It depends what mood you're in. If you're willing to gamble, sometimes such a track will be in a far better condition than any photos or Streetview suggest and you will be rewarded with spectacular scenery rarely seen on any tarmac route anywhere...mattheus wrote: ↑15 Oct 2021, 1:07pm I have to thank you for posting that. After reading earlier posts, I decided that would be a nice route to incorporate into my impending trip; I'd looked at a couple of bits on Streetview and it looked like a very rideable hard surface, and utterly scenic!
I shall stick with my standard strategy - proper tarmac, plus previously reccéd "cycle routes".
...but it is a gamble, because sometimes it'll be a completely unrideable mess and so I think one has to allow for something like maybe 10kph average in case you're walking a lot of it, instead of my usual 16kph planning.
This year, I entered Grantham on the tarmac National Byway and left on the gravel canal towpath NCN. The towpath was much more enjoyable and actually less rough than some of the Byway inwards!
There are few certainties in cycle touring.
But if such a route was to be made part of a primary cycle route, there really should be a commitment to keep to pretty rideable IMO. No worse than rolled limestone smoothness. So that may also be why it remains as a second-level route, as well as the indirectness and climbing.