Laps around Regents Park outer circle, anti clockwise (counter clockwise in American). Very popular with central London cyclists, clubs and race teams.

You can head to Richmond park in the south west and do bigger loops around there. That is probably the closest you will get to open roads. For true open roads you need to get out beyond the M25 motorway that circles Greater London, which is going to be around an hour more or less depending on which direction you head. Heading north is probably the quickest.

Victoria Park has a "Zwift vibe" in the morning and in the PM - the loop takes 15-20 mins to complete and there is plenty of battling and wheel sucking on each little stretch. I found it fun to drop the locals on my borrowed steel-clip, alu-frame, that was 1-2 sizes too big and I rode around in some old vans and board shorts :)

The locals will tell you that "Epping Forrest" is amazing (open road if you will) for cycling haha - OMG, first you have to ride 20k through sick London traffic and 5000 Kebab bars, to only find the worst tarmac and worst/speeding car drivers on the northern hemisphere. My advice is: Do NO go to Epping Forrest :)

There used to be this place called athlete lab that did guided power based workouts, was awesome. Don’t think it survived Covid. You can rent a bike from rapha, but where to ride during the week on presumably limited time? Richmond park is a bit of a haul. Probably going to a spin studio is the best of the mediocre options, there’s plenty.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

If you can get to Lee Valley Velo Park (Olympic Facility) - you can ride there traffic free and also rent equipment.

https://www.better.org.uk/...elopark/road-cycling

Lucy Charles Barclay often rides there.

I just traveled there for a week. We rented a house out in Slough so I rented a bike from Stows bike shop. Very reasonable price and the riding around Windsor was solid. The Great Park has plenty of closed roads to ride without worry of traffic. Also if you need to get a run in the Long Walk is a nice straight car and bike less wide path.

Stow bike shop is a quick walk from the train station and the express train from Paddington takes 20 minutes. So not super close but easy to get out of London for a nice ride.

Just don't cycle early am. Tens of these incidents recently

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/cyclist-robbed-theft-regents-park-london-onyx-rt-b1152345.html

The new Elizabeth line (train) has opened up possibilities with of living out in the countryside and being able to get into central london quickly.
From somewhere like Maidenhead (west of london near Slough mentioned above) you would have a lot of good cycling on your doorstep, an easy commute to central london and it's also not far from Heathrow if that's a consideration.

EDIT: You'd also have plenty of options for open water swimming and there's an evening sprint triathlon series during the summer at dorney lake: https://www.dorneytriathlon.com/


Richmond Park is the best more central option which has a low traffic (outside of rush hour) rolling 6.5mile loop and can feel like the countryside early morning or evening. Geographically you're closer to the city but train commute might not be much quicker - though you could also cycle to/from the office in a similar amount of time.

Daylight should be a consideration though. Outside of the summer months, there might not be much of it outside of work hours - and weather can be more of a factor.. in which case turbo trainer or spin studios.