22 July 2010

Duck special: Low headroom in Lee Valley


Is this the lowest-headroom cycle bridge in Britain? It's on National Cycle Route 1 following the Lee Valley north, in Walthamstow marshes.

The cycle path ducks under a railway bridge at Coppermill Lane and leaves you just five feet of headroom, or 152cm - that's about the minimum required width for a cycle lane.

(The minimum required headroom for underpasses according to TA90/05 appears to be 2.4m, or an inch or two under eight feet.)

This young lady has obviously had practice.

8 comments:

  1. There's a pretty (in both senses) low bridge on NCR 51 where it runs along the river in Bedford. You certainly need to duck. I took this photo.

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  2. Ah yes - also in Bedford is this one http://www.cyclestreets.net/location/20730/
    with one normal side and a low-headroom one for when the river's in flood.

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  3. I passed under this a couple of weeks ago and wondered how many people get off thier bike to go under it. I stayed on the bike with my chest almost resting on the handlebars.

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  4. There's a nice video of Copermill Lane on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvzFD_OZTC4

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  5. One of the bridges over the Thames path on the south side -- I think it's Hammersmith Bridge -- has very low clearance.

    Here's someone's to-arty-to-be-useful photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerrold/2561150140/

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  6. This link will take you stright to the bridge part of the video (3m5sec in)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvzFD_OZTC4#t=3m05s

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  7. Agree with Nigel and Tim, but isn't there another 4'9" bridge in Bedford that's even lower than those two? http://www.cyclestreets.net/location/20729/

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  8. Wouldn't be a problem on my recumbent. Mwaahaha.

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