Northern Rail Cycle forum

To Huddersfield yesterday for the the Northern Rail Cycle forum. The quickest way out of town for me is past the University, but that would entail the same route I take every day to get to work, so I skipped round via Pond St & Snig Hill to Shalesmoor and then along the new North Don route to Hillsborough, this starts off well but peters out towards the end, so across P*nistone Rd and out along Middlewood, which it still closed to motor vehicles but cycleable. This route isn't too bad until you get past Stocksbridge, where there is a short but highly unpleasant section along the A616 to the Flouch. Stopped at Langsett Cafe for a mug of tea and a teacake - a youngish guy has taken it over and is trying to start a bike hire business as well, so I've asked him to keep in touch with us on progress.

From there it's over the top paast Hepworth and down into the Holme valley. The long valleys on the appeoach to Huddersfield make for great cycling, high speeds are indicated. Made it in good time for the free lunch at 12. On a good quality road bike it doesn't take much longer to cycle to Huddersfield than it does to get the train!

At the NRCF we looked at the progress that had been made with the Cycling Strategy targets, (quite good actually) and discussed the impact that the tram-train trial would have on the P*nistone line, and for cyclerail generally. It's a bit early to draw conclusions, but there is an opportunity here to provide some really excellent provision for cycles, and break the "bikes on trams" barrier that we seem to have hit here in the UK.

After the meeting I thought I would go off and "get my kicks" on NCN Route 66. This is confusingly signposted from Huddersfield Station as Route 69. It's a bit weird because although it looks like an old railway, it must have been infilled a lot as it switchbacks along. It also seems to be infested with kids on illegal motorbikes. This gets you as far as Bradley where there is a bit of a gap- for future reference you need to turn right on the B6118, then the entrance to this bit of 66 is to the left according to streetmap. There followed a nice bit of rail trail, taking you to Mirfield where things got a bit complicated but Sustrans Rangers looked to have been out putting up temporary signage - thanks for that guys! The route continues through Mirfield where a fair amount of damage looks to have been done partticularly in the park, where an archway has had most of the bricks kicked out of it, and into Dewsbury, which I recommend avoiding completely. There's a junction with the Spen Valley Greenway (see my earlier post about that) so I took that down to the canal (Aire & Calder) where sadly the smooth surface runs out, and bumped along the towpath as far as Horbury Bridge, where I took to the road to Horbury, feeling sorry for the commuters in an endless queue of cars and then followed the perfectly decent Rhubarb cycle route to Wakefield.

Got the Northern Fast service back to Sheffield - a Bike Friday owner got on at Barnsley and tried to squeeze his bike into the tiny bike cupboard (this was not Sir William Wilberforce) but although I took my panniers off to make it easier for him I think he thought better of it and folded it anyway.

Surprise View, Early Morning

A car
lies on its roof, spinning slowly
The driver hangs from his seatbelt
Blood runs out of his mouth and into his eye
A sheep stares
incuriously

(From a description of a road traffic accident at Surprise Corner, Derbyshire, Thursday 17th April)

TRO - Ringinglow Rd

Latest TRO received proposes to reduce the speed on Ringinglow Rd from 60 to 50. Not enough but its a start - perhaps a recognition that speed actually is a factor in accidents?