending on gym quality and location. Open water swimming is actually not too bad in the summer. Capital Tri (http://capitaltri.com/) are one group that I know of that do regular open water sessions at a an affordable rate and there’s the Serpentine Swimming Club in Hyde Park that is semi-open water. Basically, it’s there if you look for it, but don’t expect pristine mountain lakes.

Cycling - riding around London for transportation is getting better (although it’s coming from a pretty low base level) but cycling for training is just useless. If you’re trying to hit any kind of numbers or even just go out for a hard continuous blast, forget trying to do it in the city. All the usual places that people talk about (Regent’s Park, Richmond Park) are a waste of time unless you go there at 4am in the morning, literally, because by 6am on most days it will be too busy with traffic. You’re better off taking the 30-60 mins warm-up ride that it takes to hack it out of the metropolitan area (or better yet, get a train out) and go for a ride out in the countryside. There are loads of great options just outside of London, the flatlands of Essex, the hills of Kent or Surrey, the rolling countryside of the Chilterns, take your pick. However, during the week the trainer is your only friend.

**Running **- on the contrary, running in the city is pretty good. There are loads of athletics and road running clubs if you take a look around, the parks are plentiful and big enough to make doing laps not too much of a chore. There are loads of canal towpaths and quiet ways that you can link together to make quiet, traffic-free loops in the city. Also, as someone mentioned above, check out your local parkrun (http://www.parkrun.org.uk/) they’re awesome and if you fancy volunteering, it’s a great way to give back to a genuine grassroots athletics organisation.

Hope that helps and good luck with the move.

14

St Pancras is expensive, but it could save time on your commute. I’m sure the 16 mile commute is a helluva workout and about the same amount of time on the train (plus WAY better experience even on the worst weather days), but I prefer living closer to work and home to be see my kids. If you really want more space, then S.W. London offers a lot of great training opportunities and isn’t that “far.”

I don’t agree with your comments about swimming. At least in Central London, I think the Better Swim network is incredible. I live in Hampstead and work near Tottenheim Court Road and there are at least 3-4 25m-30m swimming pools along the 5 mile commute. I walk across the street from my office to the outdoor Oasis center 27.5m heated pool and can do a 1500m workout within a 35 min at lunch. I remember going in the early morning and there were bigger crowds, but at lunch it’s pretty clear. When I lived in NY, the swimming options were limited and expensive. Also, I go back to CA often and the pools can be relatively spread out.

15

Swimming:

  • Virgin Active has two decent 25m pools fairly near St Pancras (Angel Islington and Bunhill Row), I used those when I lived in Islington

  • Some public Pay-as-you-go pools (Pancras Square Leisure Center, Ironmonger Lane, Queen Mother Sports Center) and the London Aquatics Center (The Olympic swimming venue, I guess one should try this at least once while in London, although I haven’t yet; need to pre-book)

  • The Serpentine lake is open during May - September and is remarkable quiet (~100m length in a cordoned off aera) and year round early mornings for Serpentine Swimming Club members, probably worth the £20 membership just for the Christmas Day Race (sans wetsuit)

  • There are some lakes near Heathrow (Thorpe lake and others) that are open for open water swimming during the summer with loops of different length up to 1500m.

  • Otter Swim Club - Coached Sessions in several locations across the city, pretty expensive (~$1000 p…a.)

  • I swim at David Lloyd Kensington and occasionally at DL Fulham (both 20m pools)

  • There are some other outdoor pools / Lido’s, but never been to any of them (http://www.serpentine.org.uk/pages/advice_tri_openwater.html)

Cycling:

  • If you’re near St Pancras you can cycle around Regent’s Park, ~4.5km loop with few intersections, or a 1k loop in the center of Regents Park, if you are training for a Deca-Ironman. Just need to be careful with stressed out parents parking around the zoo without paying attention to traffic, but plenty of cyclists there

  • Richmond Park is great early mornings and late evening (you can cycle with bike lights after they close the gates for cars), cyclists love to race triathletes on TT bars, lots of posing in the cafeat Roehampton Gate,20 mph limit applies to cyclists as well and police regularly show up with radar equipment

  • Plenty of nice rides to the Surrey Hills (mostly undulating with a few hills, some short and sharp with up to 20% incline, Box Hill and Leith Hill are the major climbs in the area) and to and around Windsor - I can dig out some GPS files if you’re interested. Quo Vadimus has listed most of the climbs I know, would only add White Down Lane in Dorking to that.

