Lancashire Cycle Way - A Cycling Guidebook

Guidebook to the Lancashire Cycleway, which comprises two distinct loops, each around 130 miles (225km) in length, which meet at Whalley in the Ribble valley. Seasoned cycle-tourists can tackle either loop in a weekend. The difficulty varies from easy roads in the west to the challenges found in the West Pennine Moors and the Bowland Fells.

Two questions: why cycle, and why Lancashire? If you’re a cyclist, and are already lucky enough to live in Lancashire, you’ll hardly need to ask. For the rest, some answers.

Why cycle?
Cycling is one of the best ways of getting around and seeing places that has ever been devised. It’s fast enough to get somewhere, yet slow enough to see everything along the way. And you don’t just see: you can use your other senses too. You can hear the birdsong and smell the flowers. Cars don’t just travel too fast, they also insulate their occupants from the world outside – not least by creating noise and smells of their own. Cycling also means you feel the country. You notice subtle gradients and shifts of wind direction that are lost on travellers by car, bus or train.

Cycling is also immensely satisfying. To get somewhere by your own effort is rewarding in itself. And when you get to the top of a long hill, you’ll appreciate the view all the more (not to mention the descent that follows!). But don’t fall into the trap of thinking that it’s all about suffering – it isn’t. At least, it shouldn’t be. Cycling, above all, is fun. If you’re sensibly prepared, if your bike is set up correctly for you, and if you don’t try and go too far too soon, then cycling is one of the most physically pleasurable things you can legally do in public.

Why Lancashire?
This one is even easier to answer – Lancashire is beautiful. This may surprise a few people, but it’s true. A few Southerners may still cherish the ‘grim up North’ image, but dark satanic mills, flat caps and whippets are generally thin on the ground. The plain fact is that most of Lancashire is rural. Indeed, it includes a lot of countryside that looks quintessentially English: rolling hills clad in a patchwork of fields, woods and hedges. But no such generalisation will do justice to the diversity of Lancashire.

Of course the county does have an industrial heritage. Two centuries ago cotton was king, and great mill towns like Blackburn and Burnley shipped cloth to half the world. The early days of canals and railways are well represented too – not to mention Britain’s first stretch of motorway. However, the county’s heritage goes much deeper. There are Roman sites like Ribchester, great mediaeval monuments like Lancaster’s castle and Priory Church, magnificent houses like Stonyhurst and Samlesbury Hall, and literally hundreds of ancient villages. On a different dimension, Blackpool is the original seaside resort and remains, for millions, the definitive example.

For all this, the view you get from the Lancashire Cycleway is of a largely rural county. This is especially true in the northern part, but throughout the county green countryside is rarely far away. The Pennine moors offer vast expanses of open space, with the population confined to narrow valleys, but even here there are green spaces. Further west there are miles of level fields and reclaimed marshes, where you could almost imagine yourself in Holland. The closeness of town and country is best exemplified where the Cycleway slips between Preston and Blackburn. Lancashire’s two largest towns (correction, Preston is now officially a city) are barely 12km apart, yet the route finds quiet, shady lanes.

Further north, most of the population is close to the coast. Apart from Lancaster, which is visited on a linking passage, not part of the official route, there are no large towns on the Cycleway route at all. There is the gentle loveliness of the Ribble and Lune valleys, either side of the high heathery ridges of the Bowland fells. The county has sole claim on one Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (Forest of Bowland) and a half-share in another (Arnside–Silverdale). The northern loop gives you a thorough look at both areas, while the southern loop makes brief acquaintance with the Forest of Bowland.

If you don’t know Lancashire, it will surprise you. Even if you do, there are probably some corners you haven’t yet discovered. And, either way, cycling is a great way to find out.

The Lancashire Cycleway

On a map, the Lancashire Cycleway looks like a rather squashed figure 8. There are two loops, northern and southern, which meet at Whalley in the Ribble valley. The northern loop is approximately 205km (128 miles) in length, while the southern is a fraction longer at 222km (138 miles). There are similarities between the two loops – for instance, both are flat in the west and hilly in the east – but there are distinct differences in character too. The northern loop is almost entirely rural, while the southern route, clever as it is, cannot entirely avoid some urban passages. However none of these is too long, and – this being Lancashire – there is generally a rapid escape back into open country.

The northern loop is entirely on tarmac. Apart from the (unofficial) Lancaster Link, which exploits a dedicated cycle-track, all of it is on public roads, mostly minor roads and quiet lanes.

There is a very short section – little more than 100m – of unsurfaced road on the southern loop. This certainly isn’t enough to force the use of an off-road bike! There is also a short section on surfaced cycle-tracks alongside the A59 past Clitheroe. Elsewhere the main theme is once again the use of quieter roads and lanes, but there are a couple of more urban sections, through Rawtenstall and Haslingden and also around Adlington. Generally these are not too busy, though the short section on the A49 at Coppull Moor may be less comfortable.

Both loops are described in a clockwise direction, though of course they can be tackled either way. At first sight doing the route anti-clockwise would seem to mean more left turns and fewer right turns. Left turns are easier to cope with when there’s traffic about, which may be a consideration if you are at all nervous about tangling with cars. In fact, with such a complex route, there’s much less difference between the number of lefts and rights than you might expect. Tackling it clockwise does take more advantage of the prevailing south-west wind for the flat sections, and generally means that the biggest climbs are taken from their easier side.

Experienced cycle-tourists may tackle one of the loops in a weekend or comfortably complete the entire Cycleway within a week. The less experienced or less ambitious will be glad to know that it’s easy to break it up into shorter sections. There is much to be said for the more leisurely approach, taking to time to smell the flowers at the roadside, walk down to a river bank, or visit some of the attractions around the route.

The best way to tackle the route in sections is by using the train. Bus services that carry bikes are few and far between, while almost all passenger train services do so (see ‘Making Connections’, below, for more details). The southern loop is criss-crossed by rail lines and the permutations are almost infinite. The northern half of the county has a less comprehensive, but still adequate, rail network.

As the junction of northern and southern loops, Whalley is an obvious starting point, and the County Council’s literature consistently promotes it. However, it is not the most convenient centre for those arriving by rail from most directions. Most people will find Lancaster to be the best starting point for the northern loop (for further details see ‘Making Connections’), and therefore the description of the route starts here. However, since the route is broken into convenient sections, you can easily start from wherever suits you best.

For the southern loop, the choice of starting point is less clear-cut, and the route descriptions do begin from Whalley, though again you can start from anywhere that suits you. If you’re setting out to do both loops in one go, you will obviously transfer from one to the other at Whalley – but this does not mean you have to start there.