London- Paris cycle lane

[jonesy]

As ever the focus on long distance routes will never do much to increase cycle use for day to day travel because cycling is a primarily a short distance mode of transport. Long distance routes are fine when either
a)they cater for local trips along their length, a bit like the stopping train that almost no-one uses end to end but lots of people use for a few stops along the route; or
they genuinely serve the long distance traveller in locations where there is genuine demand for cycle tourism, e.g long distance trails like the coast to coast route.
Unfortunately a lot of the NCN's route mileage doesn't serve either group, being too indirect and slow for the longer distance tourer while often not serving local trips where it passes populated areas. Before I get jumped on for heresy, I'd add that some of the NCN does both, well, but not enough.

 

[buggi]

i see a lot of people asking for directions to Paris on here from other people that have done the trip. maybe this will do the trick and a lot more people will do the "adventure"

 

[dellzeqq]

as Catrike says - the route on this side of the Channel is rubbish. And there is a really decent route down to Newhaven that Sustrans have chosen to ignore because they are hooked on NCN21 which, sadly, runs east-west.

 

[CotterPin]

East-west?

My geography is not great but surely that's not going to land you in France. More like Belgium!

 

[02GF74]

the blue wobbly bit between England and France may prve to be quite tricky to cycle over.

 

[Davidc]

Who's going to open it?

It would be nice to see our cycling politicians doing the route end-to-end as an opening event. Boris and David Cameron certainly - and I'm sure they could find a few from the other parties. Does Red Ken ride a bike? (Could be funny seeing the following pack of detectives trying to get their car down the track though).

That, and a collection of French great and good (Sarkozy perhaps and his missus is very photogenic!) going the other way could be very good publicity for travelling by bike.