I fell over this article on Planet Green the other day, Take the 2 Mile Bicycle Challenge. Which states that 40 percent of everyday travel in the U.S. are trips of 2 miles or fewer, which got me thinking what about here in London.

I live in SW6 and within a 5 miles radius I got, to name but a few, Hammersmith, Hyde Park, Paddington, Gunnersbury Park, Clapham Common, Westminster, Kew Gardens, Richmond Park and even Covent Garden. And 5 miles you can easy do on your bicycle within 30min even when you use the not so direct route through a park or on quieter roads.

Average distance travelled for various purposes in London

I did a little search and found this, Average distance travelled for various purposes, see page 5 for London details. Or click on the image to above to get a bigger screen grab of the .ppt file. I don’t know when this was made and for whom it was made.

But it can’t be far off, we have at least 4 High Streets within 2 miles for our front door. And as we all know the each of these High Streets have the same shops and honestly I don’t know how many
supermarkets/local/metro there are with that radius. We could easy walk to the nearest shop in less than 30sec and any bigger shops within 5-10min.

So why take the car? With some panniers you can easily do you weekly shopping on your bicycle. And don’t stop at the shopping, what about the trip over to your friends, post office or even work?

LINK : Planet Green – Take the 2 mile bicycle challenge