London Banter - M25vA406 - Heathrow to Walthamstow

"Earl Purple" wrote:
I used to aim for Upsdell Avenue and Whittington Road but there's too
much traffic rat-running the other way, plus there are too many that
turn right out of Upsdell Avenue that get in the way.

Well, it's just a case of finding one that's reliable enough to use
regularly. They're all parallel and end up on the same road, so it's just a
case of take your pick. It's been a while since I've been down that way

So now I use Sylvan Avenue or Woodside Avenue, then across into Truro
Road, across Palmerston Road and usually round Clarence Road to turn
right into Bounds Green Road.

Turning right into BGR from Whittington Road? I always found there to be a
bit of a queue there - I think it was Nightingale Road I used (it's not
shown as an actual junction on my A-Z, but there is one).

right onto Bounds Green Road (quite easy as traffic comes in clear
fits and starts). Then head for Dukes Avenue/Queens Avenue, cut out the
East Finchley crossroads using Parkhall/Baronsmere Roads, then The
Bishops
Avenue, right onto A1

Nasty turn.

Yup - often I'd go straight on, and then quickly (sneakily) u-turn where I
could and go back and turn left onto the A1, rather than wait in a huge
queue to turn right from the other direction.

But I usually head down Muswell Hill Road and right into
Woodside Avenue, left onto A1000 then through the garage to get to the
A1 Westbound. Usually safe enough to follow that up to Henlys Corner as
the traffic queue from there is much shorter. However if you need to
get out before the merge then turn left into Kingsley Way or Northway.

Northway's a pain - tried it once, far too many parked cars etc etc. Mind
you, Kingsley Way can get a bit like that.

, Winnington Road/Holne Chase/Meadway/Hoop Lane,

Here turn right into Temple Fortune Road at the roundabout then cross
over to Bridge Lane and join the North Circular Road there. In spite of
streetmap.co.uk there is indeed a junction there.

Tried that one once - took seemingly forever to get out onto Finchley Road -
nightmare with all the shops/pedestrians etc there. Never again.

straight over Finchley Road, right onto Elmcroft/Beechcroft Avenue, head
down Ravenscroft Avenue to Golders Green Road, right onto that, then left
almost immediately onto Woodstock Avenue, and cut through to the
lesser-known junction of Western Avenue and the A406, and left onto the
A406. Works an absolute treat. And well done to those that stayed
awake.

Why go onto Golders Green Road at all? Just cross it at Hoop Lane onto
Armitage Road, right into The Ridgeway, round into Wessex Gardens, then
right into Wessex Way and work your way through from there. There are a
couple of routes, the simplest being round Hamilton Road but you can
also get to Elmcroft Crescent, The Drive, Highfield Avenue and Western
Avenue as before.

Well, one plan was to do that, but there was quite a queue in Hoop Lane to
cross Golders Green Road, mainly (IIRC) as a result of traffic on GGR
blocking the junction, so I turned off and found another way, and it worked
a treat. Mainly thanks to (a) the fact that it's very easy to turn right
onto a main road where the traffic's very close to stationary a lot of the
time, and (b) the fact that it only involves using a very short stretch of
GGR.

I'd be interested to see if there's much difference between the two.
Coming
off at J25 should be relatively easy because of the junction design
(dedicated lane for J25 - or have they changed it yet, for the greater
good
of through traffic flow?), and obviously traffic heading towards London
and
all the Brimsdown industrial estates is all coming in the opposite
direction
so you'd be against the main flow of traffic. Obviously the A111 has
that
going for it as well, but I'd choose the A1055 route myself.

If you really want the A1055 you can turn off the A111 onto the A1005
then back-roads north of Enfield via Gordon Hill hitting the A1055 at
Brimsdown.

Defeats the object really - the only real reason for mentioning the A1055
was that it's very easily accessible from M25 J25 - something which I
thought would be a good idea as I assumed it'd be fairly easy to get off
there thanks to the dedicated lane - i.e. when everyone else is crowding
into the other 2 lanes the left lane should be fairly clear once the
shuffling about has completed.

--
"For want of the price of tea and a slice, the old man died."