What is CUK doing for us?

[pete75]

I thought that Brucey was one of the more important services of the CTC.

CJ was formerly CTC's greatest asset.

[pete75]

As did literally thousands of us. The pandemic did more for cycling than CUK

Al

+1

+2

IMO. the CTC started to loose its way the day they gave Kevin Mayne the job of Director

Yep definitely an anagram of Newark.

[Richard Fairhurst]

Interesting thread.

In CUK's defence, their new off-road routes have been spectacularly successful - particularly King Alfred's Way, but also the Great North Trail, and I'd anticipate the West Kernow Way will be too. It's not necessarily the sort of touring that appeals to everyone here, but it is touring nonetheless, and an increasingly popular form of it. You could argue that King Alfred's Way, in particular, has got more column inches for bike touring than any other initiative in recent years.

It's true, though, that no one organisation in Britain, including CUK, is really doing much for non-rough-stuff touring at the moment. There's actually quite a lot going on piecemeal, ranging from Jack Thurston's excellent 'Lost Lanes' books, to a few new signposted touring routes, to, um, some websites or other. But there isn't a single organisation saying "right, we want to promote leisure cycling on country lanes".

Does that matter? By and large I'm not sure it does, but there are a couple of areas where the absence is noted.

One is in lobbying Government for safer road conditions. There's lots of great work going on in cities and towns for utility cycling, and that's fabulous. But no-one has really grasped the nettle of "quiet lanes" in rural areas. There have been a few disconnected initiatives over the years but nothing that's stuck. It sits between CUK, Sustrans, and CPRE, really, and I'd love to see a co-ordinated push on that. (I've even considered doing a few things myself but there are never enough hours in the day...)

The second is that no-one is really creating or marketing new long-distance accessible touring routes. We don't have anything of the scale or tourism impact of (say) the Rhine or Danube routes, or even the longer Voies Vertes in France. The Sustrans challenge routes (C2C, Lon Las Cymru etc.) are excellent, but they're a lot more difficult than the European equivalents, which makes them unlikely to ever have the same mass appeal. There's a small number of NCN routes which are almost there (Kennet & Avon, North Wales Coast, Devon C2C) but not quite. I think it's 100% doable for a few £m - in fact, I could suggest a route right now which I think would be an enormous success for a comparatively modest investment. In France they'd happily spend money on that, but there's no-one doing that in the UK right now.

[Richard Fairhurst]

In CUK's defence, their new off-road routes have been spectacularly successful

Having been nice about CUK an hour or two ago, I now take it all back having watched their lunchtime webinar on "How to plan a cycle route", which recommended Komoot and Google Maps, claimed that "Komoot uses OS maps so it's very accurate" (er... no it doesn't), and didn't admit the existence of cycle.travel, even after I sent a friendly message to the meeting host. Not the first time that's happened either.

So I think I'll revise my answer to say "CJ is right and CUK is doing nothing for us, please give your money to Sustrans instead".

[mattheus]

Agree with much of your two posts Richard.

Except perhaps praise for King Alf's Way; it got a lot of publicity, yes ... and then people tried riding it. A couple of friends tried it last week, with decent equipment - gave up after less than 20 miles from Wantage. (tyre failure, traction failure, sense-of-humour failure)

[nsew]

Poor things. Would they like it tarmac-ing? Looks like a cracking route from this guys three videos. Embarking on a long distance off-road trail during a notoriously wet month is frankly, dumb.

https://youtu.be/Ne4LbLl0qM8

[mattheus]

Poor things. Would they like it tarmac-ing? Looks like a cracking route from this guys three videos. Embarking on a long distance off-road trail during a notoriously wet month is frankly, dumb.

Thanks. I guess maybe June-Aug is acceptable for touring purposes. We can just watch Youtube for the other 9 months of the year.

[RickH]

Roads around here haven't improved since 1986! In fact none I ride have.

The RIA was 1886 not 1986! There was no tarmac in those days.

[nsew]

Poor things. Would they like it tarmac-ing? Looks like a cracking route from this guys three videos. Embarking on a long distance off-road trail during a notoriously wet month is frankly, dumb.

Thanks. I guess maybe June-Aug is acceptable for touring purposes. We can just watch Youtube for the other 9 months of the year.

Large areas of southern England are chalk down land (where you can see broken up chalk in the surface layer) which is highly permeable. In my experience, after about two or three days of zero precipitation, even after sustained periods of rain you’re good to go again on a bike. This April was bone dry on the North & South Downs. As it would of been on the Salisbury Plain.

