Rural (off)road... great lane

I located a great little rural unclassified road in my area and "discovered" what awesome capability a stock Disco 2 (no CDL) has. It was my first time using HDC and TC in anger and I was "proper buzzin" to use modern parlance

I checked with Lancs County Council that it was fine to take a vehicle down there; the lane is gated at one end. No problem the lady said. In fact she said that the lane has a 60mph speed limit!!





You'd be hard pressed to get more than 6mph over the rocks and ruts Not so much green lane as brown, muddy, rocky lane.

Low box, first gear, HDC onthe way down, a bit of throttle on the way up.... Land Rovers are awesome. Long live the Green Oval!

Diff.

Its not a 60mph limit, its rather a derestricted speed limit, which is currently upto 60mph for single carriageways afaik. Might die trying to do 60!!!

Nice find, get a video going down it, or more pics :-D

flat said:

Its not a 60mph limit...

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Her words, not mine I too tend to use the term derestricted, but then have to mention that for a single carriageway in this country, not the Isle of Man. is limited to 60mph.

You can do 60... above it in a helicopter!

The picture showing the river is taken on a concrete foundation at the beginning of the footbridge for the public footpath.

I'll see about getting some more pics - think my daughter took some yesterday when she came with me to open the gates (and be amazed )

Can I post up the details publicly of where it is.... seeing as it's a rural road, not a BOAT etc. ??

Diff.

depends if you want to keep it to yourself :-D

Hmm... well it would be good fun with 2 or 3 more peeps... and what if something should break? I never really thought about that did I? OOPS! :0

Diff.

DIFFLOCK66 said:

Can I post up the details publicly of where it is.... seeing as it's a rural road, not a BOAT etc. ??

Diff.

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You can.

But if you want to keep it in good condition and open then i suggest you don't.

If you go around telling everyone where lanes are etc then sooner or later someone will tell someone else who dosent care and will try doing 60 mph down it or turn it into a bog.

Those that want to drive it responsibly will find it on there own accord, those that want to hoon around, dont have the brain capacity to find lanes themselves.

Looks a nice little find.

OK Ginga,

Good point - any LZ'ers who wants to know where it is, PM me (A compromise assuming that LZ members will drive it responsibly )

Little find is a good term - a single track metalled road leads to the bad stuff going down to the river and back up the the first gate (travelling in a roughly north westerly direction it's about 800 yards long) ** once through the first gate, it's just a short run on a gravel track to the second gate by a metalled road.

** Actually I'll measure it on the map to give you guys a better idea

Incidentally, the rocks near the river will give me somewhere else to play with my 1:10 scale RC rock crawler

Diff.

A couple more pics:-

This is the view under the footbridge



and this is the view if you're travelling from the north to the south, just after the second gate



derestricted rural road indeed more like derelict!

Diff.

You are hooked now

And what about this one, it was actually an option on Tims Sat Nav

LOL! Good job you didn't meet a Czech Republic HGV driver coming the other way

Great photo!

Diff.

That does look fun, I'd keep the location for selected people before it looks more like a pond than a nice forgotten lane.
Just a question for map reading, and its something I'm searching for, but how are unclassified roads shown on OS maps? do they all have the byway marking to show you can drive them (subject to tros)?

scottant said:

That does look fun, I'd keep the location for selected people before it looks more like a pond than a nice forgotten lane.
Just a question for map reading, and its something I'm searching for, but how are unclassified roads shown on OS maps? do they all have the byway marking to show you can drive them (subject to tros)?

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No. Mostly white roads, sometimes yellow, often with dotted lines to denote unfenced .. most people discard them 'cos they're no Byways, but in fact they're very often better than many Byways. I used a few in the Bouncing Bakewell routes ..

ORPA's are always worth checking out Have to be extra careful about legality though

oh I thought so, still a case of ensuring they are legal to drive but that makes sense thanks

scottant said:

oh I thought so, still a case of ensuring they are legal to drive but that makes sense thanks

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There is a sticky at the top of the page that will give you all the info you need. thats why its a sticky

Pauls link that i borrowed is in there too.

Thanks, spent a while reading them, and then looking through some local maps, there still isnt much around my house so I think I'll be venturing further and finding some local clubs to join in with. I think that'll be the best way to start.

Went equipped today :scratching_chin: with a pair of loppers as the brambles and one or two overhanging branches were making their prescence felt. Grand afternoon out - met a couple of ladies on horseback; fortunately I'd parked up just to the side of the lane so they had no problems:



I was going to go straight across the stream, but decided to back up after dipping the front wheels in and have a quick look on foot via the footbridge and across the other side. In doing so I ended up losing a fight with a bit of tree sticking out low down D'OH!





A bit of superglue as I type...

I did meet another lady in a car at the metalled end. She'd noticed me cutting stuff. She had a conversation with me about how some 4x4s come barrelling down the road . Told her I was surprised because of what you can't see when driving at speed despite it being a UCR. I said I was just lopping some overhanging bits out of the way, not just for 4x4s but horseriders too. At least they can't speed through the rough stuff or they'd die!
She seemed to come across a little disappointed that I knew it was a UCR and that horses etc. come down it. She then went on to tell me about the horses churning up the bridleway which comes of one end of the lane, so that you can only walk on little strips. I think perhaps she was a walker who would maybe have liked the lane & bridleways as footpaths, but couldn't do anything about it at the present time.... :scratching_chin: Was an amicable discussion though.

Diff.