Pentonville Road is a half-mile of shabby, stick-straight gradient between King’s Cross station and the Angel. Its bottom, by KX, is dirty and dusty, with discarded chicken takeaway boxes swirling round to provide you with slalom practice.
It’s a tedious, trafficky, fumiferous slog to cycle up. And an equally tedious freewheel down the other way, enlivened briefly by the final home-straight which dodges down a hairy bus / cycle lane in which you get sandwiched between buses. Then there’s an irritating gyratory swoop round to get back in front of King’s Cross.
The most interesting thing about it was King’s Cross Thameslink station, but that closed in December 2007. Now it’s occupied only by security guards looking bored.
I don’t like Pentonville Road.
Monopoly’s Pentonville Rd costs £120. What could this buy you there? There’s a branch of Cycle Surgery halfway up Pentonville Road, if you need some reconnection with sanity. You’d spend your £120 on bike stuff – maybe a Gore-Tex bike jacket, for about that price.