Midlands Cycle Routes

[melliff]

There are two Sustrans routes in the Midlands: The West Midlands Cycle Route which goes from Oxford to Derby via Birmingham and The South Midlands Cycle Route which goes from Oxford to Derby via Leicester.

Does anyone have experience of these routes? I'm think of doing one or other of them in the Spring and would be interested to hear what people think of them.

 

[Bodger]

There are more than two..a quick search of the sustrans site ought to find you some more.

I use route 5 through Birmingham and up to Lichfield. Parts of it do tend to go all round the houses, and in places not very nice houses! Surfaces are what you might expect: a right mixed bag. Should be OK on a tourer but wouldn't recommend using your best skinny tyred light weight race bike.

If you want to go through the middle of Birmingham then it's OK. If you like riding canals and round housing estates then it's OK. If you want better scenery, a better surface and quieter roads then it's best to go wround the outside of Birmingham and stay on the road.
Oh, and if you have a trailer/tandem/trike you might soon get fed up of having to lift it over gates on parts of the route.

 

[Cranky]

There are two Sustrans routes in the Midlands: The West Midlands Cycle Route which goes from Oxford to Derby via Birmingham and The South Midlands Cycle Route which goes from Oxford to Derby via Leicester.

Does anyone have experience of these routes? I'm think of doing one or other of them in the Spring and would be interested to hear what people think of them.

I did Route 5 from Oxford to Lichfield last year (was aiming for Derby but my friend's mechanical problems cut us short). In general, the section from Oxford to Birmingham was a great route through some lovely countryside, but some of the off road sections would be quite a challenge (or, at least, very uncomfortable) on a road bike. This section was also very well signed.

However, Birmingham to Lichfield was very confusing in places, badly signed, and the Sustrans map didn't help much either (we lost about 2 hours around Chasewater before we found the way out). There's quite a long stretch of rather narrow canal path out of Birmingham, if you like that sort of thing, which has a lot of muddy puddles when wet and the sign to leave was missing so we wasted some time and mileage there. The sections around West Bromwich and Walsall are pretty grim in places.