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cycling the lancashire cycleway. the tour and 17 day rides. jon sparks. cicerone publishing paperback. 189pp illus. £12.95

cycling the lancashire cycleway - jon sparks

even in the hebrides, it's summer. yesterday's breezy sunshine allowed me the opportunity to sneak off when no-one was looking and paint one side of the garden fence. though this may seem like something of an onerous task when the sun shines and the bicycles were calling from the bikeshed, sometimes a man's got to do what a man's got to do.

islay is currently absolutely chock-a-block with visitors, the vast amount of whom have arrived by car ferry and are now proceeding to occupy every square centimetre of whatever space they designate as suitable for parking. the co-op delivery truck (of the forty-foot articulated variety) had to engage in more to-ing and fro-ing than usual due to a camper van inconsiderately parked right on the corner opposite the office window. and rather than one member of the family occupied with the task of shopping, whole families trammel the aisles en-masse, preventing anyone else from viewing the empty shelves.

cycling the lancashire cycleway - jon sparks

at one time, several decades past, the compulsory accessory for any visitors to the island seemed to be a barbour waxed jacket. but society has moved on since those days and it is no longer compulsory to appear as a member of the landed gentry. in the active noughties, the current accessory appears to be a couple of road or mountain bikes attached to the car roof. and that car ought best to be an audi or bmw. there is apparently no pressing need for those bikes to ever leave the safety of the roof rack, for the intention is only to outwardly present a verisimilitude of an active lifestyle. if evidence were needed for such a contention, we have frequently met those very cars with bikes still on roof, driving on the roads for which those bicycles were designed.

go figure.

cicerone author, jon sparks, opens his 'cycling the lancashire way' with "Cycling is one of the best ways of getting around and of seeing places, that has ever been devised. It's fast enough to get somewhere, yet slow enough to see everything along the way."

cycling the lancashire cycleway - jon sparks

as members of the converted, few of us would be inclined to argue against the above. it echoes a statement i have often repeated, based on much of islay's finest scenery being visible from its single track roads. attempting to find somewhere to park and return to view the scene espied from the window of the car is hardly the ideal way to see the countryside. it's a situation that likely applies every but as much to lancashire as it does to the hebrides.

domiciled in garstang, a few miles north of preston, jon sparks resides pretty much in the centre of his world, ideally situated to be better acquainted with the surrounding roadways than the majority of his readers. which, to place not too fine a point upon it, is precisely the sort of fellow i'd want to be guiding me around the lancashire countryside north west of manchester.

cycling the lancashire cycleway - jon sparks

the book is effectively divided into three sections, incorporating a 130 mile northern loop, a 135 mile southern loop and a substantial selection of day rides ranging from as short as 13.7 miles to a ride of almost fifty. all are extremely well illustrated with both photographs and clearly defined maps, while sparks' narrative takes the prospective rider from start to finish via every turn in the route. where there might be something of local interest worth mentioning, these are accommodated in what i believe are referred to as box-outs.

cycling the lancashire cycleway - jon sparks

"A large boulder in the churchyard is said to mark a witch's grave - she is supposed to have dug herself out when first buried, hence the need for the stone!"

those northern and southern loops, while suitable for one-day rides by the intrepid cyclist aboard an appropriately speedy machine, are further split into smaller rides that might also occupy a more leisurely approach, festooned with a modest quantity of coffee and cake. each to their own; it's very much to the author's credit that his organisation of the book's contents allows for a very wide interpretation of what constitutes energetic and exploratory cycling.

if you plan on holidaying in the lancashire area for a day or considerably longer, it ill-behoves you to leave home without a copy of this book either in a jersey pocket or ensconced within a bar bag.

cicerone publishing

thursday 10 august 2017

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................