Wainwright vs Raleigh: Coast to Coasts compared by foot and bike

I've just finished Wainwright's Coast to Coast walk (WC2C).

The 200-mile trod from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire is the most popular long-distance walk in the UK, and deservedly so: 10-15 days of mediumly challenging routes through stunning scenery in the Lakes (right), Dales and Moors. And quite a few bogs.

But... as comedian Tim Vine quips, 'I've just been on the holiday of a lifetime. Tch! Never again.'

Because, though it was a fabulous experience I thoroughly enjoyed and am delighted to have done, I prefer doing it by bike. I realised it especially here (right), on the Cleveland Way entering the North York Moors, when I enviously saw these guys trundle past, and get to the pub two hours before me.

Sure, you lose some of the footpath-solitude on a bridleway/road route, unless you're a very adventurous offroad trekker. But the WC2C is pretty busy anyway: it's often hard to escape your fellow walkers (particularly, for some reason, mad middle-aged Dutch women who keep angling for your email address).

And on a bike it's far more practical: you can do it in much less time, three or four days, and still get a wonderful - and blisterless - experience. Walkers get punctures too; they're just patched with Elastoplast and Compeed rather than a Halfords repair kit.

I know this because I've done several biking Coast to Coasts now. 'The' C2C is the Sustrans Whitehaven/Workington to Newcastle/Sunderland route, though there are several others.

These include Hadrian's Cycleway, the Reivers, and the recent Way of Roses Route, from Morecambe to Bridlington. All very enjoyable, doable in that long-weekend slot, and plied by charity-fundraising teams who can't quite believe that you're just doing it for fun.

(The dullest, surprisingly, is the Trans Pennine Trail, from Southport to Hornsea. Ideal for raising money for some heart-related charity perhaps, or other organisation associated with the avoidance of overexcitement.)

But my favourite was the Ravenglass to Ravenscar bike route I did shortly before walking the WC2C (whose track it roughly parallels).

This isn't an official route, just something I made up on a whim - coastal opposites both beginning with 'Raven', and both at the end-ish of an Esk Valley.

Which is exactly what Wainwright intended. His route was planned as a model of how to devise your own route, not a walk to be followed exactly. He'd be thoroughly dismayed to see the hordes dutifully following his exact trail, guidebook in hand, looking for a nice man to take back with them to Eindhoven.

I had three days of glorious cycling: one in the Lakes (including the three-biscuit ascent of Hardknott Pass, above right); one in the Dales (including Buttertubs Pass and breathtaking Swaledale); and one in the Moors (bottom right).

So yes, the WC2C is a lovely thing and I heartily recommend it. But for me cycling's still much better. No problems having to go an extra mile or two at the end of a day to find accommodation or a pub. Virtually no luggage weight limit, so you can take luxuries such as deodorant as well as necessities such as laptop. And mighty range that makes your investment of time-off (or, in the case of most WC2Cers, their pension fund) go that much further.

And - the thing I miss most of all when I walk - those life-affirming, shout-for-joy freewheels downhill. Straining the knees to walk down the side of a fell feels like you've saved up only to get a whoppingly negative interest. Which reminds me of my pension fund.

Verdict: WC2C is great. But biking it is better. I'm doing Barrow to Jarrow next...

Roughed up by the Reivers

I cycled the Reivers Route the other week - one of the family of 'alternative Coast to Coast routes' that takes you from Newcastle to Carlisle through Northumberland.

It's evidently now referred to as National Route 10. Perhaps 'Reivers' - the name for the ancient cattle rustlers who marauded the area - sounded too wild, too rough.

Though that's exactly what it is, in this central section west of Kielder (right) - not what you'd expect from a designated National Cycle Network route.

Or, if you've done quite a lot of Sustrans routes, exactly what you'd expect from a designated National Cycle Network route.

Maybe it's to put off anyone with an expensive thin-tyred road bike from tackling the route. No doubt bike rustling is more profitable these days.

Hadrian's wall post: Helmets on NCN72

We saw this sign the other day while cycling Sustrans's NCN Route 72, between Carlisle and Newcastle.

It's called Hadrian's Cycleway, because it largely avoids the remains of Hadrian's Wall.

Helmets are emphatically not required by law in the UK, though this sign seems to be recommending them.

However, the pattern of helmet proposed here surely does not conform to either the European Standard EN1078 or the supplanted, but more stringent, Snell B-90 standard.

