Cyclists from across Hillingdon and beyond took part in a second Tour de Hillingdon on Saturday September 13th, 2025. This one started at Uxbridge Civic Centre where 13 riders assembled for the start and were joined by others along the route, peaking at around 20 riders.
Just as in the inaugural ride several months prior to this one, participants represented a full spectrum of ages and abilities, with one youngster under 10 taking part, as well as a pair of triathletes, and an extra special guest riding with us who had 60+ years of cycling experience (more on him later). This ride was led by Graeme Shaw, who had recently been on ride leader training courtesy of London Cycling Campaign.
Discovering Hillingdon’s Diverse Green Spaces
Just as in the previous ride, one of the most frequent comments from riders was how enjoyable it was discovering new places in a highly urbanised London Borough. Gemma from Hayes said “It’s lovely to see all the different parts of the borough and how many green spaces there are”. Joe, also from Hayes, agreed: “Very scenic. Quite a lot was new. There was a few places where I wondered where I was!”
Paul from Eastcote agreed and made a further point about the social aspect “It’s great. I don’t know this bit of Hillingdon or Uxbridge. It’s just everyone out together for a ride. It’s nice”. Indeed the best part of the ride arguably was chatting to the riders and hearing their stories. Paul mentioned a hilarious tale of his youth where he and his friends went out for a ride and ended up in Brighton, prompting a late night call to his irate dad who drove down to pick him up!
Cowley to Stockley Country Park
After an uneventful start from the Civic Centre and past Brunel University, we headed towards the towpath of the Grand Union Canal. This is a piece of infrastructure that is being improved specifically for cyclists and pedestrians as it is a handy and direct route from Hayes all the way to Uxbridge. We entered at Packet Boat Lane bridge having once again experienced the difficult crossing over Cowley High Street – a 4 lane dual carriageway – via the pedestrian crossing and the narrow footpath on the other side. Preparations for the ride began the day before when, following feedback from the previous ride, a couple of us went out on the route and cut back some brambles and other obstacles on the route. Chatting with another cyclist on our way round the route proved the sociability factor of cycling and we gained a volunteer in Rowan, from Rayner’s Lane, who is a jobbing electrician that uses his bike as his “van”.
Our Special Guest: “Mr Hayes”
We were very lucky to have with us someone who is a bit of a local legend in Hillingdon. David Brough has had an involvement in the area dating back to the 1960s. He is still very active locally as chair of the Hayes Town Partnership. It was a complete coincidence that the Tour de Hillingdon route passes through the very park where the Hayes Council HQ was situated (Barra Hall) and where David worked prior to the establishment of the London Borough of Hillingdon and the eventual move to the Civic Centre in Uxbridge.
Not only that, but David has also been personally involved in improving cycling infrastructure in the borough and is still active in doing so. On this and the previous event, riders had mentioned the difficulty getting on and off the Grand Union Canal towpath and the variability of the surface quality. David was in a unique position to be able to explain this.
“I chair the Hillingdon Canal Partnership as well as the Hayes Town Partnership, we’ve got a number of community projects. One of them is to improve access to the canal tow path for walkers and cyclists. [At Horton Road bridge] we need money to provide better access to the canal here. There’s broken concrete it’s really bad. There was a program to resurface the whole of the towpath by TfL, but after Covid their budgets went belly up. What we [Hillingdon Canal Partnership] do is, when there is a new development taking place within 1/2 mile of the canal we get money out of the developer to do that bit of towpath. That’s why you notice it’s such a patchwork quilt. The first leg from Stockley Park to Hayes has been done, the next leg into Hayes is going to start in a few months. The seating here [between Cowley and West Drayton] was done by Tesco. ”
It may be a surprise to most people that our infrastructure improvements are funded by private companies who have been given permission to build housing or commercial real estate in the area. Whilst we were happy to learn about the further improvements to take place on the towpath, we were left to wonder why so little use has been made of such funds to improve cycling access elsewhere in the borough. The private developers also need to do better to improve infrastructure on their own developments and not just consider it “job done” when they hand over funds to the council. An example of this is the St Andrew’s development we passed through near the end of the ride, where simple improvements like a parallel crossing and dropped kerb to make it easier to cross the road would have been trivial to implement.
Another Successful, Enjoyable Ride
Whilst there is plenty of scope for improvement, the ride was enjoyed by everyone. Fai from Eastcote who attended for a small part of the tour with his two children aged 9 and 11 said the ride was: “Brilliant, been really nice, we felt it was really safe. If we could go round the Lido next time that would be quite fun. Getting the kids on the roads is really nice”. Abbad, from West Drayton who attended with his very determined 11 year old daughter, said he found out about the ride on Facebook and commented: “It’s tiring but very fun. I love seeing all the sites, really looked forward to seeing the Battle of Britain bunker”. Father and daughter made it all the way around the tour, an impressive 30KM over three hours.
Paul had a number of comments and a great suggestion: “I’d just like it to be a bit more joined up. It’s very stop start, so many junctions where you don’t have right of way at all. I don’t know if you could find a route around Hillingdon which wasn’t so stop start on paths and trails, I’m sure it’s tricky. It showed it today. This sort of riding it could do with being a bit more joined up. It’s quite a tough ride for the little-uns, they done well! Getting round the Minet track would be good, to do a few laps. Maybe we could do a lap or two at the end of this ride next year? It’s quite a tricky ride, quite technical. ”
We returned to the Civic Centre around 1:45pm having been delayed slightly by one rider experiencing a puncture, fixed expertly by Mark the triathlete in no time at all. The last word should go to David Brough:
“I’ve been cycling for 60 years. It’s just great that we’ve got this Cycling Hillingdon group, there used to be one years ago but it sort of died so well done for getting this group together. Even though I’ve been around for a long time you took me to places I’ve never been to before. But it just demonstrates the point that things are not joined up”. As David finished speaking, he was warmly greeted by a passing David Simmonds, MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner who was on his way to Uxbridge library with his daughter. We asked him if he was a cyclist, “Not really no, other people in the house are. My son’s quite keen”.
We promise to invite him to the next one and he said he would look out for it. Perhaps others in a position of influence can join us next time too?
