Photos from rides w/c 14th Sept 2015

Every picture tells a story they say...

Integrated Transport on the Hythe Pier Ferry train

This little train gets you to the end of the pier for the ferry to Southampton. Bikes carried!

Beighton sorted

Have been advised today that the work at Beighton  is complete. I'll go out and take a look when I get a chance but from the photos it looks good. Now we just need to get the rest of the track over Beighton Tip done to the same standard!

Changes around Meadowhall

Things are happening around Meadowhall - not all good, but hey...

 The dreadful concrete barriers have gone at this location and replaced by bollards with a new surface.

The surface continues to the crossing of Meadowhall Road which sadly is as dangerous as it ever was!

 Up at Halfpenny Bridge the new "Bus Rapid Transit" Bridge (seems to be more like a "Car Rapid Transit" route as it turns out) is coming along - we were promised our route back in August, let's see. The diversion via Sheffield Rd, ably signed by Ted is more or less usable and the link from Bessemer Way to the Canal has been re-surfaced, giving us the long-promised connection from NCN6 to Magna (also handy for the Planet X bike shop which was why I was up there)

 Looking South-West from Tinsley you wouldn't know you were in such an urban and industrial area - just the road from the M1 gives it away. I hear that the air pollution in Tinsley is now so bad that the schools are under threat of closure  - watch out for an interview with me about this on the One Show, 17-21 Aug.

There were quite a lot of folk using the routes despite the disruption, which was good to see.  There are also few bad boys on scooters and motorbikes using the towpath and we need some action on this.

Closer to Sheffield on Carbrook St, there have been some changes to the route due to the BRT scheme - nice to see some re-surfacing but what's this all about? (Thanks to CycleSheffield for the photo)

City Pride

Sustrans Rangers Sheffield support Sheffield City Council's anti-litter campaign.

Sorting out Beighton

Pleased to report that the section of track shown in the 3rd picture below is due to be re-surfaced starting August 10th. This is the report I sent in to council officers in May.

We cycled in from Lincoln to Sheffield on Monday. On arrival at Sheffield this is what we found:

Widespread litter on Tye Rd

Graffiti and vandalisation at the access point to "Linleybank meadows"

The steep bank at the access to the bridge over the A57 is heavily deteriorated. 

This is now a serious hazard and someone is going to do themselves a serious injury soon if it is not remedied. 

I know I've had difficulty persuading officers of this in the past but the original route took a curved trajectory so that the gradient was not so steep. I now have a witness to this (the gentleman in the picture.) 

Obviously I will keep this notification on file so that if an accident does take place I can advise the victim that this issue was notified to the council. 

I have to say that having spent the weekend cycling round Lincolnshire and NE Derbyshire on cycle routes that were either excellent or good it was quite depressing to get back to get back to Sheffield and be greeted by this. 

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Out and About on NCN6

On Saturday, 11th July, we removed diversion signs around Blonk St, no longer needed now that the work on the Cobweb Bridge is complete, got some graffiti off the bridge itself, and had a look at what signing was needed around Broomhall now that the new lighting is in place (they took some of our signs away with the old lamp-posts)

Also this week, had the pleasure of visiting the ParcelForce depot in Rotherham, so had to use the diversion around the Halfpenny Bridge. Pleased to report that this more or less works now - the area has been cleaned up a bit, kerbs have been dropped and the intrusive vegetation removed. It took a while but the benefits will outlast the Bus Rapid Transit works for local residents.

On the Five Weirs Walk, the budleia that was threatening to being down the retaining wall between Newhall Rd and Bold St has finally been removed.

We detected needle use between Blonk St and the Cobweb Bridge on the 5WW - don't get a sharp in your tyre or your foot!

Beeley Woods Report

Two of our Northern Rangers write:-

We did our inspection ride starting in town yesterday (we'd taken part in the Climate Change Sing at the station). We can confirm several opinions about the quality of the work along Penistone Road and add a few of our own:
 - the new red tarmac looks as if someone went along to a DIY store and bought strips of the stuff (like you do with turf) and, when laying it, had overlapped it slightly rather than abutting the edges plus not levelling the ground (turf analogy again) first. It is truly awful.
 - new bike symbols have been painted everywhere but in some places it looks as if this has been done prematurely - either that or the cycle track is destined to be left in a dreadful state: there were places on the black tarmac where "red" had been written as well as bike symbols drawn and others where just bike symbols had appeared. Whatever the semiotics of the writing and drawing the whole cycle route needs proper, smooth, well-marked, red surfacing (and to be continuous?)
 - outside Martin Lee Car Sales there were 3 cars for sale placed directly on the cycle track (two of them directly over these new symbols) - if this already inadequate cycle route is to be used at all then it needs to be kept clear of such obstructions by rigorous enforcement against such infringements
 - lots of the entrances/exits for the businesses to the east side of the route have had double dotted "give way" lines painted across them. I would trust drivers to observe these as much as I trust the businesses not to obstruct the route (see previous point) and I'm as sure as I can be that no enforcement will be carried out and that any follow-up to any report of a problem will be minimal at best
  - coming back into town, as we approached Livesey Street we saw the "Look Right" warning painted on the ground but we feel that safety issues at this junction could do with being looked at again. As well as traffic turning left from Penistone Road cyclists need to be aware of traffic coming north out of the City along Penistone Road and wanting to turn right into Livesey Street - not an obvious direction for traffic to be coming from if you have been warned to "Look Right"

We reported 4 separate instances of fly tipping along Claywheels Lane inside Beeley Woods.

The signage around the new roads near the supermarket has improved but it is still the case that the entrance to Beeley Wood Road is barriered off. Can we make a strong and urgent plea that the permanent works here include a cycle lane please? This is the obvious route for cyclists coming from town to Beeley Woods would take (we are still up for a site visit with whoever - who is it please? - has responsibility for this aspect of this scheme) and the currently signed alternative takes a cyclist across to the other side of Penistone Road and then back again at the next lights, via a couple of islands, onto the supermarket side of Clay Wheels Lane and then back across Clay Wheels Lane via another crossing.

On the positive side, it was a lovely, sunny, warm day. We saw a pair of kingfishers on the river at the back of the Riverside pub - very noisy so likely to be mating soon. We saw birds  trying out the nesting boxes on the river side of the path. We also saw our first celandine in bloom, a Peacock and a Tortiseshell (or it might have been a Red Admiral - it flew away from us into the sun) butterfly just at the north end of Beeley Woods. We had a long chat with a couple who had just moved up from Hertfordshire who agreed that Yorkshire people were very friendly and that Beeley Woods was really beautiful: we were able to satisfy their curiosity as to the origin of the strips of fuzzy, felty plastic in red, blue and green - loads of dead dogs' balls. We also received lots of praise and encouragement from runners, walkers, cyclists and dog walkers for our litter picking.

Clean Up at Meadowhall - After

And after...

Clean up at Meadowhall - before

We're doing a clean-up on the NCN at Meadowhall P&R tomorrow. Here's what it looks like today.

We'll let you know what it looks like after we've been there tomorrow!

Five Weirs Walk News

Due to a delay in the fabrication of the parapet panels the work on the Cobweb Bridge has been put back and will start on the 2^nd February. It is still scheduled to take 6 weeks.

Further down the Don, budleia that was compromising the retaining wall alongside the river between Newhall Rd and Bold St has been taken out, making for a much clearer route. Work was also spotted taking place between Carbrook St and Weedon St.