Now, it may provide some protection against injury in some forms of accident, such as being assaulted by a Pict with a squarehead axe.

But there is no experimental evidence to suggest it would protect in impacts with chariots or Roman Road surfaces at speed; besides, there is arguably an increased risk of rotational head injuries caused by projecting parts of the helmet snagging during collision.

Anyway, the Hadrian's Route is OK (right), gives you an insight into what tribal life was like in primitive times on the edge of civilisation.

Especially if you go out for a beer in Carlisle town centre on Saturday night. A helmet there might not be a bad idea.

Pass notes: Cycle-friendly sign in Clapham

I was in London over the Jubilee weekend. No, not celebrating archaic hereditary privilege, but in search of excellent, cheap South Indian curries in Tooting.

En route to Chennai Dosa, a fine restaurant at the epicentre of the Asian quarter - and I use the word pretty accurately, in its seismic sense - we went past this sign in Clapham.

I've seen similar signs in Cambridge, but never here in York.

I'm happy to preserve some differences between us and the capital - it's quite nice having decent fish and chips, fresh air, lovely local pubs and plumbers who speak English and only charge a fiver for fixing your leaky tap the same day you call them - but this is one aspect of London I'd like to see more of up north.

Whose side are you on?: York's mystery cycle path

The Highway Code (Rule 62) is pretty clear about segregated cycle/pedestrian paths.

It says "you MUST keep to the side intended for cyclists as the pedestrian side remains a pavement or footpath", the MUST meaning that it's against the law if you ignore their sage advice.

Cycle on the pedestrian side and you could, in extremis, be found guilty of 'careless or inconsiderate cycling', and fined up to £1000.

So all you have to do is obey the blue sign. Such as this one (right), by Clifton Moor here in York. It clearly tells you to stick to the left-hand side.

Except the painted markings tell you the opposite. So, whatever you decide, you've committed an offence.

Follow the path round, off the north end of Water Lane through a housing development, and the painted signs do the neat trick of swopping sides at each end..

And what about pedestrians? They don't know where they stand. Literally. Though they'll probably stand in the middle, with their back to me, listening to their iPod. That's what they usually do.

Not half bad: Green light for bike-friendly Barcelona

It's dispiriting to compare our current chilly spring with Barcelona's. I was there in March and it was lovely.

It's dispiriting to compare Barça's cycling situation with London's, too. The Catalan capital has gone from having no bike culture to a thriving one in just a decade or so.

I know which capital I'd rather live in too, and it's not just because of the two-euro bottles of wine and Mediterranean beachside.

Partly Barça's bike-friendliness is due to the very popular cycle-hire scheme, 'Bicing' (right) - for locals only, sadly, so I couldn't have a go on one.

Partly it's due to the system of cycle tracks round the city centre (top right), taking advantage of those wide boulevards. A bit skeletal, but useful; outside it, Barça's cyclists thread in and out of pedestrians in the narrow streets of the old Barrio Gotic, and nobody seems to mind much.

Whatever the case, the cycling scene is strong. And none of this hi-vis-jacket-and-helmet nonsense you have in London: like York, it's full of normally-clothed people just getting from A to B on two wheels.

And one traffic light caught my eye (right). Not only does the pedestrian appear to be kicking the bike - perhaps he's annoyed with so much pavement cycling after all - but there's only half a bike.

Perhaps it's the missing front half of the traffic light in York I noted recently...

Water under the bridge - and over the cycle path

York is famous for many things: Minsters, sweets, horse races, FA Trophy victories.

It's also gearing up for the York Mystery Plays in August, the first such for decades.

But right now there's a more pressing York speciality on our minds: city-centre flooding on the banks of the Ouse.

It's not an infrequent state of affairs, as shown by the permanent sign just off the riverside path (right) ready to be deployed, rather wearily, whenever there's another period of relentless rainfall - or as it's called in Britain, 'hosepipe ban'.

For anyone doing the Trans Pennine Trail or White Rose Route, they either have a detour along Bishopthorpe Road, or some aquaplaning along the inundated cycle track (right).

Over the Millennium Bridge on the other side of the river, things are no better.

It's not as bad as it can get. Levels were a foot or two higher back in January, for instance.

But with more rain forecast for this week, it might be time to invest in an ark.

Which, funnily enough, is one of the scenes in that Mystery Play... somehow it's all now making sense.