Traffic on the Cicerone - where and when..!?

[scarletnut]

15 days before I start the Cicerone and been reading lots of this years' accounts of their trip and TRAFFIC seems to be a very common issue.
For those who can help and done this ride is there any point on avoiding rush hours/early starts because of traffic.
I know about coming out of Plymouth, Avonmouth and the A82 in Scotland but are there other sections I need to "prepare" for...??
Into and out of Runcorn??

[mfpnl]

Hi Scarletnut -

We did a combination of the Sustrans and Cicerone routes in June last year. Obviously traffic conditions do vary according to the time of day/year. The Sustrans stretches didn't seem to be affected by 'rush hours' - but I suppose it's possible in places like Glasgow if they're used by commuters. Obviously the traffic free sections will be busier with other users during holiday periods ( I was riding with my son - so 'early starts' were a non starter!). On the Cicerone route, we passed through the Avonmouth and Runcorn sections on mid mornings. They were tolerable - but pretty ugly.

The worse stretch of our whole trip was south-west of Carlisle (Cicerone Day Eight). This was because of a collapsed bridge on the Orthwaite/Caldbeck road. So we were forced to follow A591/A595 to Carlisle. I remember that we hit the stretch heading into Carlisle at rush hour and it was a very uncomfortable ride until we were able to turn off and get onto minor roads. Heavy/impatient traffic in both directions on a narrow A road. Hopefully all that will be sorted out by now.

Mike

[1982john]

Was this the bridge you are talking about, Mike?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-41246700

[mfpnl]

Possibly - when we made the right turn off the A591 at NY 23467 30633 we met a couple of cyclists at the "Road Closed" sign who had just tried to go up the road. They told us that the road was definitely closed for bridgework - and the obstacle wasn't something your could squeeze round on a bike. So we never saw it ourselves. The actual route seems to go slightly west of Sebergham - so it may have been one of the bridges over the lesser becks earlier on the route.

As I said, we ended up having to approach Carlisle on the A595 which, on a fully laden touring bike, was not a good place to be. When we reached Woodville we turned right and went to Carlisle via Cardewless and Dalston - which was fine.

[scarletnut]

Thanks mfpl! Encouraging that your biggest problem was Carlisle due to a bridge collapse which has now been sorted!