It’s certainly been a wet and windy start to 2024, thanks to Storm Henk’s decision to blow in and cause some severe disruption across the country (cheers, climate change), and for UK-based cyclists, that means only one thing – lots of terribly flooded bike routes.
On yesterday’s live blog, we noted the opening of Sustrans’ first-ever National Swimming Network route in Bath – formerly home to the city’s Two Tunnels greenway, where flooding has been reported since Christmas Eve.
Over a week after the flooded bike route was initially flagged to Sustrans and the local council, Bath-based cyclist and sometime road.cc reviewer Jez Ash asked if the tunnel had been cleared – noting that “there were large objects invisible below the water which are a major peril to any cyclists who fancy riding through it” – prompting the following watery video at the Bear Flat entrance to the shorter tunnel, filmed by Alan Yeodal yesterday morning:
When asked if any warnings had been put in place on the cycle route, Alan said: “No signs as of this morning. There were some ‘chalked’ on the tarmac a few days ago. It would be sensible to have some warning signs at the other end.”
Last night, thankfully, it was confirmed that Sustrans and Bath and North East Somerset Council are “aware” of the new swimming route, and are “in the process of taking action as soon as arrangements can be put in hand”.
However, some weren’t impressed by the delayed response.
“Good news”, said Andy Kelly, “But I can’t help but feel that the response would have been much swifter if it had been a road.
“Crazy that Active Travel arteries aren’t treated with the importance they deserve. Can you imagine an A road going for days without any authority doing anything about a major flood?”
Meanwhile, over in Oxford the Marston cycle path – which was reopened in October after two months of maintenance work – has been experiencing its own issues:
And the Trans Pennine Trail – voted the National Cycle Network’s most popular route – is also waterlogged in several places:
Looks like the award for Britain’s Most Flooded Bike Route could be inundated with new entries over the next few days…
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25 comments
"Cyclists bemoan..."
We do be bemoaning.
Not a recent clip but still another example of why we sometimes don't use "cycle lanes"...
https://youtu.be/0-WYxz0J6Hw
Maybe Sustrans could adopt that flooded CX course in Belgium? Would be right up their muddy street.
The fridge video is very clever, however it ain't real
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pvc2c40rk-4?feature=share
Red Bull buying out Bora - Expect Bora to sight WVA and Pidcock for 2025.
There are other RB athletes in cycling apart from them two. I'm guessing you don't watch much MTB racing.....
Bora Hansgrohe do not have a MTB team in any discipline or a current rider in the peloton who dabbles in XC. The last rider in their colours to ride MTB was Peter Sagan. Only Alpecin-Deceuninck, Ineos and Visma-Lease-A-Bike had MTB programes among the WT teams in 2023, all exclusively in XCC and XCO. Other bike brands seen at WT level almost all have "Factory" race teams including Giant, Trek, Specialized, Canyon and Scott, the WT teams they sponsor have no affiliation with their MTB teams. I am well aware of RB's affiliation with MTB, with numerous sponsored riders, and their own freeride series (Rampage). RB taking a controlling stake in Bora is the brand's first serious foray into the road world.
There is only one other road rider who is an individual Red Bull sponsored athlete and that is Anton Palzer, who already rides for Bora-Hansgrohe. My comment was specifically aimed at the road discipline - poking fun at Red Bull's impending attempt to dominate road cycling - and had nothing to do with the Red Bull MTB programme.
Not sure they'll get hold of either for '25 but it's nice to see a new(ish) big-money sponsor in cycling, processing from just sponsoring a couple of riders.
Maybe they'll become a full RB outfit in a couple of seasons I'd expect?
As much as the quip was in jest I would not be surprised if it turns out that way. Considering the sport is financially precarious a big money injection should be a good thing. I much prefer RB to say, the Saudi PIF, or a crypto-based sponsor.
RE: Two Tunnels greenway - come on whingers, surely it's called "Bath" for a reason!
Call that flooded? This is flooded (NR1 barnes subway Sunderland 2012) Fortunatley the adjacent culvert is now cleared at regualr intervals
Call that flooded?!?
NCR 81 in the Quarry and down past the weir in Shrewsbury is under 5-10 feet of water.
https://twitter.com/saloplarus/status/1742602398760112526/
The photo below shows a sign on a pole beside the route as it goes underneath English Bridge - the base of the sign (below the ! warns of " Oncoming cyclists & pedestrians") is about 7 ft above the path & cycle route. I doubt it is even visible now. And when the floods recede the path will be very muddy and slippery. I used to ride to work that way when conditions allowed. Here is a photo of the path showing the river at a normal level:
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-marine-terrace-and-river-severn-from-e...
