The weather has been really Spring-like just recently, in fact perhaps warmer than you might normally expect for the time of year - which means time to explore a little. I do plan on cycling across England from Hull to Liverpool if I get the chance later in the year, but for now exploration means seeking out routes I have not been on before in Cambridgeshire.
As it is now officially short-wearing weather - both for cycling and home, when I don't have to wear long trousers for business reasons (the benefit of working from home) it is also time to go off-road a little more. Here in the Flatlands (East Anglia) off-road means byways and bridleways rather than technical mountain descents and so in the main quite accessible on my hybrid bike (Marin). It has flat bars and medium thickness tyres (Schwalbe Marathon Plus 700x25C), not the fastest, but a great, rugged tyre for Sustrans touring. I find Sustrans routes quite a mixed bag from wonderful, smooth tarmac to rutted, rubbley tracks. Mind you the sandy tracks of Sustrans 30 through Thetford Forest were too much for me. I have found a website devoted to Sustrans 30 (note the web address is redirected to a sub-page of another root - its ok). The interesting thing is that the website also suggests an alternative route through Thetford Forest, which I will try the next time I venture that way.
In the end, after a perusal of the map around the cambridgeshire area it seemed possible to cycle from Coton to Caxton on an almost direct route of byways and then back again on a less direct set of byways and bridleways. I use a website called "where's the path". You can open an OS map alongside a variety of different maps and views and they are synchronised. I generally use the OS map plus Satellite view to check out the paths - although I sometimes show the OS and 30s or 40s OS maps to check out disused railway line paths. In this case rather than plot a path and download it to my Garmin GPS I print out the relevant page and highlight the route in yellow. That way it is easier to be flexible when trying to find a route on the ground. The GPS has a map view and will show paths and roads of course, but with a small screen it can be tricky making choices between two different paths. (One might be longer but a better surface - the paper map makes the choice easier.)
When I got back I intended to upload the actual route I took from my GPS to a bike route mapping service such as www.bikely.com or www.bikeroutetoaster.com. But I could not get Bikely to load the route without a fatal error and Bikeroutetoaster showed the route but with spikes down to the equator. When logging cycle runs I set my GPS to stop when I stop - I stop quite a lot to take pictures, I assume this must confuse the website when mapping data. In the end I gave up and using the "snipping tool" (I have Windows 7) to take a screen-shot of the OSM cycle map of the relevant area and using the highlighting facility within the Snipping Tool marked up the route and loaded it into this post as you can see below.
Coton is a small village on the western outskirts of Cambridge with a no through road that ends with a bridleway. The village is quite picturesque, despite lying near the M11 and A14 it is not on a main road and so seems quite quiet. Here is one of the quaint houses in the village.
Here is St Peter's Church in Coton which dates back to the 12th Century. Whilst checking out the church I came across the Parish Council website along with a proposal to build a cycle path through to Bar Hill
This photograph looks back towards Coton from the path - as you can see a pretty reasonable track - no deep ruts, although the hoof-prints make it quite bumpy on my Hybrid bike.
Looking forwards a reminder that the path skirts a military firing range - a warning no to pick up ordnance.
The route then passes through some woodland before you cross Long Road (near Comberton). Leaves are in evidence. This route is really quite pleasant, even though the day is windy the route so far has been fairly shaded.
After crossing the road the route follows more open ground, again not a bad surface to cycle along and lovely open views.
The same view, but a closeup - you can make out the Cambridge University Library Tower in the middle.
The route seems to be quite popular for walkers on the OSM map it appears to be called Port Way. Just after crossing the Hardwick Road there is a bench for walkers (and cyclists) to sit and admire the view. Here is the view - the picture is made up from 4 x HDR (7) pictures - it makes the actual path look bent - but is actually straight.
Chunks of the route also seem to be well used by Horse-riders - I am sure they would prefer to stay away from noisy motor vehicles more than I do. This picture is looking back along the path as it enters Hardwick Wood. I could have cut straight across through Highfields but instead I chose to follow the path alongside the wood and then back up the road towards Highfields via the road.
The route then passed through Bourn where I detoured slightly to check out the ford in the village. I had to (wanted to) cycle through it - in fact there were two places where I ended up cycling through water - the one in this picture and a deeper ford a bit further down the road. It looks as if they must expect some pretty deep floods.
A picturesque cottage in Bourn. Taking HDR pictures when it is windy leads to very blurred pictures when trees/plants are in shot. The picture is made up from 7 different exposures of the same scene which are then combined to reveal all of the picture - except if things move in the picture they appear in several places as ghostly images. So this picture is a conventional one, as the blossom was moving all over the place.
The route then followed a country lane up towards Caxton. En route I stopped to take this picture of a field of oilseed rape just coming into flower. The new settlement of Cambourne is peeping over the top.
The route then switches back to a bridleway from Caxton through to Cambourne. The path has its own tunnel under the A1198 which bypasses Caxton. At the time it looked so good I did check to see whether it was a disused railway line - but no. Looking at the picture now the tunnel is not big enough for a train to pass under.
Cambourne looks as if it has a good set of paths and open space, I passed through and then joined the old St Neot's road to the North. Although there is now a dual carriageway along the same route the small road seemed to have a fair number of speeding cars. Although it is shown as a small road on the map it is quite a wide, ex-A road.There were several fields of thatching material being grown alongside the road.
Fortunately is was not far before I was able to go off-road again- through a picturesque wood adjacent to some sort of Industrial Plant. The route took me towards Childerley, it was not quite as easy to follow the route - there seemed to be fewer signposts
The route seemed to follow a series of farm tracks like this - once again pretty easy to cycle along. I followed a tractor along some of this.
Childerley Hall seems to be the centre of the settlement - the Hall seems to have a large garden with different parts of the building dating from different times.
This blossom was visible from the track heading in towards the Hall.
Leaving Childerley Hall was a little trickier - I was not totally sure what paths were public rights of way and which were not. as I stopped to check my printed map I did say hello to a lady walking her dogs with the help of an electric ATV. I had two choices Lolworth or towards Dry Drayton. In the end I headed to Dry Drayton, partly because I was going out that evening and need to think about getting home and partly because I was a little bit lost.
The route was signed - but part of it was a path across a field - it was hard work cycling along this bumpy surface. The path had been made clear - but not flat. (Cyclists are permitted on Bridleways but there is no obligation to facilitate the passage of the cyclists and indeed no trouble had been taken here.)
I was quite pleased when the path reached the road - I was getting tired and this part of the track was very tiring. Is it just me or do these signs warning of "firearms" in use come across as very unfriendly.
As I cycled on the road towards Madingley I saw a sign indicating a Bridleway towards Huntingdon road and couldn't resist checking it out. It started well but parts of the track showed how wet and muddy the path can get. I was amazed to see how deep in the dried mud some of the hoof-prints were - I pity the poor horses that were forced to navigate this when wet.
There were some flowering oilseed rape fields here as well. The path wiggled about a bit and ended up on some large highly rutted farm tracks.
The path's route onto the A14 became a little unclear just before it reached the road. It emerged near the Cemetery and wiggled through the Fruit Farm buildings there. I could not believe how noisy the A14 was and it was not that busy - it must be awful living there. I was able to leave the A14 after a short ride and head off towards Oakington where I returned to Cambridge on Sustrans 51. Next time I will try out the Lolworth direction - the last bit of off-road from Childerley was not so cycle friendly. However all-in-all a good bit of off-road cycling for a Spring day.
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