Morecambe Bay Cycle Route
- Thread starter hoppym27
- Start date
Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
Soltydog
Legendary Member
- Location
- near Hornsea
Not done that route, but did cycle to Morecambe last year, I opted to stay in Lancaster overnight as it was cheaper for me, a couple of miles or so from Morecambe & a cycle path pretty much all the way. But I'd avoid the Travelodge at Lancaster, very noisy & warm IMO
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
I am in the middle of doing the Bay Way right now! I will write a little report about it at the weekend after I get back.
Are you getting wet? I was going to do it this week also but shelved the idea after seeing the weather forecast ie it's either raining or it's going to.
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
I'm back now.
We were incredibly lucky with the weather - we only had about an hour of showers on the first day, got to our B&B near Ulverston and then the heavens opened up once we were indoors!
It was raining when we set off from Ulverston on day 2 so we spent an hour in a cafe with our bikes (they let us take them inside). After that, we had sunshine on the second and third days.
We had added a scenic detour up the side of Coniston and over to Hawkshead on the second day, and then down the west side of Windermere on day 3 to rejoin the original route just before Backbarrow..
It rained again while we were having a pub meal at Grange-over-Sands but it stopped before we walked back to our hotel. More sunshine on day 4 to Carnforth ...
I had changed the route for the final day - we took the canal towpath to Bolton-le-Sands and then climbed up through Nether Kellet and descended the other side of the hill to the Crook o' Lune cafe near Caton where we stopped for a cuppa, before taking the very fine Lune cycleway into Lancaster. Apart from becoming pretty windy, the good weather was holding so we decided to continue rather than catching an early train home ... We took the cyclepath to Morecambe rather than going to Glasson Dock because I have never been there before but I ride to Glasson Dock every year. After a cafe stop on the seafront, we went back along the cycleway to Lancaster.
We enjoyed the route apart from 175 metres of the horribly busy A590 to get us to Backbarrow. Barrow-in-Furness wasn't very scenic, but I didn't expect it to be; at least the coastal cyclepath out of the town was good!
My friend is only an occasional cyclist but she coped with 20-30 miles a day of the flat to undulating terrain. There were just a few tougher climbs, most noticeably the one up from Backbarrow which consists of a steep ramp to Low Brow Edge, some respite, then another ramp up to High Brow Edge. After that there is a lovely run down to Grange, though we got caught out by a steep little climb away from the B5277 at Kents Bank - I suppose 'Bank' should have been a clue!
There were a few cases where signs had been turned to face the wrong way! One example was just after Cartmel. The official route goes via Cark, Flookburgh and Allithwaite but the sign at Headless Cross had been turned to point directly to Allithwaite. (TBH, it would probably be nicer to take NCN 70 from Headless Cross to G-o-S than to stay on the busier official roads.) There were quite a few unmarked turns which would be easy to miss without navigating by GPS or paying very close attention to a map or route sheet.
I rode my cyclocross bike but it wasn't really necessary - I would have been happy riding my best road bike. The only minor rough stuff was on the broken-up tarmac on the canal towpath from Carnforth to Bolton-le-Sands.
I hadn't got round to putting a rack on my bike so I carried my stuff in a large rucksack - never again; panniers were invented for a good reason!
A few photos from the trip ...
Pale Rider
Legendary Member
So you made your inexperienced companion go over Hawkshead Hill.
Are you still friends?
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Ha ha - she asked for it!
Actually, she DID ask for it ... She quite rightly pointed out that we were going to be very close to the lakes and mountains of the Lake District without really getting a good look at them and asked me to find a way of getting us some views without going on busy roads or over huge climbs. The detour up the side of Coniston was well worth it.
My pal was on a rigid mountain bike with slick tyres which rolled well and she had nice low climbing gears. I was quite impressed at how well she did on the climbs. She got up the lesser ones and managed about 50% of each of the steeper ones, getting off and pushing the bike once she couldn't ride above a walking pace.
