Getting Around Leeds on Bicycles

Finding Your way Around Leeds on a Bike

Our plan is to gradually fill this page with ever-increasing detail on cycle routing in Leeds.

To begin with, we have mapped the network of designated cycle routes across the city's suburbs (see the image below).

In the near future we'll provide another, more detailed, map showing routes in and across the city centre.

And as time passes, we'll provide textual and visual guides to navigating the routing trouble spots for cyclists in Leeds (see below).

Separated vs. Low Traffic Cycle Routes

Many of the routes on our map offer the reassurance and security of complete separation from car traffic. But the picture is far from uniform.

Superhighways' 1 and 2 are, arguably, the 'crown jewels'. With Superhighway 1 providing true separation from the Armley Gyratory to the Leeds-Bradford boundary in the West. And Superhighway 2 providing true separation from the York Road / Marsh Lane Interchange to the Ring Road in Seacroft.

Superhighway 3 looks incomplete in several respects. The Western branch to Elland Road has several turning or crossing points that are ambiguously signed. The Eastern branch has no separation at all at its busiest point in Beeston. While both branches are obviously begging for connection, along the Beeston Ring Road.

Other long-ish off-road routes include:

Leeds-Liverpool Canal Towpath

From Leeds City Railway Station to Apperley Bridge

The Aire and Calder Navigation Towpath

From the Royal Armouries to the edge of Castleford

Wykebeck Valley Way

From Halton Moor to Roundhay Park

NCR 67 along Pontefract Lane

From Marsh Lane to the M1 at Skelton Lake

NCR 66 from Cross Green to Temple Newsam

Between Temple Newsam and Bramham, it's progressively bigger roads

On towpaths, the narrow width of the metalled surface (especially under some bridges) requires cyclists to be sensitive to the needs of others, especially pedestrians. Similar concerns apply the NCR 66 from Cross Green to Temple Newsam — but without the bridges :-)

Leeds' Cycling Trouble Spots

There are plenty of places in Leeds, where it's just really difficult to transition from one stretch of useful cycle way, to another.

Many of these are in or close to the city centre. Where, hopefully, our city centre map will help.

Crossing the motorways and the big interchanges (e,g. Sheepscar, Armley Gyratory, York Road and South Accommodation Road, etc.) create obvious problems with cars and lorries.

But there are plenty of other places where Leeds City Council's active travel strategy forces pedestrians and cyclists to share the same spaces, with significant potential for conflict.

We hope that our mapping and suggested workarounds can contribute to reducing some of that potential.

If you have particular irritants and workarounds, please let us know.

Cycling City?

Leeds City Council support for cycling has significantly improved in recent years. But, as our map indicates, the work has been patchy, incomplete and often 'done on the cheap'. Moreover, a quick comparison between North East and the South West of our map reveals some stark inequalities .

Bearing in mind those caveats, however, it is now a lot easier to travel between work, home and entertainment by bike in Leeds, than it is in many other British cities. And that, despite Pennine foothills providing a few gradient 'challenges'.

It's fortunate, then, that the Pennines also put Leeds in a 'rain shadow'. Which blesses the city with comparatively low annual rainfall — although that wasn't obvious in the dismally grey winter of 2023-2024.