I generally avoid cycle paths on my bike - and in my cars - but the one exception is a track (which
I found by accident) along a disused railway line between Thame and Princes Risborough. Apart from
being saddled with the naff name of the Phoenix trail, it's a nice ride and a good alternative to
the road, which is rather too straight and flat to be interesting...
I often work it into my Sunday rides around the Chilterns as an easy route home, as I did this
afternoon. Today I made a couple of observations:
1) I get the impression that the track is fairly recent, but the surface has started is cracking up
quite badly. In one section, long cracks and some subsidence has set in along the line of the
track, with signs of some incipient potholes. It wouldn't be a problem on my mountain bike, but I
was on my road bike with 700c tyres at 110psi! In any case, if I was on my mountain bike, I'd be
hammering through the woods rather than riding a straight flat trail, however nice.... I wonder
how much maintenance the track will get - if it's anything like the local roads, it's got about
20 years of crumbling to do before someone comes along and throws some grit onto it....
2) At one point I came up behind a very slow horse towing a little cart with three people in it - a
horsey expert would probably call it a "trap". I don't know whether it was intended as a trap for
cyclists but it was using all the paved width of the track, and I had to ride carefully over the
stones at the side to get past, to a muffled chorus of "Sorry" from the embarrassed occupants. I
assume the track has the legal status of a bridleway as it's intended for use by bicycles,
walkers and horses, but I was curious as to whether wheeled contraptions towed by horses are
actually allowed on bridleways....
Geoff