Lancaster – Carnforth – Warton – The Yealands – Beetham – Dallam park – Heversham Moss – Levens – Witherslack – Lindale – Cartmel – Allithwaite – Grange over Sands – Meathop – Levens – Ackenthwaite – Holme – Greenlands – The Kellets

This route skirts Morecambe Bay, which is an ever-present feature of our north Lancashire tours. It visits the increasingly popular village of Cartmel, once famous just for its priory church and horse racing, but now also a gourmet destination.

To get there, we set off from Lancaster on the A6, leaving it just before Carnforth as we seek out the attractive villages of Warton and the Yealands, with a steady climb to Yealand Conyers, a stone-built village with strong Quaker connections, and onto Yealand Redmayne.A right turn off the Silverdale Road leads to a short but steep climb through woodland, a descent and a right turn at an awkward left hand bend. More woodland and a gradual ascent ascent to Slack Head the then steeply down to Beetham village with attractive cafes at the village post office and the garden centre., But we have more miles to travel before rewarding ourselves with morning coffee.A left turn by the Wheatsheaf Inn takes us to picturesque Dallam Park where you may spot some of the farmed deer in the parkland.Reaching the edge of the Kent estuary we take the grid-iron country lanes over Heversham Moss, then along a short section of the A6 to Levens Hall for our coffee break.A new café and restaurant is in the pipeline and is eagerly anticipated by cyclists.

Continuing beyond Levens we take the thankfully quiet former A590 route to Witherslack, away from the traffic zooming along the new road at horrendous speed.From Witherslack we cycle through typical hilly woodland and crag Lakeland scenes to Lindale.A long climb up Lindale Hill gets even steeper after we turn off left onto quiet lanes taking us over to Cartmel Village for a café or picnic lunch.We have never tried calling in at L’Enclume, but assume they will not be impressed with sweaty lycra-clad patrons.

A short climb takes us over the hill and back to the coast at Allithwaite.At Kents Bank we get onto the long, car-free promenade along the front at Grange over Sands, with views over to Arnside Knott and the AONB.Just beyond Grange we take the low road over the Moss to Meathop and then back to Witherslack via a cycle-friendly underpass.We retrace our outward route to Levens, then come back along lanes to the east of the A6, through Heversham, Ackenthwaite, Holme and Burton.From here there is an option for afternoon tea at Greenlands Farm or Clearwater cafe for those desiring afternoon refreshments on the way back home.

CTC Lancaster and South Lakes covers all the LA postcodes and the majority of our members live in the Lancaster area.  Most rides start from Lancaster and are 40-70 miles, so we can only access a large part of the southern Lake District using car-assist. As well as the Lake District, we are lucky to have the 3 Peaks area of the Yorkshire Dales and the Howgills within striking distance.  Many of our rides head south, into the Forest of Bowland AONB or onto the Fylde, but these are not LA postcodes. A very popular area for shorter rides is the Arnside/Silverdale AONB.