I’ve all the time been fascinated by the quirky, the distinctive, the acute… considerably if I can cycle to it.
Maybe it’s a consequence of rising up in a home whose solely books had been the AA Freeway Atlas and the Guinness Info of Information.
I’ve been accumulating bizarre areas to journey ever since.
Netherton Tunnel, all through the West Midlands, as an example: a mile-and-a-half-long canal tunnel that’s a psychological draw back comparatively than bodily – the ghostly acoustic and pitch darkish makes it one among Britain’s scariest rides.
Or the vertiginous aqueduct at Pontcysyllte outside Llangollen that’s like biking a Niagara Falls tightrope: no marvel they ask you to dismount.
Or Blackbushe Airfield in Surrey, whose disused runways make the widest ‘cycle paths’ you’ll see in Britain.
Or Yate’s ‘Freeway to Nowhere’ close to Bristol: a Seventies twin carriageway that someway not at all obtained appropriately related to the street group, and is now used as a movie set, making a wierd all-to-yourself cycle expertise.
And a great deal of others: Yorkshire’s Spurn Head, a three-mile spit of sand normally barely wider than the tarmac monitor that goes technique out into the North Sea.
An underpass on NCN1 all through the Lee Valley which may presumably be Britain’s lowest headroom, merely 5 toes: duck or grouse.
Church Lane, a cobbled avenue in Whitby that rises at 50 per cent – constructive, 1 in 2. The lonely avenue to Loch Hourn on Scotland’s west coast, Britain’s longest cul-de-sac at 22 miles… my report goes on.
So, listed beneath are 10 of my favourites. They provide not solely Instagram amusement, nevertheless furthermore the premise of some nice rides.