Show us your clever, useful or easy to use cycleways

[mjr]

Roads, simply roads without cars - perfect...

Close, but not enough, unless cars are restricted from them somehow (including bollards or gates). A good cycle route isn't one that can be snatched by motorists willy nilly whenever they want it.

 

[Andrew_P]

another section through pine forests - these are all French - But lovely all the same.

If I am honest I got a bit bored on them and after a week went out on the roads again, shouldn't really admit that.

 

[Andrew_P]

Close, but not enough, unless cars are restricted from them somehow (including bollards or gates). A good cycle route isn't one that can be snatched by motorists willy nilly whenever they want it.

Yeah I know, but there was a silly Sci Fi programme on recently where Aliens had sealed off a city and everyone had to use bikes (that wasn't the plot line!) - it looked like Utopia to me.

 

[mjr]

If I am honest I got a bit bored on them and after a week went out on the roads again, shouldn't really admit that.

No reason why not. Choice is good!

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

No photos but I'll put in a good word for the ''Quietway 1'' in SE London. Very few lights and mostly quiet with good surfaces. It runs from west Greenwich to the south end of Westminster Bridge and it's actually surprisingly direct - more direct than the main roads with fewer stoppy-starty lights. I particularly like being able to get to the far end of the Old Kent Road with only one red light (with early green for cyclists) to navigate.

 

[NorthernDave]

Shhhh! - but small parts of the Leeds Cycle Super Highway (CSH2?) are actually quite good - the inbound section from Killingbeck down to Selby Road shows what could have been achieved - straight, separated from footpath and road, wide enough for two bikes to pass each other comfortably, decent quality well laid tarmac.
If it was all like this then it would be the exact thing cycling in the city needed.
Which makes the reality all the more disappointing...

 

[robjh]

The 'DNA Path' from Great Shelford into Cambridge. The Cambridge end has two forks, one to Addenbrookes Hospital and one to the station via part of the guided busway. This route is very well used, and even has some funky flat cats' eyes in the surface that pick out the edges in the dark.

 

[Spinney]

No photos, but the old railway cycletrack next to the A487 in Gwynedd - scenic as well as nicely avoiding a fairly busy A road.

 

[russ.will]

Well, for all of it's minor failings, the path next to the Cambridge [mis]Guided Busway that runs from a A10 in Cambridge to St. Ives is rather nice. It's part of NCN51. You can see the solar powered cats eyes mentioned above.

Of course, in typically joined up Cambridge fashion; despite following the old St. Ives-Cambridge rail route, neither the MGB, nor the path, actually go all the way to Cambridge station, yet.

Russell

 

[Elybazza61]

Well, for all of it's minor failings, the path next to the Cambridge [mis]Guided Busway that runs from a A10 in Cambridge to St. Ives is rather nice. It's part of NCN51. You can see the solar powered cats eyes mentioned above.
View attachment 149838

Of course, in typically joined up Cambridge fashion; despite following the old St. Ives-Cambridge rail route, neither the MGB, nor the path, actually go all the way to Cambridge station, yet.

Russell

Nice pic

I have a bit of a love/hate thing with that,it is pretty awesome in the early morning as most users(and there's not many at 6:30-ish!)are aware and keep left at other times it can be a bit messier(not to mention the horse droppings).

OK, I've threatened this a few time, but here it is. Please let's stop bloody whinging and advertising the failed experiments and thoughtless constructions and focus on what actually works. Here's a couple of old chestnuts that I like to start us off:

National 1 heading west away from King's Lynn station: after a minimum width (3m maybe) squeeze around a corner between a church and its rectory, it opens out to 9m along the edge of a Grade 2 listed park:
View attachment 149756

A bit further west, then turn north, cross one of the few Toucans that responds to a button push fairly quickly, then over a narrow bridge and it opens out again to 5m through Lynnsport and Leisure Park as six other routes join and leave it on this section, but no junction markings have ever been felt necessary:
View attachment 149757

Continue north and the route keeps priority over minor roads (excuse blurry handlebarcam image):
View attachment 149759

Then continuing northwest on a mix of cycle tracks and residential roads to head out into the countryside and where the old blocked-off A149 became a cycle track alternative to the new fast A149:
View attachment 149760

None of that stretch seems particularly clever (except having the good sense not to jackhammer the old A149), but they are useful and easy to use. They're pretty old now, but I don't think any section got as much hoop-la as it deserved when it was launched or upgraded. Norfolk councils seem strangely unwilling to trumpet achievements for cycling

What examples have you seen that you'd like to praise? Cycle tracks or cycle lanes, as long as they're good.

Keep meaning to have a run out from that Kings Lynn sometime up to the coast with the better half,didn't realise the cycle paths were that good.

 

[mjr]

Keep meaning to have a run out from that Kings Lynn sometime up to the coast with the better half,didn't realise the cycle paths were that good.

They're mostly good but once you cross the town boundary, they are connected by some residential roads that should have been blocked off to motorists but aren't, then they stop seven miles out, where National 1 crosses the A149 and it's about another 11 miles on back roads to Old Hunstanton via Ringstead, with the last 200m on the A149 unprotected. It's a bit of a "nearly, but not quite" for getting to the coast. Just 1km more cycle track connecting fairly quiet back roads between Snettisham and Heacham Lamsey Lane would make life much easier. A third Heacham- Hunstanton connection is already planned but there's no southern link.

 

[cyberknight]

I use this ...
https://goo.gl/maps/pYP1JHYbzXz
avoiding...
https://goo.gl/maps/zgiG8tWuvp62

Not sure how to embed images from maps .

 

[mjr]

Annecy to Ugine, Haute Savoie, French Alps. Gets my vote any time.........

Looks like a railway conversion: is it?

I rode the Piste Cyclable Roger Lapébie to Sauveterre-de-Guyenne, which is a former railway from Bordeaux.

 

[Donger]

Looks like a railway conversion: is it?

I rode the Piste Cyclable Roger Lapébie to Sauveterre-de-Guyenne, which is a former railway from Bordeaux.

Yes, it is an old railway line. About 20 miles or so of it, running right along the lake from Annecy, then up the valley to Ugine (near Albertville). Lovely and flat all the way. Great mountain passes to either side of it all the way, and lots of club cyclists using it to get to the start of the climbs. It avoids a horribly busy main road, and it gets shared by roller bladers, joggers and cyclists. Mountain scenery all the way. I'd give it 11/10.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Someone beat me to it, but I also vote for the Bristol to Bath Railway Path. Genius idea for a cycle path based on an old railway line that started the NCN