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Potholes and Pavements

A Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network

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Potholes and Pavements

By: Laura Laker
Narrated by: Laura Laker
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Bloomsbury presents Potholes and Pavements written and read by Laura Laker.

Just wonderful – two wheels good, Laura Laker brilliant. Part travel diary, part love poem to Britain's cycle network ... it's difficult not to be inspired by this fabulous book.' Jeremy Vine

'With a passion for both cycling and words, there are few more qualified to paint a picture of the NCN's potential than Laura Laker.' Chris Boardman

A unique journey around the UK’s National Cycle Network and one journalist’s quest to investigate the state of our country’s cycling.

What if we were less reliant on our cars? What if there were safe cycling paths to take us places instead? What if those paths led to the next town, the next village and the countryside beyond?

This was the dream of a group of Bristolian idealists in the 1970s when they founded Britain’s National Cycle Network, which now runs to nearly 13,000 miles across the country. Journalist Laura Laker sets off on an odyssey around the UK to see where the NCN began, and where it is now.

What has gone right – and wrong – with this piece of national infrastructure? Why is it run by a charity whose CEO once admitted ‘we’ve had enough of it being crap, we need to fix it’? Laura lifts the lid on this maddening, patchy, and at times dangerous network, and the similarly precarious politics and financing that make it what it is.

She discovers beauty, friendship and adventure along the way, from the Cairngorms to Cornwall, from the Pennines to the South Wales coast. On her mission to pin down what the NCN is and what it means to those who use it, she also meets up with high-profile travelling companions, including Chris Boardman and Ned Boulting.

In a country where 71% of trips are less than five miles, two thirds of Britons say they want to cycle more and doing so could help our climate, health and wellbeing. Laura is on a mission to see if we can make that dream a reality. Cycling Engineering Personal Development Sustainable & Green Living Travel Writing & Commentary Dream
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Critic reviews

Just wonderful – two wheels good, Laura Laker brilliant. This book takes you on a trip to every corner of Britain, and you can feel every bump and groove on cycle lanes across the country. Inspiring ... part travel diary, part love poem to Britain’s cycle network.
With a passion for both cycling and words, there are few more qualified to paint a picture of the NCN's potential than Laura Laker.
Laker lays a finger on the nation's cycling pulse, and finds, despite it all, there is a lot of life. A beautiful homage to a wonky network.
An essential read for all cycling enthusiasts. I loved hearing about Laura's experiences … a wonderful reminder of how cycling both in cities and in the countryside can change our nation's health and happiness for the better ... Laura has a broad vision for the future of cycling in our country as well as practical suggestions of the steps we need to take to get there.
In a pedal-powered journey of discovery, Laura Laker tells the surprising story of how Britain got its bike paths: the good, the bad and the downright ugly. Along the way she meets the early visionaries and today’s activists engaged in what’s become an unlikely new front in the culture wars.
...an awesome ride around the byways and backroads of the UK…a really thoughtful piece of writing…Laura is an amazing writer.
An absorbing, and often surprising portrait of Britain’s cycleways, a call to arms for active travel – and a compelling history of the greatest national institution you’ve never heard of.
Part travelogue, part history and part love story for cycling, Laura’s exploration of the National Cycle Network on her pink e-bike is an engaging tour of Britain’s erratic relationship with cycling. She beautifully illustrates why sustained funding and governmental leadership is urgently needed to transform these often-ignored routes into the national treasure we deserve.
Really eye-opening and instructive
Entertaining and informative read that brings focus to some infrastructure that could be of even more benefit to society than it is – given the chance. (Richard Peploe)
A charming look at the literal highs and lows of Britain's occasionally ramshackle, occasionally incredible national cycling network.
Potholes and Pavements is the story of the UK’s fitful, sometimes painful transformation from a car-dependent nation of villages, towns and cities into a connected, bikeable network of communities. Through the people, places and power struggles that produced today’s National Cycle Network, Laker reveals the social, health, environmental and economic possibilities that cycling offers a nation, and shows that the road ahead is actually a bike lane.
The most important cycling book in the UK ... Laker manages to eloquently, and accurately, paint a warts-and-all picture of the National Cycle Network ... essential reading for every cyclist in the UK, and especially essential reading for all road engineers, and all politicians
All stars
Most relevant
A great tale of her journey and the journey of the national cycle network. Really enjoyed listening to it.

A unique cycling book - recommend

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Really enjoyed hearing Laura’s journey and reporting on the state of the cycle network. Very interesting and informative, with great ideas how to support. Well read by the author too!

Fantastic and inspiring listen

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Nice to hear about disability cycling and Wheels for All are doing a great job too with over 50 hubs across the country. Some media are very London centric so thought I would highlight them. A number of years ago I was one of the surveyors Sustrans employed, was a fantastic adventure, I probably surveyed 3000, a good portion of the NCN. I did most of the North and Northern Ireland as well as the central belt of Scotland. Bliss, quite tough in retrospect.

Not bad

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Laura Laker reads her charming history of Sustrans and the National Cycle Network, speaking with the people who built it up and the likes of Chris Boardman. She really conveys the love of cycling that many people get when they get on two wheels, and describes many of the local highlights that she has ridden around the country. It's also a call to make changes for the better, to improve our health and wellbeing as a nation through active travel.

A delightful history and future of British cycling

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Essential listening for anyone involved in making cycling better, or for those who want to make it better.

Essential listening

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