Amongst much fanfare, the Cycle-West.com site has been launched!
Oh! You didn’t know about it? Then allow me to enlighten you: it is a New! Improved! network of cycle paths in Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, as well as parts of France.
Given that my experience of France is limited to a 4-hour stop-over at Charles de Gaulle airport, I really am not fit to comment on the French side of things.
When we look at the routes on the Devon side, what strikes me as immediately apparent is that there are NO new routes! Instead, they pretty much rely on NCN27, with a spur (existing, before you get excited) to Padstow via the Camel Trail. Hmmm….I’m hardly blown away by this.
I must admit I’m quite curious about the route linking Plymouth with Torbay, and on to the Dorset Jurassic Coast. Cycling east-wards out of Plymouth is NOT what I’d describe as a great tourism attraction, unless we’re talking cycling tours for adrenaline junkies!
The NCN 2 route out of Plymouth is still pretty much a pie in the sky, and plans for building a new path on an old track bed has virtually been killed off recently.
Still, there is the not-to-be-scoffed-at funding just shy of £1 000 000 that could pay for some brand-new NCN route stickers. And besides, any cycling project that boosts cycle tourism, or just the image of cycling, must be a good thing.
Just a pity there aren’t any new cycle paths!
Where are you getting the specific info on the routes? All I can see on the website is great crayon lines scrawled across a vague map. At that scale it looks like from Poole to Weymouth it goes straight down the A35 trunk road, missing the coast entirely. I couldn't find anything useful on their site at all…
–Joe
I've simply tried to translate their scrawls to OpenStreetMap.org – the route out of Plymouth, towards Dorset seems to fit exactly the NCN 2 route (which is iffy at best and incomplete in places).
Certainly they describe the Devon C2C route (NCN 27) on their site, where they brag about the new Gem bridge being built over the Walkham valley.
Overall it strikes me as perhaps a case of old rope…?
I've mailed them and asked for updated details, but haven't had any response to date.
Mind you, I also asked them why the launch party was held in London, when none of the routes go anywhere near London! The silence was overwhelming…
Hopefully I'm wrong though – fingers crossed!