NCR1

[Cush]

Danny, the main reason the cycle trail over the Lambley Viaduct and between HallBank Gate and Lambley has not been completed is because Sustran went in mob handed and overrode the locals, who being from the Borders and the nicest people you can meet till you put their backs up told Sustran what to do with their plans. I have met some senior sustran people who are very good and nice but most do have an attitude problem.

 

[byegad]

Much of the NCN is OK to good, but it's the bits that aren't that ruin the whole thing. If a stranger to the area takes his fully loaded tourer along the route and suddenly meets an obstacle, be it a muddy field complete with very muddy gates at either end, or a barrier too narrow for his panniers AND handlebars to get through. At that point the route fails. Imagine a narrow muddy section of the M1 just South of Watford Gap, impassable to anything except 4x4s with off road tyres. What use is the M1 then for the majority of drivers?

 

[Danny]

Much of the NCN is OK to good, but it's the bits that aren't that ruin the whole thing. If a stranger to the area takes his fully loaded tourer along the route and suddenly meets an obstacle, be it a muddy field complete with very muddy gates at either end, or a barrier too narrow for his panniers AND handlebars to get through. At that point the route fails. Imagine a narrow muddy section of the M1 just South of Watford Gap, impassable to anything except 4x4s with off road tyres. What use is the M1 then for the majority of drivers?

I've only come across one section of the NCN that I would describe as impassible, though there have been a few sections where I have had to get off an push (I also accept the section below Berwick might well be impassible in wet weather).

However you seem to be holding Sustrans up to an impossible standard. Are you really saying they should not build a new route at all unless every bit of the route is good enough from day one?

 

[byegad]

I've only come across one section of the NCN that I would describe as impassible, though there have been a few sections where I have had to get off an push (I also accept the section below Berwick might well be impassible in wet weather).

However you seem to be holding Sustrans up to an impossible standard. Are you really saying they should not build a new route at all unless every bit of the route is good enough from day one?

I've come across several sections that are impassable to all but an MTB complete with knobbly tyres.

Yes I am saying you don't open a route that is not up to an acceptable standard. I'm not suggesting it all be tarmac but it all needs to be rideable in the wet. Also it needs to be passable by all users, so a loaded touring bike, a loaded tandem and a trike should all be able to use it. As to dismounting, when you have to get off it becomes a footpath not a cyclepath.

Mixed use parts of the Sustrans system are a good idea. However that means the entrances to the off road sections should be passable for wheelchair users and prams. Most in my area are not! The group I was amalgamated into as a Ranger after a period of working on my own had a 'thing' about illegal motorcycles using the track. They had put formidable barriers in 'to stop the motorcycles' they stopped me getting on to the tracks without lifting a recumbent trike over some of these barriers and effectively made parts of the network inaccessible to many users. The one thing these barriers didn't do was stop the motorcycles because they broke down farmer's fences and rode across the field to get onto the track.

A friend tried a section in the South of England and after removing the panniers from their bikes 5 times in less than 2 miles because of barriers gave up and used the roads. These are not acceptable solutions in my and many other people's opinion.

 

[mcr]

I cycled the best part of 1000km on German bike routes last month and there they appear to have decided that tarmac should be the preferred surface for anything calling itself a bike route, whether national or local - I reckon 95% of my riding was on tarmac, and the bits that weren't were with one or two brief exceptions better than many sealed NCN sections I've experienced here (eg the narrow, overgrown, striated tarmac of NCN6 along the Grand Union Canal). I'm not suggesting this could happen here thanks to rights of way issues (eg in Germany there's no obligation to keeping surfaces soft for horses since they don't have the same concept of bridleways), but it would be nice to have a presumption of sealed surface as a pre-requisite for deciding where to develop as a route.

Here's a lovely example in the Palatine Forest, near the French border:

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I cycled the best part of 1000km on German bike routes last month and there they appear to have decided that tarmac should be the preferred surface for anything calling itself a bike route, whether national or local - I reckon 95% of my riding was on tarmac, ...

95% of our time was not on tarmac last year in Germany.
I would reckon no more than 75%, but that other 25% was great fun, very hard work in places and really worth it, but sand and laden touring/expedition bikes with off road tyres still does not work well, especially up/downhill.

I also remember that my cycle route to school (when I was in Germany) only covered 50/50 tarmac/field tracks, but that was more decades ago than I care to mention...

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

...But I was caught out when I started to follow NCR 1 from Berwick and it degenerated in to a footpath that is just not suitable for a heavily loaded road bike and follows a very dangerous (in my opinion) cliff top route. This is not the first time I have come across problems with NCR 1. ...

It was no better on a heavily laden expedition bike with off road tyres either, but be thankful - it could have been a couple of the sections we had in Scotland (of other NCR's). We had sections through a nature reserve where we had to remove all the panniers (and therefore our rackpacks as well) to get through the barriers and after the 2nd time in the space of 1/2 mile we returned to the road. Another section through Scotland (NCR77 I think, around Dunkeld station) the cycle route has steps on it, and not just one or two - if you know you can follow the road, and then almost immediately afterwards it has you cycling up a slip road AGAINST the flow of traffic that is coming off the A9... There was a narrow pavement but with no dropped curb to use and road markings saying use the sliproad, it was clearly an after thought by the insane... Then around Prestonpans I think it was, very steep steps to go around a power station, again the road or even the pavement you were previously cycling along would have been a better option...
Then you could consider the insane patch of NCR1 where it leaves the A1 and goes down to Lindisfaerne... Between the petrol station at the A1 junction and "The Barn at Beal" where we camped, the cycle path crosses the main road something like 5 times in the space of half a mile - we followed the road instead on the return journey only to be verbally assaulted by a motorist for not being on the cycle path - the only time in 14,000km/8,700miles that we had that problem!

The cycle network in the UK needs more thought and planning, we accept in because we have nothing else except dangerous roads with overly agressive drivers, no other reason. Cycling aroad in much more enjoyable IMO.

 

[mcr]

95% of our time was not on tarmac last year in Germany.
I would reckon no more than 75%, but that other 25% was great fun, very hard work in places and really worth it, but sand and laden touring/expedition bikes with off road tyres still does not work well, especially up/downhill.

I also remember that my cycle route to school (when I was in Germany) only covered 50/50 tarmac/field tracks, but that was more decades ago than I care to mention...

Well, that was my experience in the part of Germany I travelled in (Saarland/RLP/BW). And most of the bits that weren't sealed were at least compacted and free from potholes (unlike my local section of NCN51). To be honest, worse than the few bits of unsurfaced track I encountered was the Germans' inability to drop kerbs properly, so on my 1-1/4" touring tyres I had to make sure to approach each at 90 degrees or risk coming to an abrupt halt. At least that's something we do better in the UK!

Chatting to a German cycle-tourist on the Neckar path, she said that there's been a concerted effort to tarmac the named routes and more over the last 10-15 years, and it was obvious that some bits I was on had only been done in the last year or so, so things are improving all the time. And I saw verges being strimmed and swept with a street cleaner.