Impressions of cycling in Manchester

Please allow me to share my impressions of cycling in Manchester gleaned from riding from the Manchester Cycling Centre to Marple on Wed following the Northern Rail Cycle Forum

Approximate route here: http://gb.mapometer.com/cycling/route_3979080.html

(Most of the time I had only a faint idea where I was - I had an old copy of the Manchester Cycle Map & used the route-finding facility of Google Maps on my phone occasionally. Other than that I mostly followed my nose. 

My plan was to try to follow the route of the slow Manchester - Sheffield train and hop on at an appropriate point. It would be great of course to be able to follow a cycle route that followed the line of the railway, linking all the stations, but sadly no such route exists. 

I was on my swanky new road bike so unwilling to follow off-road trails unless they were of high quality, free of glass etc. On the other hand I didn't much fancy sticking to main roads. 

What I found was very worn-out and poorly maintained cycle routes often with a lot of collected debris in them. There were new build estates that lacked those essential little passageways and gennels that make it possible to get through to the next area on foot or by bike. At one point I followed a sign to Levenshulme only to see it disappear up a muddy track beside a playing field so had to retrace my pedals. 

In a few other places there were useful cut-throughs but these were generally in a bad state with broken glass, fly-tipping and evidence of nefarious activities taking place  - I had to carry my bike in few places (It's not heavy) 

Eventually got to the big intersection near Stockport town centre   - took ages to get round that  - 

Traffic was heavy everywhere but I was taken aback by the amount flowing through that interchange. and having got up the the hill on the shared use path next to the A626 (somewhat overgrown ) rejoined the carriageway and was able to overtake quite a lot of queuing traffic on the way to Marple - the middle classes on their way home I suppose. 

If you look at the Google map showing cycle routes (it does only show off-road routes) you can see how fragmented they are.  The sustrans mapping does show the on-road routes but it isn't very coherent! 

Conclusion - there's a lot to do to make Manchester a cycle-friendly place. I'm a big fan of the Manchester Cycleway & some of the TPT but it doesn't always take you where you want to go. The Roman Europe-wide sustainable walking and horse-riding system wasn't built in a day I suppose.