Steve Kidd Cycling Trips and Guides
Steve Kidd Cycling Trips and Guides
I wouldn't put this particular excursion at the top of my bucket list if
I were you.
This particular route is designated as a dedicated 60 km cycle route. Given my objective criteria regarding surface, width etc, as a total this would score zero out of ten. That is not to say sections are not good, just that it is incomplete. If anybody is considering cycling the important things to know about this route are:
Significant portions are completely unsuitable for anything but mountain bikes, even in dry weather. My Dawes tourer got round it, but it was inappropriate.
All told it's a mish mash of different routes of varying quality, a large portion of which were there when I originally started surveying these things 16 years ago, cobbled together by numbingly ordinary roads. In total it is "worth seeing, but not worth going to see" as I would imagine 60 km routes of similar quality or better could be gleaned from most locations in the country.
It definitely needs the route reviewing in some places, and surfacing properly in many others. If you are going to visit a single stretch, near Nostel Priory to near New Miller dam is the optimal (but still the surface only varies between poor to moderate)
Film of Wakefield Wheel plus narrative
Wakefield Wheel route ridden by by Steve Kidd, May 20th 2016
Note the three places where the route was accidentally missed. I would seriously look for a more direct route from Horbury to the Chevet Line in the south west. This is a large image you may wish to select and zoom on (or try pressing Ctrl and the + sign at the same time)
