Number 11 Bus Route – Outer Circle

As Europe’s longest urban bus route the 11 is one of Birmingham’s oldest and finest institutions. If you fancy a cheap and cheerful tour of Brum I’d suggest a daysaver, boarding this route and jumping off when anything took your fancy.
You will take in the complete gammet of what Birmingham has to offer from chocolate factories, to parks, to bowling alleys, to pubs, to Indian high streets filled with food and clothes.
This route is celebrated every Novemeber 11^th with many people attempting a full lap (which takes just over 2 hours) and others enjoying impromptu twitterati meet ups.
OxjamBrum even managed to stage a gig on this bus route one year.

If an alien landed in Birmingham (or an American tourist, take your pick) and you wanted to show them what Birmingham was REALLY like — you wouldn’t show them the Bullring or the new library or any of that, you’d be better off sticking them on a number 11 (A or C) and leaving them to it.
The 11 runs round what’s known as the Outer Circle route and, as that name suggests, basically drives in a massive loop around the edge of Birmingham — taking in anywhere and everywhere. Off the top of my head, clockwise it visits (or at least passes through) Erdington, Acocks Green, Hall Green, Billesley, Kings Heath, Cotteridge, Bournville, Selly Oak, Harbourne, Bearwood, Witton, Perry Barr, Holborn and (I think) Stockland Green — the 11A does the same in reverse. There’s more little bits to it as well. If you see an 11, you know you’re definitely in Birmingham.
The whole circle takes a good couple of hours to get round and occassionally there’ll be a bit in the paper about some pensioner who rides the whole route every day or something like that. There’s a charity walk that takes place around the route of the 11 too, so ingrained is it in the Brummie psyche.
Romance aside, it’s a pretty long and frustrating journey if you want to go any distance. I went from Bearwood to Acocks Green on the 11A not so long ago. That was an endurance test and a half! Afterwards I realised I could’ve got the train and it would’ve taken less than half the time.

This bus route has to be one of the most annoying journeys that you can make on public transport.
In terms of distance, to be honest it does cover a fair few stops, and the whole journey from start to finish takes a couple of hours, in both directions. If you need to get around within Birmingham’s outer circle, sooner or later you’ll come across one of the buses en-​route.
I find it annoying because if you have to use the service on your way to work during rush hour, or returning in the evening, then the bus resembles what I can only describe as a cattle market. Generally full of rubbish, no seats and some of the standing areas even smell of urine. Considering the amount of people who make use of this service, Travel West Midlands should put more of an effort in keeping this service clean and well maintained.
Although a regular and reliable service, you’ll not stay a fan for long if they don’t tidy up their act.