I wouldn't say that she is now a confirmed cyclist but she is certainly showing more interest. She got me to raise the saddle for her once she got used to riding and she eventually started to adopt a less upright posture on the bike too. The bike has a nasty adjustable stem which is currently set to give maximum bar height and minimum reach. I didn't want to mess with it on the ride, but I think that it will gradually get adjusted towards a more conventional bar position. I will replace it with a regular stem once we arrive at a settled setup. (I rode the bike a few hundred metres and the steering feels horribly twitchy set up as it is now.)
We have now planned a weekend away in the Forest of Bowland, stopping at Slaidburn YH. That will be some time in September.
I have plotted the elevation profiles for the 5 days, all to the same scale. Days 1 and 5 had about 250 m of climbing a day and the middle 3 days were approximately 500 m a day. That is for modified Bay Way route and include a few diversions, wrong turns and u-turns by me to search for my companion!
If you would like to see a GPX file for each day I will tidy them up to remove some of the clutter and post them in a day or two.
Last edited:
Pale Rider
Legendary Member
The minor road along the east side of Coniston is one of my favourite stretches in the Lake District, not that I've ridden that extensively over there.
Some asjustable stems are a bit horrid - I had one - although as a general point a modern mountain bike will have a short stem for sharp steering, which is what's needed on trails.
That translates to 'twitchy' on the road, so we are back to the old saying of a bike for every ride.
Some asjustable stems are a bit horrid - I had one - although as a general point a modern mountain bike will have a short stem for sharp steering, which is what's needed on trails.
That translates to 'twitchy' on the road, so we are back to the old saying of a bike for every ride.
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
I forgot to mention the accommodation ...
We were keeping our daily mileage down so our first stop came early. It was at Swarthmoor, just on the Barrow side of Ulverston. Red Lion House has 3 rooms. Our twin room was cosy enough and had a separate private bathroom but we had to cross a shared corridor to get to it. I think that the other 2 rooms were ensuite doubles. The house has fibre broadband and I was able to stream a film on iPlayer with only a couple of minor hiccups .The owners said that the Internet speed is usually pretty good but obviously if they have 6 guests all hammering the connection at the same time then things can slow down. They were friendly and helpful. They had dismantled their bikes to move them to one end of their shed so we could get our bikes in. Breakfast was fine. There was a village pub serving food only 50 metres away, or Ulverston is only a couple of miles down the hill. The only downside really was that the B&B is on the A590 so there was a fair amount of traffic noise with the bedroom window open. It didn't really bother me though, and my companion uses earplugs at night so it didn't bother her.
Night #2 was at Ann Tysons House in Hawkshead. A little old woman was running it. We were happy enough with our room in an annexe building out the back and there was a lockable bike 'shed' (large box) in the closed courtyard. No padlock was fitted and we didn't ask for one because we locked our bikes inside using the HUGE d-lock that I was humping around with me. The annexe is an old building and did smell slightly musty but we were comfortable enough. Once again, a decent Internet connection. (I think a lot of the villages were benefitting from the rural broadband initiative.) We went into the main building in the morning and discovered that we were the youngest guests by far (at 56 and 61) - everyone else seemed to be in their 70s and 80s! I was very happy with the breakfast - the owner was very attentive and kept supplying us with toast, coffee, muesli, (whatever), and had made me a nice veggie breakfast [PS order in advance if you want one - my friend liked the look of mine and asked for one but another was not available].
Night #3 was at Corner Beech House in Grange-over-Sands. We were very impressed with it. The whole place was very clean and fresh. They were not cutting costs like some places - for example, they supplied 'Tea Pigs' tea bags in the rooms. They are expensive and you could tell the difference between them and the more common cheap tea bags supplied in many establishments. The ensuite shower room was fairly compact but very swish. Shampoo, conditioner and shower gel provided. We were told to help ourselves to any extra milk etc. if we needed them from a cupboard out in the corridor. There were also about 200 DVDs out there to choose from. Decent Internet! We had a room on the side of the building so I am not sure that we would have been able to see the sea from there, but you certainly could from the front. There was a padlocked bike shed at the side of the car park below the front of the building. Breakfast was great. Grange is a nice little town.
