The Strawberry Line is a bit of a "Curate's Egg", but not a particularly marvellous one. The surface is mostly that cheap grinding paste dust which must bring a gleam to the eye of any bicycle chain salesman. The width varies from a useful 3 metres or so down to less than ½ a metre.
It's a typical British 3rd rate cheapskate effort. Doubtless the authorities plead poverty as usual - just like they did before the recession when it came to building cycle routes. And the various designs of barriers indicate that, again, as usual, the designers' understanding of cycles doesn't extend much beyond being able to tell a bottom bracket from breakfast time.
Nonetheless it was a pleasant enough outing, culminating in the statutory tea and cake at the splendid Strawberry Line Community Cafe at Yatton Station.
Picture detail on Flickr
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4 comments:
I live in Axbridge, almost right beside the Strawberry line. From your comment it seems that the only thing that would satisfy your surface requirements would be a long wide stretch of tarmac.
This is not a suburban cycleway wending its way through a suburban housing estate, it's a rural area, and that ex-railway line is for a lot more than just cylists.
Agree with remark about the additions.., thick posts, extraneous direction signs, ugly barriers, officaldom's dead hand.
Hi Andrew, thanks for the comment taking an interesting point of view. (Cue for a bit a rant, here, but please don't take it personally):
I'm not sure what your point is - there are plenty of rural ex-railway paths with a sealed surface that don't go anywhere near urban housing estates. There are plenty of remote rural lanes with sealed surfaces about which no-one raises the very odd complaint about "urbanising the countryside".
You pays your money and takes your choice. You either lay a cheap high maintenance surface - which, in practice, rarely, if ever, gets any maintenance to the detriment of *all* users - or you have a more expensive sealed surface which will require little maintenance for several decades, to the benefit of *all* users and the taxpayers that foot the bill.
Sadly in Backward Britain where we continue to be run by what Noel Coward in the "Italian Job" movie described as the "lazy, unimaginative management which is driving this country on the rocks" (thanks for the heads-up on that quote, Karl-on-Sea) we are still decades away from realising that the bike is not just a leisure toy but a valuable, useful and increasingly vital transport tool. Until that day comes I suppose that there will always be those that insist on 3rd rate provision.
Yes, your comment does sound rather, if not a rant, certainly multi-agendad but from a single vision.
The line isn't a railway line any more, it runs through beautiful countryside and in my opinion the current surface is better atuned to the surroundings than your preference.
I don't have a bike right now. I do though use the line when I need to unwind, and/or walk the mile or two in either direction to neighbouring villages. As part of the reason why I would do that, rather than drive, on a road, with other cars rushing by...., again, I'm fine with the current surface.
Your views seem to stem greatly from the view that 'sustainability'
is the same as 'efficiency'. Not so.
As it happens I rather feel that the line could also serve as a light micro-railway. That though is for another day....
Again, not sure what you're saying re: "multi-agenderd" "single vision".
I'm certainly thinking "multi-user", not just about walking/cycling, but also about the less mobile - those in wheelchairs, mobility buggies - for whom a rough surface might mean exclusion.
At this point, we'll agree to differ, then.
One thing we can most whole-heartedly agree on - the return of a light railway. Oh, yes.
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