BBC Article on London-Paris car-free route

[Mr Gear]

I'd not heard of this before... sounds like it's got problems, but still better than riding on teh roads the whole way. Take a look if you have ever considered the ride.

Anyone familiar with any parts of the route?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11447348

[anonymous-user]

I've cycled all of this route on the UK side. It's basically NCR 21 and certainly isn't traffic free. It's a kind of cobbled together collection of cycle routes bridle paths, quiet roads , dissused railway lines etc maintained by the local councils and volunteers. Calling it a London to Paris route is stretching the facts as it's just one of the National cycle routes that leads to the south coast from London. It certainly hasn't been designed as a dedicated cycle route between the cities. These NCRs run around the whole country as you can see from the sustrans link at the bottom of this post.

There are many on road sections and some of the off road sections are rubbish as they go through Crawley. It's almost impossible to follow without a GPS map. The Crawley section is on pavement and crosses loads of roads. You'd be better on the road itself unless you're really scared of traffic or have your kids with you. The sections Just south of Caterham and north of the M25 are quite steep and more like a bridle path they're quite scenic though and good fun.

You have to cycle through Redhill and Horley with quite a few on road sections which are fairly easy to follow.

The best bits are East of Crawley on the Worth way which is a disused railway line from Crawley to East Grinsted and then the Forrest Way which is the same railway line leading to Groombridge, just outside Turnbridge Wells. These bits are long and straight with a good surface and pass under some cool bridges and disused railway stations these sections can get a bit 'samey' after a while as they are just old railway tracks and some bits have trees each side making it a bit like a long tunnel. The section along the Cuckoo trail south of Heathfield is also very scenic and well surfaced.

The article is wrong though in suggesting the section through Gatwick airport is poor. It's one of the best bits as it leads you right through a busy bus stop full of airport workers and then along a cycle track between the railway track and the just next to the end of the runway which is great.

You'd be struggling on a road bike through many of the sections but it'd be fine on a hybrid or a Mountain bike.

The sustrans site shows the route in more detail. Ignore the info about closures on the forrest way that's been open for again for months.

http://www.sustrans.org.uk/map?search

Openstreetmap cycle map also shows it. Just use the plus icon on the right to select cycle maps.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/

Loads of the iphone/smartphone apps like trails and motion GPX etc use openstreetmap/cyclemap and show the National cycle routes. They are also on the OS maps.

Edited by el stovey on Saturday 2nd October 16:51

[Mr Gear]

Thanks for that, interesting insight, much appreciated.