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Video: Does the Cinder Track require extensive renovation?
The man who founded bike accessories firm Crud has uploaded footage of himself riding the Cinder Track and invited people to decide for themselves whether it requires extensive restoration. Pete Tomkins opposes Sustrans plans for the old railway line between Scarborough and Whitby, arguing that the work will fundamentally alter its character.
Tomkins says that the video was shot the morning after heavy rain when a number of local roads were closed due to flooding.
“The line was completely passable. What you see here is minor drainage issues, mostly cured with a bit of spade work.”
However, he adds that those of a nervous disposition should look away because, “some of these puddles are up to one inch deep.”
Sustrans unveiled draft plans for restoration of the Cinder Track last month. The council had been due to review them earlier this week but Yorkshire Coast Radio reports that it was felt that too much information was lacking. A task group is to be set up.
Tomkins is adamant that extensive work is unnecessary.
“I vehemently oppose the scheme. The track is absolutely beautiful as is. It has not seen any basic maintenance for years, but is perfectly rideable.”
He is particularly concerned by plans to increase the width of the path.
“Sustrans proposes a 3m wide hard surface with 1m drainage ditch plus a further metre either side for verges. In total, a 20ft wide, 20-mile long development to basically turn the track into a cyclists’ highway.
“This would involve habitat destruction on an epic scale. Sustrans cost the works at £7.2 million plus VAT.”
Nor is Tomkins alone. Over 4,300 people have signed the Help Save Our Cinder Track! online petition with several thousand more also signing a printed version.
Speaking about the draft plans when they were first unveiled, Rupert Douglas, Sustrans Network Development Manager for Yorkshire, said that the track would be ‘sympathetically restored’.
“We are very clear that a tarmac surface is not suitable and is not appropriate for the whole 21.5 miles, so we have provided information about alternative surface options for consideration at sensitive locations such as in the North York Moors National Park. There’ll need to be more consultation with local communities about these options in more detail as part of the planning process.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
Latest Comments
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Aside from that being 20/20 hindsight, you'd had to have made a policy decision to disable the camera mic. If it goes to court, you'll have to...
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49 comments
Hi everybody,
I joined in order to contribute toward this debate..
I use the cinder track to ride every Sunday to Whitby as a commuter. There's no early bus on a Sunday from Scarborough, and we're carless for a while. It takes about 2 and a quarter to 2 and a half hours, and it's a long day for me - set off before 7 - but if I've completed the long section [kind of] uphill and can swig some water at Ravenscar at 8 o'clock there's a good chance I'll be down at Whitby beach just after 9.
Returning - only really the 'mental health section' - Robin H Bay to Ravenscar is challenging. But again, once completed, the exertion is over for another week.
I bumble along at speed - but when you see a dog you slow right down, say 'hello' to the owner. I don't see the problem with that. It's a joy to ride, a ten year old would love it. I can't see the appeal of that desolate Dutch highway picture. Also, I understand about potholes. But the idea of dogs on short leads and lycra majesties skinning past these 'obstructions' is not appealing to me...
I suppose I fear what the National Trust did to Lydford Gorge in '70s and removed all jeopardy - but then I'm also a fan of 'access' for all. There was a huge guy on the track the other day - on a tricycle - that seemed fun.
I'm not sure about Sustrans - would they really create some monstrous bike highway?
All best
Mat [oh, wish I'd bought a cyclocross and not the £200 mtb. Next bike, possibly]
I think they should, as is suggested in the video, just get to work on maintaining the surface, rather than change it completely. The last time I did this route was last year, I hired a basic MTB from just outside Whitby, and did the entire length from there to Scarborough and back again. True, the video is quite selective, and there are sections that are very uneven - so much so I had a really bad back from all the jarring it took, but I put that down to the fact I'm not used to an MTB's upright position and I did thrash it a bit.
I'm in two minds really...
I think that to convert this into something else would be to ruin it's unique charm - yes it's rough n'ready, but it is what it is - it's not meant as a Cycle Superhighway transporting commuters to and fro - it's a bridleway, and I think if the surface were evened out to get rid of the ruts and holes, and improve the drainage, then it would be nigh on perfect.
But then again, if upgrading it increases usage, then that's not such a bad thing.
Either way, as someone who would only use it perhaps once or twice every other year, I'd be interested to see what happens, if not actually affected that much.
