DURING a long walk, a Windermere pensioner tells me that he had to succumb to a forced rest by the side of the A591, near Ings.

"I noticed two cyclists coming down the main road from Windermere and I could see that they were decked out in their Tour-de-France gear," he said.

"By coincidence, they were in need of a pit-stop' and as they sat besides me I had the opportunity to ask a question which had been burning inside of me for weeks

"Why were they using the main road when there was a much safer cycle way at their disposal?

"They seem to treat my question as an affront to their intelligence," he says, and they told him that they had been cycling for many years and found by using these cycle ways, they had to cross and re-cross the main road, which took time and was a bit of a pain.

"I explained that the local rate-payer had help to financed these cycle-ways, so that cyclists could feel safe from other traffic, but I got the impression that their opinion was that cycleways were for the novice and not for people wearing Tour-de-France clothing and it was a matter of choice for individual cyclist whether to use them or not.

"As they pedalled away down the main road, I thought I might drop a line to Cumbria County Council to see if it was also a matter of choice for me and whether I could withhold the proportion of my rates to the building of cycleways," he says, adding: "If they are not being used, then the non-cyclist could think they are a waste of money.

"I am an occasional cyclist myself, but I don't wear fancy gear and despite riding a cycle for over 50 years I could still be classed as a novice with the cyclists of today.

"Nevertheless, if an amenity has been provided by the rate-payer to help us all to make life easier and safe, then we should try very hard to use it."

I couldn't agree more. I have travelled the Kendal-Windermere road hundreds of times, but have only ever seen a handful of cyclists using the cycleway which cost many thousands of pounds, although I have met dozens of them riding two-abreast on the carriageway.

Neither can I see the costly new section between Windermere and Ambleside getting much use, unless just about everyone in the two towns has been given a cycle for Christmas and has been hiding them away until summer.

On the other hand, there may soon be a point to the curious cycleway built in Oxenholme Road two years ago. Since then, it has been an object of ridicule as it is around 20 metres long and ends in a stone wall.

Now council highways men have moved and appear to be building an extension behind the wall.

POST OFFICE CID

A NEIGHBOUR of mine this week received a get-well card from someone who had heard she was recovering from an operation, but did not have her address.

So they wrote on the card:

Dee Hubble

Barn/Cottage

Somewhere near Cartmel

Possibly owns a Volvo car

Near Grange

Cumbria

"Where else in the UK would employees of Royal Mail go to so much trouble or use their initiative sufficiently to ensure the message reached its destination?" she asks.

LONG WAY ROUND

I AM told that a couple of passengers who got off the train at Grange-over-Sands station asked the lady in the station kiosk: "If we follow the Promenade, will it lead us to Gretna?"

Puts me in mind of the Japanese tourists who asked at Bowness Tourist Information Area where they had to go to visit Peter Rabbit's grave.

Or from even further back in the 1970s, when a family turned up at the ticket office on Bowness Pier and asked for four returns to the Isle of Man. The sight of the Tern, Swift, or Swan tackling the weirs at Backbarrow would indeed have been a sight to behold.

May 22, 2003 14:30