The Lancashire Cycleway. Jon Sparks
gloves have subtle padding where your hands rest on the bars, and this improves comfort immeasurably. In warmer weather, fingerless gloves with ventilated backs, often called track mitts, keep this comfort advantage but stay fairly cool. Some people, including some pros, can’t bear riding with gloves, but I feel naked without them even on a two-minute spin to the corner shop.
Last but not least, a helmet may serve no purpose whatever most of the time, but there just might be that millisecond when it could save your life. Modern cycling helmets are extremely light and well-ventilated and you'll probably forget you’re wearing one. If you still overheat, shaving your head has been found to help. Like everything else, a helmet must fit properly. Don’t wear it tipped back on your head, as so many people do. The front rim should be, at most, three fingers’ width above your eyebrows.
Carrying gear
Weight is not the most crucial factor when cycling on the flat, but certainly makes a difference when you hit the hills. How you carry it is important too. A bum-bag is reasonable, but if you need to carry a large rucksack, think again. On your back is really the worst place for heavy loads. It will make your back sweaty, compromise your balance, and may obscure your vision to the rear. It can also give you backache and a sore posterior.
For day rides, especially if you buy food and drink along the way, you can travel very light anyway. A spare inner tube and/or patches, a multi-tool and a pump are vital, and you’ll probably want a couple of bits of extra clothing in case the weather changes. This book is also essential, the relevant OS maps are a good thing too, and most people carry a camera of some sort. Incidentally, carrying a repair kit is pointless unless you know what to do with it.
This much kit can usually be distributed under the saddle and in the back pockets of a cycling jersey or a bum-bag. A substantial saddle-pack is a traditional solution but a handlebar-bag makes everything just that bit more accessible. Some have a clear pocket on top to hold map or guidebook for instant reference (but don’t read while you’re riding!).
A handy, adaptable saddle-pack from Apidura
For trips involving a night or two away you’ll need somewhat more clothing and a few toiletries. If you’re crafty, and fairly strict about excluding non-essentials, you can still get everything into a good-sized saddlebag or a saddlebag and bar-bag.
For longer trips, or if you’re camping, panniers are the traditional way to carry substantial loads, but if you’ve never been cycle-touring before a trip that needs panniers seems a bit like going in at the deep end. On the other hand, if your bike already has a suitable rack, then panniers (maybe just one if you’re travelling light) could be the easiest and most economical option.
Potholes and pitfalls
It has to be said: a lot of the roads on the Cycleway, like many others elsewhere in the county and across the country, have deteriorated noticeably since the first edition of this guide appeared.
As noted above, wider tyres run at slightly lower pressures will mitigate the discomfort of rough surfaces, but they won’t help you if you hit a real pothole at speed. Keep your wits about you and scan well ahead for these hazards. Don’t ride too close into the gutter as this can limit your options. If there’s traffic about and you need to move out to avoid a pothole, make your intentions clear and make your move in good time.
Deviations from the route
As this is an ‘official’ cycleway it’s not up to a guidebook author to tinker with the route, but I have suggested one or two slight deviations where these seem to make sense.
The Priory Church, one of the glories of Lancaster’s Castle Hill (Stage 1a)
There have been a few, mostly minor, modifications to the official route in the last decade. The most obvious is around Buckshaw Village (Stage 11 of the Southern Loop). What was a virtual wasteland when the first edition of this guide was published is now a large community, with hundreds of houses, shops, industry, even a new railway station.
One factor of growing importance is the spread of dedicated cycle routes, whether purpose-built or adapted. Where these provide traffic-free routes which link comfortably to the rest of the Cycleway, this is generally most welcome.
However, such provision can encourage the misguided (and thankfully rare) view that cyclists should only be on dedicated cycle tracks, not on the roads at all. When, and only when, cycle provision in this country is on a par with that in the Netherlands or Denmark, can there be any justification for such opinions. Meanwhile, and in the foreseeable future, we have every right to ride on all normal roads apart from motorways. Every time you or I make a journey by bike instead of by car, we are reducing congestion, not adding to it, for which any reasonable motorist can only be grateful.
Whatever the politics, there will be further changes to the Cycleway route in the future. It’s even possible that a wholesale re-drawing of the route could take place, although this will only happen when funding is available to support a consultation process, new signage, mapping and so on. As author of this book, I hope to be involved in any such consultation and would welcome feedback from readers.
The obvious place to track such developments, you might think, is the internet, but I’ve yet to find a site that can be relied upon to be up to date. We’ll do our best with the Updates tab on this book’s page on the Cicerone website (www.cicerone.co.uk), and you can help by letting us know of any changes you notice.
Signage
Based on my experience (I re-rode the entire route in the early months of 2016), 99% of junctions on the Lancashire Cycleway are correctly signed. All well and good, but what about the 1%, those odd spots where, perhaps as the result of mischief, signs are missing or wrongly aligned?
If you rely solely on signs to navigate, one missing sign (or even one that’s momentarily hidden by a double-decker bus) can throw you right off, and by the time you realise you may have scant idea where you are or how to get back on route. It’s wiser to maintain a running check against the text and maps in this book. GPS navigation is another great standby.
Several stretches are shared with other National Cycle Network routes and the proliferation of blue signs could be confusing. The Northern Loop of the Cycleway is NCN route 90 and the Southern Loop is route 91. Other NCN routes you’ll encounter include National Route 6 (London–Cumbria), Route 55 (Ironbridge–Preston), the Way of the Roses (Route 69, Morecambe–Bridlington), and the Bay Cycleway (Route 700), unveiled in 2015, which runs from Walney Island to Glasson Dock.
Are there enough signs here?
Maps, apps and timings
Combined with the detailed route descriptions, the maps in this book should be more than adequate for navigation, but you may want to consider carrying Ordnance Survey maps as well as they give a much wider view of where you are and what you can see. As they show every road and track, you can also use them to plan alternative routes and links for future exploration of Lancashire. The 1:50,000 Landranger series is an ideal scale for cycling. To cover the entire Cycleway you’ll need six of them:
97 Kendal & Morecambe
98 Wensleydale & Upper Wharfedale
102 Preston & Blackpool
103 Blackburn & Burnley
108 Liverpool
109 Manchester
The first four are needed for the Northern Loop; the last four for the Southern. Sheet 98 is only needed for about 10km of the route, with no complicated navigation, so you could well manage without: as it includes the final stages