OK, I'm riding into Manchester on Thursday evening from Warrington. To the Velodrome to be precise and i'm unsure of routes/traffic so any adfvice gratefully recieved.

Routemap suggests getting on the East Lancs at Leigh and heading down that, now I know there's a cycle lane most of the way, but where does it end and what's the traffic like at 5 in the evening heading into manchester on there? An alternative is to ride to Lymm and then Carrington, Stretford, but that sounds like an awfully busy route.

The difficult bit I think is going to be getting round the centre, I think, if I go the east lancs route, I just get on the A6, onto Trinity way, round Victoria and then onto Oldham road and get on the velodrome road from there.

Sound OK?

Use Sustrans route 62,the transpennine trail,goes partially off road from Warrington to Manchester, a bit circuitous, but well signed.

East Lancs road is a death trap, or it was 15 years ago when i last rode it.

I'd not thought about going offroad, the transpennine trail really only runs as far as didsbury IIRC and then does mostly road to get to Hyde, have to check that out. Be a bit sketchy at night though.

The cyclepath on the East Lancs from Prescot at least as far as Eccles is a completely seperate path to the road but I think it disppears after that and I'd have the choice of either getting on the Easdt Lancs itself, which is you say would be stupid, or riding side roads from Eccles to Salford and then the route I've described above but it's that section I'm not sure about.

Is the ship cannal any good?

C

The transpennine trail uses the ship canal in places but for the most part there's no towpath like a normal canal. There is a handy canal with towpath running from Leigh all the way into Manchester city centre but it's extremely dodgy, especially at night. I suppose it's a good way to to get to the city centre limits.