Night #4 was at the County Hotel in Carnforth which is at a crossroads on the A6 in the town. Our accommodation was in a separate building at the rear of the car park set back from the A6, but you could still hear traffic noise with the window open. Again - it didn't bother us, but it might bother you. They locked our bikes in an underground storeroom below the accommodation block. The room was okay. No problems with it and it was spacious, but it hadn't been redecorated for quite a few years by the look of it. The Internet in the room was unusable. It worked in the pub itself so I would say that they only have one router and could do with a booster in the accommodation building. We ate an evening meal in the pub, which was ok. Breakfast was not included and we didn't feel like paying extra so we rode to Morecambe and had brunch there. (There is an Aldi just down the road from the pub so you could go and buy supplies there and feed yourselves cold food in the room. I'm sure that there would be takeaways nearby as well because it is a busy little town.)
We were keeping our daily mileage down so our first stop came early. It was at Swarthmoor, just on the Barrow side of Ulverston. Red Lion House has 3 rooms. Our twin room was cosy enough and had a separate private bathroom but we had to cross a shared corridor to get to it. I think that the other 2 rooms were ensuite doubles. The house has fibre broadband and I was able to stream a film on iPlayer with only a couple of minor hiccups .The owners said that the Internet speed is usually pretty good but obviously if they have 6 guests all hammering the connection at the same time then things can slow down. They were friendly and helpful. They had dismantled their bikes to move them to one end of their shed so we could get our bikes in. Breakfast was fine. There was a village pub serving food only 50 metres away, or Ulverston is only a couple of miles down the hill. The only downside really was that the B&B is on the A590 so there was a fair amount of traffic noise with the bedroom window open. It didn't really bother me though, and my companion uses earplugs at night so it didn't bother her.
Night #2 was at Ann Tysons House in Hawkshead. A little old woman was running it. We were happy enough with our room in an annexe building out the back and there was a lockable bike 'shed' (large box) in the closed courtyard. No padlock was fitted and we didn't ask for one because we locked our bikes inside using the HUGE d-lock that I was humping around with me. The annexe is an old building and did smell slightly musty but we were comfortable enough. Once again, a decent Internet connection. (I think a lot of the villages were benefitting from the rural broadband initiative.) We went into the main building in the morning and discovered that we were the youngest guests by far (at 56 and 61) - everyone else seemed to be in their 70s and 80s! I was very happy with the breakfast - the owner was very attentive and kept supplying us with toast, coffee, muesli, (whatever), and had made me a nice veggie breakfast [PS order in advance if you want one - my friend liked the look of mine and asked for one but another was not available].
Night #3 was at Corner Beech House in Grange-over-Sands. We were very impressed with it. The whole place was very clean and fresh. They were not cutting costs like some places - for example, they supplied 'Tea Pigs' tea bags in the rooms. They are expensive and you could tell the difference between them and the more common cheap tea bags supplied in many establishments. The ensuite shower room was fairly compact but very swish. Shampoo, conditioner and shower gel provided. We were told to help ourselves to any extra milk etc. if we needed them from a cupboard out in the corridor. There were also about 200 DVDs out there to choose from. Decent Internet! We had a room on the side of the building so I am not sure that we would have been able to see the sea from there, but you certainly could from the front. There was a padlocked bike shed at the side of the car park below the front of the building. Breakfast was great. Grange is a nice little town.
Night #4 was at the County Hotel in Carnforth which is at a crossroads on the A6 in the town. Our accommodation was in a separate building at the rear of the car park set back from the A6, but you could still hear traffic noise with the window open. Again - it didn't bother us, but it might bother you. They locked our bikes in an underground storeroom below the accommodation block. The room was okay. No problems with it and it was spacious, but it hadn't been redecorated for quite a few years by the look of it. The Internet in the room was unusable. It worked in the pub itself so I would say that they only have one router and could do with a booster in the accommodation building. We ate an evening meal in the pub, which was ok. Breakfast was not included and we didn't feel like paying extra so we rode to Morecambe and had brunch there. (There is an Aldi just down the road from the pub so you could go and buy supplies there and feed yourselves cold food in the room. I'm sure that there would be takeaways nearby as well because it is a busy little town.)
