Rather than starting a new thread on the subject, I'll piggyback on this one ...
I want to cycle from Walkden station to Dunham. (I have noticed that there are cheap, regular through trains from the Calder Valley to Walkden and it looks like a good way for me to go in future for rides into Cheshire.)
I plotted a route on cycle.travel which uses long lengths of the Bridgewater canal -
LINK - and I wondered if
@Katherine,
@skudupnorth and any other locals would give it the once over for me - TIA.
I want to keep away from roads as much as possible and this route looks ideal, but I am concerned about conflicting information I have seen about the canal towpath. The canal website suggests that some bits of it have been upgraded to become the 'Bridgewater Way' but other bits have not and may not be suitable for a road bike. A photo on the site shows the towpath suddenly changing from a good wide surface , to a narrow muddy one. I'd prefer to avoid that kind of thing. (It may be an old photo, no longer representative of what is there now?)
So... are all parts of my route open to bikes and have good surfaces suitable for road bikes? I am also slightly concerned about security, having read about nasty attacks on cyclists on the Fallowfield loop. I'm hoping that this route goes through areas that are
not as dodgy!