These have sprung up along the track. Do we really need this meaningless "artwork" everywhere?
cyclestreets53425-size640.jpg
This is on the Sustrans Cinder Track site, "Improvements" just South of ravenscar. They actually are complimenting themselves on the work they have done! In the distance, you can just see the track as it was...narrow, leafy, charming. I can now reach 30mph effortlessly down this section. Before, 15mph was sufficient.
There's a ditch you could lose a child in off to the right. Soon to be full of weeds.
Screen Shot 2017-09-18 at 12.58.29.png
Sort of with you and sort of not.
Personally, I prefer smooth tarmaced routes (only because I no longer have a CX bike
).
Though Sustrans' work seems to have pretty much ruined what would have been a great bridleway.
Do Sustrans actually have any good cycle paths? All the paths near me are pretty naff.
The Bristol to Bath cycle path is good between Bitton (outskirts of Bristol) and the outskirts of Bath, the rest is narrow, rutted and dark.
Bristol to Pill is atrocious - basically singletrack (brilliant on a CX bike though). Not enough room to pass, large potholes, overgrown, muddy, roots.
The Strawberry Line isn't great, like the Pill Path, but a bit wider (again great for CX) - a little more family friendly as there aren't so many roots.
Most the other local paths just seem to meander endlessly around housing estates or follow the narrowest, twistiest, most rutted country lanes in North Soms.
This looks considerably better than some of the sustrans routes I've cycled on.
Looks like a perfectly decent path to me. If they want to destroy it to lay some tarmac, then thats kinda sad for all
Ride it, or don't ride it.
Hardly worth wasting breath over...
This is the other, taken from Sustrans' own website.
1441268_1544918019155457_4877257601429174113_n.jpg
Two sections of track. One after Sustrans-style upgrading and one taken recently of the unmodified track. Guess which is which.
DSCF1815.jpg
If it's a Sustrans path they'll make it virtually unridable anyway with their fiddly gates. They're definitely not DDA compliant!
I live a few miles south of here and we have a similar route from Hull to Withernsea and I agree with mrcrud on this, the railway line doesn't need replacing with a metalled surface it just needs maintaining. If the surface is maintained correctly it can be ridden by bikes shod with anything but 23 & 25mm road tyres. Replacing rather than maintaining seems to be the current mantra.
The walker/pedestrian in me has significant sympathy for the anti-tarmac argument.
I would prefer that fast utility/commuter routes used strips of land alongside existing roads, either reappropriated from the roads themselves or from adjoining land (or just took over existing roads entirely - motorists can stick to the motorways and dual-carriageways built for them at great expense).
Once these sorts of paths get tarmacced not only do they unavoidably have a different feel to them, but I'd worry that you'll eventually get motorised traffic appropriating them as has happened with the every other throughfare.
Me too.
My commute involves cycling a busy 50mph A road (A38 from the airport into Bristol) - I don't mind it, but if there were an alternative dedicated path beside the road, it'd be amazing!
All this ^^^. There are enough places tarmacced-over already.
Removing the trees and gorse hedges would turn a lovely path into a scorching heat trap in the summer.
In addition: we read/post a lot of complaints on this website about cyclist/ped conflicts... MrCrud's video is a nice antidote to all that, showing adult humans sharing a public space. Nice one!
Indeed, my folks live near a old railway which is now a cyclepath, one of the issues is that due the gradient though mild, and a tarmac surface bikes pick up speed easly and are fairly slient quite appart from folks unwillingness to slow, which oddly cars do, since they are the local folks who's properties have access over it.
pre tarmac is was a gravel/hardpack grass track which kept the speeds down, though wasn't a bad surface.
Does seem a shame to fundamentally change the character of such a path for the benefit of a limited user group.
I can see why walkers, horsists, and singletrack riders don't want a recreational route upgraded to the equivalent of a cycle motorway. Not only are you going to loose the character but you might create more conflict between cyclists going quite a lot quicker and slower users. Even the picture posted by Spike64 above looks far more inspiring to ride than pavement.
In short, I'm with Mr Crud on this one and would sooner see the £7.5million go to fix potholes on cycle commuter routes in this particular instance.
This was the quality of the surface the last time I rode it. The video is pretty selective !
image.jpg
@spike64
What's so bad about that...I can't see any HGV's, no cars not even a pedestrian! It looks truly idyllic. Oh there's some cobbles and loose gravel and rocks...Deal with it, part of the fun is managing your 2 wheeled steed across all sorts of surfaces in all types of conditions. Sky is blue..life is good.
