PH wrote:Sweep wrote:they will see the proposed route with the canal bits usually highlighted in green for traffic free.
Never ridden the Birmingham canals at night, have ridden through the city centre in the early hours and found the roads pretty quiet.
Two little points - maybe Richard will confirm, but I'm pretty sure the green highlight on Cycletravel means unsurfaced, plenty of surfaced tracks are traffic free and not highlighted.
Second point - the train you're already catching probably doesn't terminate in Birmingham, neither does it carry on along the same trajectory. I made the mistake of watching my train leave the station in Stratford on Avon because the information board said Worcester which I knew wasn't in the same direction.... You may find that staying on the same train for a stop or two takes you away from the city to somewhere more pleasant to start the ride.
EDIT - Just had a quick look and it seems the Chiltern trains go on to Kidderminster. Cycletravel without any adjustments make that 3 miles longer to Prestwich. Though the default route from either still takes you through the centres of Wolverhampton, Stafford and Stoke. A little manipulation (Dragging slightly west) adds another 4 miles and avoids them, the extra distance Vs the urban navigation probably makes the longer route quicker and there's very little green highlight.
Looks like a good one, fancy some company?
Interesting point about cycling from Kidderminster instead but I seem to remember that there might be a gradient issue. I cycled a while ago from Birmingham to London via Kidderminster and I remember a fair bit of climbing.
Have decided to start from Wolverhampton - will do the cycletravel route from there. I don't mind cycling through Stafford and Stoke at night - it can be interesting cycling through cities and towns at night (as long as not canals or anywhere else there is a chance of being cornered) - gives me a sense of freedom being about while others are trying to grab enough sleep before the next day's drudgery. Sometimes your mind can stray and on seeing someone start musing for a while about what the hell they are up to at that time - just a while until it occurs to you that they could just as easily think/say the same thing about you
If you are interested in joining me from Wolverhampton, get in touch via a PM.