[mjr]

Poor things. Would they like it tarmac-ing? Looks like a cracking route from this guys three videos. Embarking on a long distance off-road trail during a notoriously wet month is frankly, dumb.

Thanks. I guess maybe June-Aug is acceptable for touring purposes. We can just watch Youtube for the other 9 months of the year.

Large areas of southern England are chalk down land (where you can see broken up chalk in the surface layer) which is highly permeable. In my experience, after about two or three days of zero precipitation, even after sustained periods of rain you’re good to go again on a bike. This April was bone dry on the North & South Downs. As it would of been on the Salisbury Plain.

Thanks. I guess maybe stopping until there have been two or three days of zero rain is acceptable for touring purposes. We can just watch bike touring videos on Youtube while we wait for rainless days.

[mattheus]

I live in sight of the Ridgeway (and close to a King Alfred statue!). I am very familiar with the chalk (and mud) up there.

I've just about got the flexibilty to schedule a 2-day trip around the weather; but if I had a different life, or if I was planning a trip from further afield, it would be much harder.

If I want to ride the length of Wales (or Belgium) on roads I just take my chances with the weather - it's unlikely to make the trip impractical. I don't know many off-road routes very well, so it would be nice if a touring organisation recommended routes that were a bit more predictable - as the Belgian tourist board does.

[nsew]

Judging by the mid range weather forecast, early to mid June (at least) is looking fantastic for a southern(ish) UK adventure. July and August will be hellish on the roads this year. The Spanish ferries are fully booked forever, so no opportunity for spontaneity there.

[AndyK]

In CUK's defence, their new off-road routes have been spectacularly successful

Having been nice about CUK an hour or two ago, I now take it all back having watched their lunchtime webinar on "How to plan a cycle route", which recommended Komoot and Google Maps, claimed that "Komoot uses OS maps so it's very accurate" (er... no it doesn't), and didn't admit the existence of cycle.travel, even after I sent a friendly message to the meeting host. Not the first time that's happened either.

So I think I'll revise my answer to say "CJ is right and CUK is doing nothing for us, please give your money to Sustrans instead".

In any case, OS maps (or rather, the Landranger and Pathfinder series that walkers and cyclists use) are not always accurate - that's the point of them. Things like junctions are often distorted, enlarged, shrunk or moved slightly to make the layout clearer to the user. Features may sometimes be omitted or shifted to avoid clutter and improve readability. That's part of the art of proper mapmaking.

[Psamathe]

In CUK's defence, their new off-road routes have been spectacularly successful

Having been nice about CUK an hour or two ago, I now take it all back having watched their lunchtime webinar on "How to plan a cycle route", which recommended Komoot and Google Maps, claimed that "Komoot uses OS maps so it's very accurate" (er... no it doesn't), and didn't admit the existence of cycle.travel, even after I sent a friendly message to the meeting host. Not the first time that's happened either.

So I think I'll revise my answer to say "CJ is right and CUK is doing nothing for us, please give your money to Sustrans instead". :lol:

In any case, OS maps (or rather, the Landranger and Pathfinder series that walkers and cyclists use) are not always accurate - that's the point of them. Things like junctions are often distorted, enlarged, shrunk or moved slightly to make the layout clearer to the user. Features may sometimes be omitted or shifted to avoid clutter and improve readability. That's part of the art of proper mapmaking.

I've found that online OSM updates far far quicker than online/digital OS. Few yeats ago some major roadworks on an A47 junction east side of Norwich and OSM was showing the new (and significantly different) road layout almost immediately the new system was opened (or at least once I noticed it was opened) where as OS look a long time for their digital versions to reflect the new layout (obviously existing paper maps would not be updated and I've no idea how quickly pre prints were made to reflect changes).

Ian

[Bmblbzzz]

In CUK's defence, their new off-road routes have been spectacularly successful

Having been nice about CUK an hour or two ago, I now take it all back having watched their lunchtime webinar on "How to plan a cycle route", which recommended Komoot and Google Maps, claimed that "Komoot uses OS maps so it's very accurate" (er... no it doesn't), and didn't admit the existence of cycle.travel, even after I sent a friendly message to the meeting host. Not the first time that's happened either.

So I think I'll revise my answer to say "CJ is right and CUK is doing nothing for us, please give your money to Sustrans instead".

In any case, OS maps (or rather, the Landranger and Pathfinder series that walkers and cyclists use) are not always accurate - that's the point of them. Things like junctions are often distorted, enlarged, shrunk or moved slightly to make the layout clearer to the user. Features may sometimes be omitted or shifted to avoid clutter and improve readability. That's part of the art of proper mapmaking.

Imprecise in the interests of accuracy (or rather, of clarity and usability).