Downhill Danger

A sign showing it's age in Llandudno. Quaint? - that the most dangerous thing about cycling back when this sign was put up was the awful performance of your rod or drum brakes....

The crap side to cycling in Llandudno

As promised here is the crap side of cycling in Llandudno. As with many seaside resorts cycling is banned on it's promenade. According to Gogarth ward councillor Margaret Lyon cyclists are a ‘Danger’ to pedestrians. It’s unfortunate that she doesn’t realise she is talking complete bollocks. 

The promenade is very wide and only rarely gets crowded at the pier end, even on a busy summer weekend. The rest of the stretch is spacious, flat and smooth and could easily accommodate both cyclists and pedestrians without any problems. The Parade is the road which runs alongside the seafront promenade. Its busy, has lots of pinch points at crossings, has parked cars and coaches on both sides of the road and is generally about as nightmarish as you could hope for in a crap British seaside road. Anyone with a shred of common sense will just get off that road and go down the Promenade and enjoy the view, but you can’t, because it’s banned.

For some god knows why reason it had been suggested that the flower beds be removed in order to accommodate a cycle lane along the promenade. This was probably suggested by someone who most definitely didn’t want any kind of cycling on the promenade – why?, because it’s a stupid idea, guaranteed to get residents up in arms and foaming from the mouth. There isn’t a need for a ‘lane’ of any kind, simply taking down the no cycling signs and providing access at a few well chosen spots would be enough.

A local resident called Mike Pritchard was the spokesman for ‘Save our Promenade’ (probably a loud mouthed one man band) who seemed to think a ‘cycle track’ (interesting choice of words there) on the promenade would result in some kind unimaginable apocalypse.  Instead the final result is that cycling is still banned on the promenade and cyclists are expected to take Maesdu Road to get to the West shore. In the process making use of wonderfully crap cycle facilities like this dropped kerb and shared pavement in order to cross the busy A470 roundabout. 

Anyone fancy braking to slow for the tiny dropped kerb with it's well positioned railing whilst you've got a white van man up your arse?

More detail here, here and here if you want to read about it.

Great Orme - Llandudno

We stayed in Llandudno last weekend so I stuck the Brompton in the boot of the c*r and took it with us. A full loop of the Great Orme is roughly 9km. Most of that is on the toll road which is a one way road around the coast on one side and slightly inland on the other. It’s free for bicycles, so you can spend all day going round and round it if you feel like it. There is a café at the top of the biggest bit of climbing and you can also take a diversion towards the summit station if you fancy a bit more climbing.

Some fantastic views on the way up. It’s not a difficult climb, although my legs and the brompton are obviously more used to cycling than some of the tired looking folks I passed on the way up.

On the way up there are a few dramatic overhangs like this one. The area is quite popular for climbers, but they mostly stick to bouldering away from the road.

There is a Hotel near the top of the climb which was originally built as a lighthouse. The café is just a little further in this view.

Here’s the lighthouse closer up.

It’s reasonably flat around the top. You can see here how high the climb is, having started at sea level.

Nice view from this spot just before the decent starts.

Someone had tried to get his money’s worth from the £2.50 toll and managed to make a complete dick of himself. Bits of car front end, wing mirrors etc were strewn down the slope behind the wall.

This is why the decent is so great, it twists and curls nicely and you know there won’t be anyone coming in the opposite direction.

The whole route around the toll road have distance markers painted on the kerbing.

Here’s the second toll house at the end of the route on the West shore. Then head back round to do it all again :-D

The Orme is fantastic to cycle round, it’s a bit like a bicycle rollercoaster, you tick tick your way up the hill on one side enjoying the scenery, go flying down the other side with a massive grin then head back to the start to have another go. This is a great thing about Llandudno and cycling, there is a crap side though, but I’ll post some photos of that later.