Middlewood Way

[nbt]

Does anyone have directions for how to get from the A6 to the cycle path on the new road?

Descending the A6 from High Lane, you should turn onto the OLD A6 at the junction with Norbury Hollow Road. There's a cycle entrance on the lft so you don't have to go to the lights, but in common with most of the cycle paths it's badly laid out so may not be obvious

Go straight across Norbury Hollow Road and continue down the old A6, crossing the new road on the new bridge. Note that it's single lane and still used by buses so be careful.

Just over the bridge, the new cycle path is off to your right, going down to the new road and back under the bridge.

We've ridden our tandem along there a few times and the majority of  it is ok, though the junctions are laid out TERRIBLY for cyclists (especially longer bikes like the tandem), and the cycle path does randomly swap to the other side of the new road where it meets Hall Moss Lane - it goes from the northern side over the bridge and then along the southern side via an entrance on Dairy Moss Lane. You can cross back over on the bridge when you get to the old RAF camp.

Signposting is awful so allow extra time for route finding the first time you try it, but once you do so you will see it's going to be great for your commute. Good luck with it.

[HWL1973]

I use the new A555 road daily to get to work and it is absolutely brilliant. With spring approaching I am considering getting the bike out and using the Middlewood Way, braving the A6, and then joining the new road to cycle into work (near the airport).

However, I can see that the cycle route on the new road at this end joins it from what looks like a housing estate. Does anyone have directions for how to get from the A6 to the cycle path on the new road?

[marplerambler]

I have cycled to Bramhall along the Middlewood Way/A6/A555 quite a few times since the opening of the A555 usually returning in the daylight just after five. I ascend to the A6 on the far side of the A6 tunnel. No cycle lane is needed for the descent because the gradient means that you are cycling nearly as fast as the traffic anyway so you are only cycling downhill for a very short period of time. Coming back I cycle up the pavement at not much more than 5mph, I don't think that I have seen a pedestrian yet. I am going too slowly to have a collision with a pedestrian and if I did see someone I would stop to let him/her pass or cycle past him on the road. Strictly speaking I shouldn't be on the pavement but I am acting in everyone's best interest staying off the busy road while I ascend slowly. A cycle lane is not necessary if you ascend slowly and cautiously on the pavement.

[rsh]

The A6 through High Lane is marked on the Beelines / Bee Network map as a busy road segregated cycling route, meaning it should technically get the same kind of treatment as Oxford Road in Manchester with kerb-protected cycleways. (No I don’t actually know how they’d make this fit at certain pinch points either!)

On the original post, the Middlewood Way surface is pretty good for me now. Still a bit gravelly and we’ll see how it fares for mud after a few years of rain and horse muck piling up, but can’t complain. The surface used at Windybottom Farm Strines is I think called “flexipave”. It is excellent, but I also imagine the cost must be extortionate for a path the width and length of Middlewood?

On the A555 link: would you believe it, a link between Middlewood and the A555 WAS in fact included in mitigation. Widening the pavement down past Threaphurst Lane to make a shared pavement for cycling to link with the crossing to the old A6. It was designed, approved and funded. And then they decided not to build it.

The only answer I’ve been able to get out of the council was that it “didn’t cater to equestrians” and instead they’re “looking at other options”. Silence since then.

Now maybe it’s just me, but if you’ve got the money for an essential cycle facility there, shouldn’t you just build it, so that people don’t have to dice with the A6 traffic (or be put off using their bikes altogether), and THEN think about how to plan a nice-to-have fantasy horse path?

I implore anyone reading this to write to local councillors and SMBC demanding this tiny but essential scheme be implemented as planned. It’s going to be a long time till the Beelines come...

[Belly]

Well as a cyclist who uses the route pretty much daily I'll take anything that helps. I'd love a segregated lane in each direction, but I suspect that this is both impractical and too expensive.

[nbt]

Actually, the last thing I want to see as a cyclist is a bit of paint masquerading as a committment to cycling. A bit if paint seems to make people think it's fine to drive past you 6" from your elbow. I'd rather have properly planned and built cycle infrastructure, which is why the proposed painted cycle up the A6 was remove - don't do a half arsed job and say "that's it", do the job properly

[Belly]

What is really needed is (at the least) an on road marked cycle lane from Jackson’s Dairy to High Lane. This would link the A555 cycle way to Middlewood Way and High Lane. The Roadspace is there to do this without inconveniencing drivers and it would start to provide a safe corridor. Obvioulsy a shared space path would be better, but that would involve much more cost.

I’m surprised that a cycle lane from High Lane to the A555 down the A6 was not included in the A555 mitigation package as it’s a clear ‘missing link’. At the moments many cyclists a day are having to dice with HGVs on that corridor, when a bit of paint would help make everyone safer.

Last year I had the idea of taking the kids down the Middlewood Way to busy High Lane Park. Great idea until we got to the A6. The we had to squeeze along a bramble infested pavement to get to High Lane, virtually impossible to push a bike along. So much for encouraging local journeys by other means than the car....

[jimblob]

I guess Windlehurst has been made so utterly useless for even the motorists, cyclists don't stand a chance. The "mitigation measures" are working a treat! I actually drove back from high lane to Marple via hazel grove last weekend to avoid the rollercoaster. Ridiculous! Cummon councillors, what's the plan for removing the crazy traffic measures from Windlehurst and Hibbert Lane?

[CTCREP]

Now that the Manchester Airport Relief Road has become a reality, and many cyclists are finding it a useful facility, it is time to recognise that the Middlewood Way should become a useful link between Marple and all points heading toward the Airport and beyond.

In the past the usual excuse for not catering for cyclists and other wheeled vehicle users was that the Council have to cater for horses.

Well, now they have found a horse friendly surface to upgrade several sections of bridleway in the Strines Mellor area, it is time they provided the same surface on the Middlewood Way to enable cyclists to access the MARR. Any hope of that happening Councillors?