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The top end of Dene Hollow is riddled with potholes and requires a bit of care. (It’s always been like this – several years ago someone – the farmer who owns it, suspect – filled the potholes with broken bricks, which made it even more, er, ‘interesting’.)
The Lynchway (aka Flinty Hill) is in pretty good condition, but I’d agree with Didcotbob on the care going down and unpleasant to go up.
The new link road will be a longer (in distance) journey for many in Didcot; unless it’s significantly shorter in time, people will continue to use West Hagbourne, and if the road over Hagbourne Hill is wider and better surfaced, more people will choose to use that route. Don’t forget, there are houses about to go up along Park Road, and in the future Ladygrove is to be extended eastwards; it really doesn’t seem likely that residents in the new housing will opt to go out of their way to use the link road. For people heading north, why would someone come down Hagbourne Hill and opt to drive *past* the first turning towards Didcot, unless they live in Harwell or off Wantage Road? Perhaps I’m being unduly pessimistic, but I’ve lived in West Hagbourne for 24 years and I’ve seen the traffic get heavier and heavier; the the traffic modellers at SODC/OCC cannot make their models match what’s happened over the last decade in our village and have consistently predicted decreasing traffic which is completely the opposite of what Parish Council-run traffic surveys have demonstrated.
Sorry to be so pessimistic – I suppose it won’t matter when we’re all part of Greater Didcot.
As a resident of West Hagbourne, the proposed upgrade to Hagbourne Hill fills me with horror. We already have more traffic than a small village can handle at rush hour, and the upgrade will make the route through our village more attractive to drivers from the east side of Didcot who are going south on the A34 or coming to site. Further, anyone coming from site or off the A34 at the Chilton junction, especially after the northbound exit/entry slips have been put in place, will turn right to go through West Hagbourne rather than go all the way to the new link road.
I’m not sure how clear it is, but another change is that the exit from West Hagbourne onto the A417 will become left turn only. Again, for village residents, anyone wanting to go towards Rowstock will now have to turn left onto the A417 and go all the way around the new roundabout. Not a big deal, maybe, but it’s very exasperating that no thought seems to have been given to the consequences for West Hagbourne.
What does this have to do with cyclng? Not much, except that cycling through West Hagbourne will be even more dangerous and unattractive than it is now – I’m just one angry & annoyed West Hagbourne resident, and this topic gave me the opportunity to vent!
I like Flinty Hill, very descriptive! The Lynch Way (its real name) is a Byway Open to All Traffic (BOAT), and the landowner is responsible for maintenance. In this case, the land is owned by one of the farmers (can’t remember which one, sorry) and I’m afraid their usual method of repairing tracks seems to be to fill potholes with rubble. It means they can still get their tractors up and down it, but it might be less appealing for the travelling community who have a history of parking their caravans towards the top of the track. At least the track is open – in years gone by, the landowner has felled trees across the track to stop the travelling community – imagine coming down the steep bit at speed to find a metre-diameter tree trunk right across the bottom end :-0
That’ll be the Lynch Way. I have done it on a road bike – in summer, bright daylight and dry, downhill. Walked the road bike uphill, especially past the really steep bit near the bottom. Crawled up on an off-road bike on the granny ring – as Bob says, not enjoyable. I’ve also come a cropper once or twice… Although the track past Prospect Farm to Alden Farm isn’t marked as public right of way, many people (cyclists, dog walkers, runners) do use that track, then it’s tarmac (albeit potholed) all the way back down to Upton from Alden Farm. As I say, not public right of way, so at your own risk etc…
According to Vale of the White Horse District Council , it’s being closed for 5 days for urgent coring and survey work and will re-open after.