  • London Dynamo is the biggest (I think) bike club in London with plenty of group rides

  • I mostly cycle indoors nowadways except for long rides, getting out of the city from the St. Pancras area is going to take time unless you’re heading for Regent’s Park loops

  • London is not the safest place to ride with ~15 deaths per year and ~400-600 serious injuries

Running:

  • Around St Pancras area mainly along the Regents Canal (have to navigate with pedestrians and cyclists, especially under the low bridges; if you run west, the Camden Market area is a bit shitty), Regent’s Park and Victoria Park for longer runs

  • There are low key monthly 10k runs (Regents Park 10k series) which are good to benchmark progress/fitness

  • Hyde Park is good for running (maybe a bit far for you if you aim for Kings Cross/St Pancras area), also along Embankment / St James Park / Green Park or towards Battersea Park

  • I run in Hyde Park, Battersea Park and very occasionally in Richmond Park, if I can find the time to drive there - I love Richmond Park, soft underground and undulating with a 10.5k or so loop

  • Park Run has weekly 5k races free of charge organized in different parks across the country (www.parkrun.org.uk). I run at Fulham Palace.

Tri Clubs:

  • Ful-On-Tri in Fulham

  • Serpentine Running Club (loosely Hyde Park based) - there used to be a fairly large triathlete community when I was a member in 2005 - 2008 with organized group rides / swims etc., not sure what it’s like now

  • others: http://www.triathlonengland.org/london/take-part/find-a-club

In my opinion, the further west you go, the easier it gets, around Hyde Park is probably the best compromise, other than that close to Richmond Park or Putney is great for outdoors, but quiet far from the city center. Happy to meet up and go for a ride / run when you’re here - PM me if interested

Hope your wife has an ex-pat package with rent paid by her employer :-).

16

I lived v near kings cross for about 10 years. Swimming at London Fields lido is great. 50m outdoor pool and heated year round. Not too far from the area you’re looking at. Also they have a tri club there although I was never a member so can’t really comment on them

17

Living centrally in London is great for many things, but easy access to good sports facilities isn’t one of them unless you are happy to cough up cash.

From the St Pancreas area, I’d suggest running laps in Regents Park (remember to wave to the US ambassador’s residence - it’s somewhere in one of the Nash terraces) or at the weekend heading into the City (which will be deserted) and down to and along the river. Weekdays during the day from the City, the Embankment is the place to aim for.

Biking: if you’re thinking of commuting, turn your Spidey sense up to 13. Then once you realise that no one is actually trying to hit you, relax a bit. Realistically, riding at the weekend means getting out of London. That means 1+ hour riding out and the same again in reverse at the end of the ride. You might be better off heading to Marylebone and getting the train out to the Chilterns.

Swimming: others have covered this comprehensively. Just be aware that London has a few swimming pools (baths) dating from Victorian times, which were built in yards. Ironmonger Row, for example, is an odd length IIRC.

18

Agree with most things said above, just wanted to say that for swimming you really have to get to the London Aquatics Centre in Stratford - cheap, easy to get to on the tube and, oh yes, the pool used in the 2012 Olympics. £3.50 off-peak for a swim in an astonishing state of the art pool and if you go there mid-afternoon there’s a reasonable chance of finding yourself the only person in the lane that Phelps won the 100m fly in.

19

Yes, London’s a great city, something for everyone if you have the money, and the Olympic legacy is going strong. Shame Boston’s knocked that one out.

Cycling

The velopark is fantastic - capital tri do some regular duathlon’s on the road circuit which are usually pretty good, and a wide range of abilities. The park also hosts crits there, not to mention being able to try your hand at track cycling at the velodrome itself.

There’s a bunch of cycling clubs around the London area, although they’re usually area specific - the ‘stronger’ clubs are usually down in South London, but North and East London have some good clubs also. Rapha also have a cycling club, but I can’t vouch for that. British Cycling should help in locating one.

