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Anyone who knows the roads north of Leeds
Posted by Stuart on February 5, 2025, 11:26 am
Hi,
Tentatively, next Monday late afternoon/early evening (will avoid rush-hour if at all possible), going from M1 J46 A6120 to the A65 northwards, Google Maps advises:-
A6120 to Moor Allerton, turn right on to King Lane (no road number) through Camp Town and Black Moor, left on to Kings Road towards the A660 at Bramhope, A660 to the A65 at Burley-in-Wharfedale.
The M1 around Leeds is busy pretty well all of the time & that section if approaching from the South is round about were the peak period gridlock peters out. My commute used to include that section & it wasn't fun morning & evening during the week and isn't much better when I have used it at the weekend (I often come off at Junction 47 at Aberford for weekend rides going East - I live near J25 of the M62 & the motorways are often the quickest way to get to "interesting" roads).
IIRC the A6120 is a fairly recent outer Leeds ring road, which I have little experience of. The A660 is busy & slow through Otley to Burley-in-Wharfedale - low speed limits & plenty of "hold-up" junctions, lights & r/bouts.
The M1 North from Nottingham will be busy all the way. Long stretches of the M1 are all-lane-running "Smart" motorway with variable limits. The stretch between J29 Chesterfield & J30 (A57 junction) is pretty well always 50mph for air quality issues & J30 to J34 (Meadowhall) had long-term roadworks to add extra Emergency laybys last time I passed through there (slowly).
My commute in the evening was in the opposite direction, but the area from J44 to J40 heading South was very busy (crawling speed at best - usually between 20-30 minutes to cover that stretch) between 5pm & 6pm. On the odd occasion I was late leaving work it was busy but moving around 6.30pm. North bound lanes were similarly conjested, with the worst area being between the same junctions. Bad here as it is the junction between the M1, M62 and M621 (Leeds inner ring road), the junctions are poorly designed and don't function well.
There were long term roadworks between J42 & J47 for replacement of the "cheese cutter" wire rope safety barriers with continuous concrete walls that really screwed up that area due to cutting 4 running lanes down to 2, but that may have ended now (it was scheduled to take over 2 years IIRC).
Travelling on a Monday will help you here - traffic was always heaviest going North Monday mornings, but lightest in the evening (Thursday was the worst eveing traffic). All bets are off if there is an "incident" - which there are distressingly often. Just a broken down vehicle in one of the "all-lane-running" Smart sections can cause a hold-up that stops things for hours - my best commute time for 49 miles was around 50-55 minutes door-to-door, but the worst was 2 3/4 hours !
A65 is a nice road to drive from the M6 outside Kendal down to Skipton, but is very heavily Policed (used to run un-marked Subaru Imprezas to catch the boy racers on there) and frequently slow going - when going up to Scotland I go the "long way round" via the M62, M61 & M6 - adds around 30 miles, but usually faster than the A65. I avoid it altogether on Bank Holiday weekends because of having too mnay near misses from badly ridden bikes ovetaking in stupid places (double white lines are usually there for a reason ! ).
Keighley is a sh!ithole at any time of day & best avoided ! I have to go there occasionally, as my Himalayan came from Colin Appleyards dealership there, but it is a slow and tedious trip.
Best also to be a good boy WRT speed limits, particularly in North Yorkshire - no fixed speed cameras in NY but they have a large & very active fleet of mobile camera vans that are often seen on the bridges over the M1 & A1M as well as in built-up areas.
on February 5, 2025, 11:26 am
