It is often joked that Luton is a good place to get out of… what with the airport, the motorway and the train stations. Never a mention of NR6.

The idea is that you can almost cycle from one end of England to the other on this route (London to Cumbria). I’ve ventured as far as Houghton Regis – the next town.

The bit through Luton may be just one small part, but from one end to the other, you get a good sense of the town. Starting near Luton Airport Parkway train station, it skirts the boundary with the manorial grounds of the Luton Hoo estate, takes you through the town centre, out on to the New Bedford Road, past pretty Wardown Park and the town museum within, then off road along a lengthy ‘urban rural’ stretch of the River Lea, through the eponymous Leagrave Park (supposed source of the river), and then the Lewsey Farm council estate, before you reach a strange strip of wasteland dividing Luton from Houghton Regis.

It is figuratively and literally a ride where you have to take the rough with the smooth: dedicated off-road tarmac cycle paths in good condition, to on-road cycle paths in varying states (but never managing to avoid ‘ironworks’), then back again. A couple of months before I wrote this, there was a longish stretch of off-road cycle path next to the River Lea, between Leagrave and Leagrave Park, which had been torn up by contractors. No signs saying what they were doing, but three friendly cyclists passing by suggested they were widening it. Not sure that is needed. Is this an out-of-London outpost of a Boris superhighway? I suppose we have to see if it turns blue.