National Cycle Network: some routes abandoned

[mjr]

I may be speaking on BBC Radio Norfolk about the route cuts after 1715 today.

 

[Sbudge]

Yes, you're right, just looked at OpenCycleMap - Smalldean is only on the Chilterns Cycleway, which is well known round these parts for having been drawn up by a masochist, as it seems to hit pretty much every climb or muddy barely passable single track road it can!

Having said that, NCN 57 is equally as perplexing in parts now that I've looked at it - takes you up Kop Hill (possibly one of the harder climbs in the Chilterns) and the Wall out of Great Missenden (25%+ on a single width path), but at the same time uses the flat easy Phoenix Trail, probably making most people think the rest of the route is going to be equally as easy and straightforward!

Having The Wall in Gt Missenden on an NCN is just crackers. I really like hills but that one defeated me the first time I found it. Got it the second time but really evil!

 

[cougie uk]

Most of the NCN routes in Cheshire/Shropshire are pretty good. There are a few parts where the route may be a muddy track, or take a ridiculous loop to avoid 0.5km of a main road. The A525 passes through our local small village. Part of the main road goes through a narrow series of bends in the centre of the village. Average traffic speed around 10-20mph. Route 552 takes a convoluted minor residential road that avoids a couple of hundred yards of this distinctly non-dangerous bit of the main road.

I always use the NCN routes as a good starter for a route in a non-familiar area. Then I look at the map and decide which part of the NCN route I need to modify/avoid.

Have you done NCN 5 by Frodsham Marshes ?
I don't recommend it.

 

[pjd57]

I'm beginning to think that some of NCN 754 has been abandoned. Big sections of the Forth and Clyde canal towpath have been left unrepaired for years now.
Strange thing is they're building a huge new bridge at Stockingfield junction costing £12:5 million plus another £4million on landscaping.

Smaller bridges and repair the path would have made a lot more sense