Further upstream the same route near the Severn-Vyrnwy confluence near Melverley is also under several feet of water stretching across much of the floodplain. Tuesday's deluge hit saturated ground and ran off straight into the watercourses, quite a few gauges show a rapid peak that is is not far off the record levels seen in 2000.
Stafford
Managing to flood a tunnel that is at the top of a hill is pretty impressive. I'm assuming the Victorians who built it had installed drainage, so at some point Sustrans/some contracter has fubared it. The response (or lack of it) is just another symptom of the attitude that 'cycling is for fun, not for function'. Until we treat cycle routes like actual travel routes rather than leisure facilities, we're never going to get decent uptake.
To be fair, this year has been absolutely insane for rainfall – I haven’t had a consecutive 48-hour period without rain since August, we’re on something like the fourth or fifth named storm/weather warning in two weeks. The nearest population centre to me is a small village called Blaenwaun, which is (at 220m above sea level) one of the highest villages in West Wales. Yesterday, it was impassible because of flooding.
I drove to Aberglasney a few days ago, which means driving through Sanclar and past Carmarthen (both basically underwater at this point), and then getting on the A40 which runs parallel to the river Towey. The river has long since burst its banks and has flooded the surrounding farmland. Looking out from the A40 across the valley was like looking out at the sea. It’s crazy.
Henk was a storm that got heavier than expected. Played havoc with my bike-train-bike commute home. Stayed late with the possibility of a working train, but when that failed, found one route that might be running, of two alternates. Filthy off roaded to the nearest station, but nothing, and nothing had run through for many hours, and nothing for many hours, couple of engineering trains did go through as I was chatting to the station bloke, off to clear fallen trees. The canal had many tree falls, all passable, they'd already started on a big one that would have blocked it.
Popped into three more stations as I continued home, nothing, and nothing.
A route I had done many times, but not for over a decade. And not on a big heavy bike set up for deep mud. Or on my first day back after not riding for a week and a half. And, of course, headwind
The first time doing the full ride back in the five and a half years of this job. Train always eventually came through.
Lots of changes, interesting new junctions and new bits of road. Fantastic bridge on one. Lots of black cabs where you'd never normally see them.
Appreciated the new grips, glad because they were a nightmare to fit. And the new jacket the better half got me for Xmas. But the front brake sounds and feels like it needs new pads, annoying. But as it was very late when I did get in and I was pooped, I'm doing them today. And servicing. Going sintered, seeing if that improves the noise in the filth.
I assume this will be reviewed.
"Holborn cycle death: Woman was dragged under lorry, court hears"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67865824
What a bunch of whingers. It's winter, it's been raining a lot, half the fields in my corner of Shropshire are underwater, one of the three road in & out of our village is already close by flood water and the second will probably close later this morning. Deal with it or buy some waterproof socks!
on the other hand, how many people commute through fields in Shropshire?
"Farmers!"
"...and?"
"Farmers' mums"
theres been a road flooded near Leiston since Storm Babet
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-67683190
and theres a road I cycle on alot, got used on the Tour of Britain last year, thats usually impassable, unless you want to get your feet wet and ruin your bottom bracket, for 4 months of the year due to persistent flooding.
it took about 5 years of continually reporting it before the council pumped out the blocked drain and only temporarily fixed it.
The Romans were quite adept at making raised active travel routes, is it really a skill that's been lost over the centuries? Or is it that much cheaper to dig a trench and half fill it with tarmac so pathways become the impervious drainage ditches?
"Apart from a nationwide network of all-weather active travel routes, what have the Romans ever done for cycling?"
Never mind the Romans, I reckon we should ask some people who are used to living closer to (or below) the water and still using low-lying infra:
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/tag/underpass/
Even deliberately:
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/submerged-bicycle-bridge-i...
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2023/02/01/amsterdam-opened-a-new-bic...
Perhaps people saw this recreational attraction in Belgium and copied it, but without the drainage.
The UK is continuing to increase its impermeable surface coverage at the same time as we need to adapt to more concentrated or just increased rainfail. (As usual it's politics and money, not because we lack the tools e.g. rain gardens).
I moved to Glasgow - a city used to rain - 25 years ago and I'm utterly convinced that the council has a specialist department installing huge puddles at every bus stop and pedestrian crossing in the city. They're recently had their budget increased and are now installing them in bike lanes too.
The team have recently discovered rain gardens and installed a few small, token examples. However, The University of Glasgow decided to show how it's done and installed a large rain garden in the SW corner of their new plaza - you can see it in the bottom right of the attached image. Unfortunately the entire site slopes down to the SE corner and nobody at the University of Glasgow has explained to the water that it needs to flow uphill to their rain garden.
The bus stops and pedestrians crossings are both place where heavy vehicles stop and start from, so it's probably just damage to the road from that. The bike lanes are more likely to be done deliberately out of spite.