The traffic in London is abysmal, but I felt OK cycling in London. The most trouble I had was with fair weather or newbie-wannabe cyclists basically doing whatever they pleased and pissing everyone else off in the process. I was based in East London so it was fairly easy for me to go out after work from Mar-Oct for a quick 20mi, but otherwise the trainer was a dear friend. Ignore the haters advising on getting a tonne of wet weather gear. It’s not that bad.

Don’t forget the time trialling scene in the UK, with distances from 10mi after work blast to 24 hour run-offs. Whilst it’s anachronistic, it helps if you know someone to show you the ropes about finding an event and getting on the start list. Your local tri or cycling club should be able to help you on this.

Swimming

The Olympic pool is amazing, and yes, you do need to book but it’s usually not a big deal. London Fields lido used to be a favourite of mine. A wide 50m pool, no late night opening, but with a regular coached session with London Fields Tri team (was never a member, but seemed nice enough when I met them on the deck or at races). Hampstead Heath lido (Gospel Oak) also looked nice, but I never managed to organise myself to get there. There’s lots of 25m pools about, as mentioned earlier.

As mentioned earlier, capital tri run regular OW swims, races and aquathons at the West Reservoir, near to Highbury (just up the road from KingsX). There’s also the serp, as mentioned earlier, but if you fancy travelling out further there’s lakes around Heathrow and in Essex. Swimfortri do some coached sessions, open session and races at a variety of locations.

Running

Parkruns, canals, Royal Parks, regents park 10k series, a bunch of other organised races from 5k to marathon (Hyde Park last Fri race was a fave). There’s a tonne of stuff to do.

Events

Similarly there’s lot of triathlons/duathlons - Virgin London, ITU London, Thames Turbo sprint series, capital tri series, Dorney Lake has lots on, amongst others, more around an hour or two away if you can travel. British Tri, Tritalk.co.uk or Tri247.com can help in this regard. The championship qualification races are usually good if you want some competition, but they can rotate around the country.

Clubs

There’s so many nowadays, but off the top of my head, those that haven’t been mentioned - London Fields (central east), Serpentine (central), Thames Turbo (west London), Greenwich tritons (south-east). British Triathlon should be able to help find you clubs, then it’s all about which club fits you best.

Hope you have fun - I really enjoyed my 15 years there.

20

We’re moving from Boston so already coming from an urban environment/city living, however London is a city on a whole different scale. We will most likely choose to live towards the city center (St. Pancras station area?) as both of our jobs will be towards the city center and we cant stand commuting (we both have a 5 min train or bike to the office now).
The subject of where to live when working in the centre of London is a huge one in its own right. I can definitely understand the desire to have a really short trip to and from work each day, but it will definitely compromise the cycling you can do and you may end up doing almost nothing but indoor training and having to deal with any issues with neighbours and noise arising from that.

I would say just bear in mind as an option that a HUGE number of people commute into London each day to avoid the drawbacks of living in the centre. You can tell the popular places with good train access because it’s one of the single biggest factors affecting property prices for tens of miles around London. For example, Surrey is incredibly popular with people working in finance in the City because you can get on a train to Waterloo, then the Waterloo and City line to Bank, and you’re right there in the City. It is unbelievably crowded, but while that is a negative, you can also infer from that fact that a massive number of people, for various reasons, choose that approach over living in the centre. Some individual stations on particular train lines have faster and more frequent trains than others, and on average you pay a premium to live in any property that is a shortish walk from a train station with fast frequent trains. The benefit of living further out is cheaper property and being closer to roads you can do something resembling “proper” cycling on. To put it into context, apart from a few TTs each year held in Richmond Park, there are no time trial courses anywhere inside the M25, as you simply cannot cycle anywhere for 10 miles during daytime without being held up in some way. So if you look on a map, outside the M25 is where you first start to become able to do something resembling proper cycling.

It might be worth you having a phone conversation with someone in the London office about some popular locations that people travel from to that office and what sort of total journey time they have, and what they see as the pros and cons of where they live. It’s more suited to an interactive phone discussion.

Personally, I wouldn’t commute by cycle in London, I’ve always commuted by other means and trained either side of that, but obviously many people do commute by cycle in London.