A unique journey around the UK's National Cycle Network and one journalist's quest to investigate the state of our country's cycling.At 42, the National Cycle Network (NCN) is just a few years older than cycling journalist Laura Laker. Half of the UK population live within a mile of the nearly 13,000 mile-long network but many of us don't even know it exists.Despite the profound impact on our health and planet, our roads are still geared to driving and it remains a challenge to navigate the UK on two wheels. Post-lockdown Laura sets off on a journey through the looking glass, to explore the state of the UK's unifying cycling network.What has gone right - and wrong - with this piece of national infrastructure? Why is it run by a charity whose CEO once admitted it's 'a bit crap'? Could it be because it is dependent on the mercy of landowners, councils and, in one case, a caravan park proprietor outside of Oban? Laura lifts the lid on this maddening, patchy, and at times dangerous cycle infrastructure, and the similarly precarious politics and financing that make it what it is. Along the way she meets dedicated but underpaid charity teams and government workers struggling against the status quo to try to improve Britain's cycling prospects. She pedals in the Lakes, pushes her bike up Cornish hills, inaugurates a new street in her Somerset hometown, crosses Glasgow and the Cairngorms on her pink ebike, and glimpses at a better cycling future in Scotland and Wales. On her mission to pin down what the NCN is and what it means, en-route she meets high-profile travelling companions, including Chris Boardman and Ned Boulting. A true national network of cycle routes could be our salvation, but right now Britain's cycle network can't even save itself. Join Laura as she experiences the NCN first-hand to understand how it came to be and explores the future of our nation's cycling.