Cross-town: east-west

The easiest route from the east of the city to the centre is the Foss Islands railway path. This starts from Osbaldwick and Tang Hall, with a new bridge over the River Foss to link it to the Minster. It’s direct and fairly fast, though the stop-start path through the retail park is exasperating. Watch out for broken glass.

Crossing the city centre isn’t straightforward. You can head for Bootham and then south to Scarborough Bridge, which avoids the busy central bridges. From there, a cycle path skirts the station before reaching the quieter paths and roads of the western suburbs.

City centre to the University

Depending where on the campus you’re going, there are several sensible routes between York city centre and the University. But by far the most pleasant is along the riverside, crossing at the Millennium Bridge if you started on the west bank; then continuing past the barracks, and over the Walmgate meadows, to the campus. It’s largely traffic-free or very quiet; you’ll only meet significant traffic at the light-controlled Fulford Road crossing.

Bike life

With 20% of journeys in York being made by bike, a vibrant culture has grown up around cycling in the city.

There’s an annual York Festival of Cycling, a family-focused event with traffic-free rides and stunt displays. Until 2012, the CTC held its national rally and show here. Other events include the York Cycle Challenge, where employers aim to have the highest proportion of cycling workers.

For those of a sporty disposition, there’s a closed road circuit at the Sport Village, on the ring road beyond the University, and an off-road track at Rawcliffe Country Park.

Your Bike Shed is York’s new cyclé cafe, combining great coffee and cake with bike repairs. If you’re riding out for the day, the local CTC has also produced a bewilderingly comprehensive list of cafés in the area.

Bike theft is inevitably a problem. Operation Spoke is an ongoing initiative to mark bikes and register them electronically. Local police have also been ‘tagging’ badly parked bikes with little advice slips to warn cyclists when their bikes are at risk!

Cycle parking

York has perhaps the highest amount of bike parking per head of population anywhere in Britain. The railway station has 500 alone, there’s another thousand dotted around the city centre, and many employers and schools provide secure parking. Indoor valet parking is now available at the Hub Station, a community enterprise on the riverside at Lendal Bridge (south bank) which also provides showers, toilets and bike repairs.

The roads

York’s city streets are narrow. They make for great photos, but not always great cycling. As soon as you enter the city centre, you’ll find yourself squeezing past queueing traffic, bumping up and down off the pavement, and sometimes simply getting off and pushing.

Bike lanes are painted on many of the roads, but sometimes more in hope than expectation. In particular, there simply isn’t enough room for bus and bike next to each other – and York has plenty of buses, particularly around the station area. The good news is that York’s drivers are more alert to bikes than most.

Once you get out of the centre, though the roads are a little wider and the back-streets quieter, you still need to choose your route carefully. Be especially wary of the major arterials leading into the city. York is largely flat; the university is on Heslington Hill, but you’ll barely break sweat crossing it.

The city shopping streets are pedestrianised – in local jargon, ‘footstreets’ – which means they’re closed to cyclists between 10.30am and 5pm. Inevitably, this makes crossing the centre tricky; your choices are North Street on the opposite bank, Deangate past the Minster, or pushing. Cambridge and Bristol have shown that bikes can mix with pedestrians on city centre streets: York would do well to follow suit.

Streets in the South Bank area now enjoy a 20mph limit, but no others – though city centre traffic is often at a crawl anyway.

The city’s Park & Ride sites all have reasonable cycle route connections, and there are bike racks and lockers at all of them. You can park your car and cycle into town, or conversely, leave the bike here and take the bus in.