A cautionary tale from the live blog comments section. road.cc reader Hirsute had "decided to try a cycle route today as I had lots of time". Who knows? Perhaps this National Cycle Network offering would become a new traffic-free favourite of theirs — accessible, practical and a pleasant escape from the road network? Ah...
Another one for the collection of official cycle routes unusable in winter unless you're a mountain biker. As much as anything this post will be a great starting point for all your snaps of local mudfests...
"Gave up after 40m of NCN 1. Utterly appalling — there are better routes in Dutch small towns," Hirsute commented.
Fellow live blog regular Chrisonabike agreed: "What kind of bugs me is not so much that 'cycling' still mostly equates to 'recreation' for the powers that be (when they think of it at all). It's that even that 'recreation' is qualified [...] so it's 'narrow footpath down a muddy track/round the garages at the back of a chocolate-and-glitter-path estate'.
"I know that this is the National Cycle Network (being charitable here — an amazing effort to somehow stitch together some kind of continuous routes across the UK). I know that 'but nobody cycles'. It's the vicious cycle we have to break out of (for any change) — somehow...
"Meanwhile other countries not only have a network for actually getting around everywhere — just like the roads. They also have much better-quality 'narrow paths in the countryside' for recreation also! Heck — they signpost these with the intention that people will ride to the ride!"
And while I'm sure this post will get the usual cries of 'oh, but that's nothing, we'd be grateful for a path that clear', the underlying point is more about the wider state of off-road (and road for that matter) routes for cyclists and walkers in the UK. If a seasoned rider from the road.cc live blog comments section is put off, think about how a family trying to make more journeys by bike might feel.
This will be a scene repeated up and down the country no doubt, for example NCN4 which Miller reports is a canal towpath that "looks just like that, and worse, with the added amusement of threatening you with an unguarded deep cold canal".