Avoiding busy parts in rush hour?

Anonymous

Hi.

I'm wanting to do some riding, and cause of college some days I wont get a chance untill 4 or 5 to get out, and between like 3 and 9 in Manchester city center it seems awful for cycling.

Anyone know of any good routes out of the city center that are relatively quiet? I'm wanting to start cycling every day, at least 20miles minimum a day, but with all the traffic I just get ***** off as you spend most of your time standing still


Thanks
Will.

Anonymous

Come on someone must live in the center of manchester or near and go on some rides?

I've created this one:

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=5231

It's pretty ****, but I cant think of anything else? Its something short I can do after college as I aim to do riding every day for abit to boost my fitness.

STEFANOS4784

Wouldn't go near Manchester if someone offered me a grand :P

LorneC

Can you not break with student tradition and get up before Noon and cycle

Anonymous

LorneC wrote:

Can you not break with student tradition and get up before Noon and cycle

I did that about 5 weeks ago and have kept waking up at like 9-10 ever since, problem is, it's still like rush hour

ride_whenever

go out at 0630, hardly anything on the roads then.

Anonymous

Thats too early!!

redddraggon

I've just been to Evans in the City Centre, and the roads were chocca

fast as fupp

its spelt c-e-n-t-r-e in the uk mr hub :roll:

fossyant

You are pretty central.... if going south, I usually go for the A34 until Fallowfield/Levenshulme, then head for the back of Fallowfield (near Armitage Centre) and down Parrs Wood Road to take you down to Didsbury and out into Cheshire from here.

Your route over towards Romiley is my hunting grounds..... Werneth Low eh - try riding if from the top of Compstall Brow - it's 1 in 4 !!!

Anonymous

But if I wanted to go cycling at 5, I'd have to go to sleep at like 7:30, I have big problems with anything less than 9 hours, I can get by with 8 for cycling but not for anything else, I'm a zombie at college with anything less than 9 and a half hours.

mmitchell88

9 (is that n-i-n-e?) hours??!! Ok, I guess you're not a student for ever. Just enjoy it. Cycle a bit. Drink some beer. If you don't want to get up, that's fine. Otherwise...





...er, just get up.

Anonymous

I want to get up after 7 hours sleep, but I usually feel too tired and cant do anything.

redddraggon

weak

Mettan

willhub wrote:

Thats too early!!

Best time though Will - you'll mostly only see Taxi drivers out between 5.00-6.00 am - better from a safety aspect aswell. For 1 day a week even, it'd make a good ride and a nice change from busier times of the day.

Bhima

I live in Old Trafford and, just down the road in Chorlton, there's an old railway line which has recently been tarmac'd over... It's only about 8 miles but is relatively quiet - I do a time trial down it every month to test my progress... There's a few barriers and obstacles to slow you down every mile or so, so it's a bit of a pain when you work up a good sprint and you have to slow down...

Link: http://www.cycle-routes.org/fallowfieldloopline/

By the way, I tend to go out later in the day too - 3pm until about 9pm sometimes; up to 12pm in the summer.

You want to get as south as possible - towards Altrincham/Hale before the traffic disappears but, from the city centre, that's about 7/8 miles away. You say you want to do 20 miles minimum but, to get TRULY away from the traffic and into the countryside near Manchester Airport and beyond, it's 13.5 miles away from the city centre (if you take my route)... So, by the time you get there, you've done over half of your minimum milage. Depends how many miles you want to do.... From my house, it's exactly 11 miles before I hit the "good" roads, so I just use it as a warm up/cool down section and do about 60 miles of "proper" riding once I get down there...

In my opinion, the best places to go are down in Hale/Ashley/Mobberley/Knutsford/Alderley Edge/Macclesfield/etc... [this is a favourite route of mine] but to get there, you have to spend at least 30 minutes in traffic - it's just the way it is!

Looked at your suggested route but don't know many of the roads so can't comment... One thing i'd say is watch out for Oxford road at 5pm-7pm, it's usually RAMMED. If you must use roads with massive amounts of traffic, it's better to find roads where the traffic moves at a reasonable pace, as opposed to slow movement/traffic jams...

a_n_t

fossyant wrote:

Werneth Low eh - try riding if from the top of Compstall Brow - it's 1 in 4 !!!

It's on the club run I'm doing on April 5th............sssshhhhhhhh, dont tell anyone

a_n_t

STEFANOS4784 wrote:

Wouldn't go near Manchester if someone offered me a grand :P

pussy.

fossyant

I'm lucky - I'm 10 miles south of Manchester centre - commutes are busy, but training runs, I usually head south and east - not really much traffic and can be on good roads within 10 minutes...it's also hilly.....

LazyBoycp

May not be much use, but I think the pavement on the east side of Princess Parkway has recently been converted to mixed cycle/ped use. Presumably it would still be quicker than cycling on the road at the height of the rush hour. There's a cycle path that goes on down to Baguley and presumably beyond (and there's a canal path you could get on before you get to Northenden), or you could cut across to Palatine Road at Southern Cemetery - it's generally not too congested even at rush hour, until you get to Northenden. The Parkway itself can be fairly fast-moving most of the time, though I found the behaviour of buses so dangerous on it that I moved to the safer option of Wilmslow/Oxford Road (!).