Completely support the idea that this kind of path needs no further interference. I am sure there are plenty of more worthy contenders for Sustrans to help segregate motorised traffic from the less protetected road / path users.
I'm a hand cyclist, and I'd seriously struggle to get down it in the current state. I can't swerve to avoid all those puddles and holes, you see.
Preventing even a surface repair is pretty damned selfish.
"A Bridlepath, also Bridleway, is a path, trail, or thoroughfare used by people riding horses. They often now serve a wider range of users, including equestrians, walkers, and cyclists",
Wikipedia.
Many horse riders use this line. They definitely do not want a hard surface and the "speedy", entitled cyclists that will inevitably follow.
The path is a former rail line and only exists because of the railway. There is nothing natural about it, not it's route, not it's surface and not it's flora. It is entirely and completely a man made construct and not "as nature intended" (leaving aside the anthropomorphism)
It's a "Wildlife Corridor". Even Sustrans acknowledge that!
You obviously don't understand the meaning of natural. Putting a bitmac surface on it won't stop it being a " wildlife corridor", a meaningless and largely discredited concept clung to by people who were told they were wonderful twenty years ago and have avoided learning anything new since.
That path is an insurance claim waiting to happen.
You come across as someone who wants to exclude as many people as possible to keep this for yourself. Perhaps you could tell us how the condition of this path, which could be very easily and practically, be made wheel chair friendly, it isn't now, conforms to the DDA? Strikes me sustrans have the interests of the wider community at heart on this one. If that surface was replaced with beyond it wouldn't last 10 years, a bitmac surface, especially with improved drainage, would last 25 to 30
Some of you guys are missing the point.
The Cinder Track has been a Bridleway principally used by walkers for 60 years. Cyclists are a relatively recent subgroup of users. This "Highway one" designation arrived unannounced and unwanted last year.
The principal user group (walkers) do not want to see this charming, tree-lined route "improved" to a 2-lane cyclists highway. We currently have a great mix of users with no one group having hegemony. The nature of the track precludes high speeds (except on the short 30mph featureless section already widened and hard-surfaced that you can see on the video).
As Nature intended, a meandering, tree-lined nature trail. That is how we wish it to stay.
'Relatively recent subgroup' maybe, but perhaps you ought to revisit the scope of 'bridleway'. If I wanted to ride something that crappy I'd stick to paths along the Thames, mtb trails or other bridleways... as someone that has mostly has to ride a recumbent (2-wheel fwiw) because of dodgy neck, if I came across that 10 mile into a 20+ miles ride I'd be a bit pissed off. 'As nature intended'...well, that depends on which handful of decades you're referring to.
It's not all about *your* riding experience...
Hi Mistercrud, I must admit, I do mostly agree with that (strange, as I thought I would have been all for turning it into a dedicated cycle path).
It is clearly marked on OS maps as a permissive bridleway (which subsequently means it can be used for cycling) as such, it is also marked as an off-road cycle route.
Seems to me, the argument isn't about whether it should be improved - rather it is about if the fundamental use should be completely altered - widening it and paving it specifically for cyclists and designating it as a cycle path, rather than a bridleway.
I can see why a lot of people would very much be put off from cycling between Scarborough and Whitby; the Cinder Track is suited for CX or MTB and the A171 looks like a 60mph reasonably hilly road (not suitable for family cyclists).
The A171 looks like a fantastic route though and I'd love to give it a go if I'm ever up that way!
As nice as it would be to have a totally car-free cycle route, beautifully tarmaced for cycling - I don't think this place for it as it would ruin the bridleway.
I would, however, say that the path isn't at all as nature intended, it's a disused railway that runs through cuttings and along embankments - but I get your point.
If they want to keep it that way, it should have all Sustrans signs and any future funding taken away. Wholly inappropriate to be "National Cycle Network" and nothing to do with "Sustainable Transport"
Agreed! Get rid of the Sustrans signeage. Leave the Cinder Track as-is for the thousands of holidaymakers and nature lovers who currently love it. The 4,300 who have signed the petition totally reject Sustrans' subjugation of the track.
PS Friendly considerate cyclists who don't mind the odd puddle will always be welcome...
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