Peterborough and Back - stringing together Sustrans Routes

Such glorious weather encourages me to explore, when the weather is sunny and warm it means that I feel like cycling straight after breakfast and into the late afternoon. We have been getting temperatures up to around 25C so the main priority is to put on plenty of suntan lotion and grab some nourishing Jelly Babies, a drink and then to set off. A quick look at the Sustrans map for this part of the world and I decided to head out from Cambridge to Huntingdon then up to Peterborough, March, Litteport, Ely and back. with the exception of the March to Littleport leg there were Sustrans routes with off-road bits so it looked as if it might be quite pleasant and by eye around 100miles/160 Km. As I had my Garmin GPS with me I did not bother taking a map, I figured that I would try to use the Sustrans routes to navigate and make up my mind about the March bit when I got there.

The first part of the route was Sustrans 51, although the Sustrans map implies there are off-road bits, some of these are shared use pavement and one is a road banned to vehicle traffic, with exceptions, but the ban does not seem to work so it is pretty much like cycling on a road. Some of the villages on the route have been getting by-passes and so there are earthworks around - I stopped to take this picture of poppies growing on a ridge of leftover soil near Longstanton.

As I reached Fenstanton I saw this advertising blimp in the air - it was not a windy day and so ideal for a circular cycle route.

The route has its highs and lows, it goes through some lovely parkland just after Hemingford Abbots with cows in the field and then passes along a track by the side of a sewage farm. When I reached Godmanchester I lost the route but knew where I was heading, I then had the same problem in Huntingdon, the route follows the Ring Road and then heads off to the Great Stukely. I am used the the excellent level of Sustrans signing in the Cambridge area, unfortunately it is less easy to follow in other places. I went around the Huntingdon ring road before finding the turn according to the Sustrans map I also took a detour but did find myself on the right road out of Huntingdon. I have to say it was unclear to me whether it was OK to use the pavement as a shared path or not as the road passed the disused Alconbury Airbase - they still have signs indicating that it is MOD property though and still have a fighter at the gates.

After crossing the A14 and A1M the route became much more scenic, although I had to keep my eyes open for route signs. According to the Sustrans website it indicates it is Route 12, I am sure that it was labelled 21 on the signs though? It was pretty much car-free and a very pleasant bit of countryside to cycle through. Here is a set of six pictures (and stitched together) taken on one of the roads. There were some signs warning of a diversion, something I hate as they never seem to worry about bicycle riders, sometimes you can cross whatever the obstacle is and occasionally you can't. Unfortunately I stopped seeing the occasional Route 21 sign, oh dear I must have missed a turn off. At this point, probably around 40miles out I was reluctant to turn back to try and find it so I zoomed out the map on my GPS and decided that I could follow the road I was on and then head right towards Peterborough at an interesting opportunity. As luck would have it this brought me to another Sustrans Route, 53 which appeared to be going towards Peterborough so I followed it.

As I hoped Route 53 joined up with Route 21, which goes three ways at one signpost. I took the one signed towards Peterborough. Which took a very pleasant off-road route along a rough but acceptable track seen here.

The next struggle I had was trying to find which route would take me to March from Peterborough. Although Peterborough seems to have a lot of proprer separate cycle tracks running between the pavement and road the signing left me confused. I got to the centre but realised it would have been easier to by-pass the centre and follow one of the earlier Sustrans signs - if only I had known where I was going. Once in Peterborough I took a route that pointed towards March and set off. It runs along the River Nene and then crosses the Nene via this bridge - good to see provision for pedestrians and cyclists. (According to the Sustrans map it is the Shanks Millennium Bridge.)

This was all off-road and there were also a few cyclists around as well.One chap went by me as I stopped to take this photograph, I couldn't resist catching him, but I had the advantage of not being on an MTB. There were quite a few wind-turbines, both here and towards March.

I forgot to mention this part of the Sustrans Route is numbered`: 63. It goes through Whittlesey where I almost got thrown by lack of signing but made it through and on towards March. Route 63 divides into the route and the wet weather route. Well it was dry so I took the off-road route. Well it was pretty bumpy. In fact some of the path reminded me of the gravel roads in Vietnam. Other bits reminded me of the even worse Cambodian "roads" but with more loose stones on the road. The two 63s joined up although not very clearly, but with the Satnav I realised it had to be the right direction. At this point I was flagging and had run out of anything to drink. So it was head down and pedal, pedal, pedal to March. The road crossed a railway line a bunch of times, and sometimes at an angle, at this point I though it would be a bad place to bend a wheel. The plan would involve getting a taxi to a local station and a train to Cambridge - still better not to dwell on problems. At one point I stood up on the pedals as I was also getting fed up sitting on the saddle as the bike free-wheeled I noticed that it seemed to weave a little. I looked down at the rear wheel, it had a huge buckle (think 2.5Cm/1") So I slackened of the rear brakes to stop them rubbing and hoped that I would be able to get to March without a rear wheel collapse. I would then decide what to do in March.

Once there I stopped at a shop got three bottles of liquid and a Turkish Delight chocolate bar - for energy off course. On inspecting the back wheel it turned out that the rough bit of the road had broken one of my spokes. Unfortunately I do not carry spares. In around 100,000Km/60,000miles of cycling I have only had a handful of broken spokes. So I decided that it would probably hold and decided to take a more direct route home. This took me along a fairly main road to Chatteris. (I should have gone cross-country to re-join the Sustrans Route 11 back to Cambridge - but did not want to be in the middle of nowhere with a dodgy wheel.)

Once on the main road it had a reasonable margin at the edge of the road to cycle along, generally cars and lorries gave me lots of room and I had a slight tailwind so I was able to speed along (for me) at around 30-32Km/19-20miles. Once I reached Chatteris I checked the wheel and as it had not gotten any worse cut across to Sutton and down to Willingham, where with some more drink bought at the local shop I set off back to Cambridge. All in all I had covered around 185Km/115miles in a rather slow 8 hours. Mind you some of the tracks were pretty uncomfortable and I was having to back-track to find the route.

Although I am a great fan of the Sustrans routes - they can leave a lot to be desired in terms of navigation. In the country signs are sparse and in the towns and cities they stitch the routes together from all sorts of paths and roads. I realise this is to avoid main roads, but it does make finding the route tricky. Something that would not be made much easier with a map since it would have to be pretty detailed to see the sorts of paths/roads that the routes pass along. I guess that the moral of the story is to make sure you have plenty of time for exploring them and don't mind the odd detour!