When cycling through the countryside, in general the options are limited when it comes to working out which way any particular Sustrans route is supposed to go. The challenge, at least for me tends to be in the larger towns. Sustrans routes quite often use back streets and paths and favour routes that might be beneficial for getting to and from Schools. If you go to part 2 of this post you can see that Sustrans 51 passes a couple of schools on the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds for instance. when I write my post I tend to use Google Earth with the actual GPS trace for reference and then the Sustrans mapping site along with Where's the path, normally to work out where I went wrong. My apologies if you tend to look at my posts in the evening. The Where's the path website has a 200,000 tile limitation imposed upon it as part of the terms by which is uses the OS mapping data. The limit is quite often exceeded by the end of the day. As a result you can't see the OS map. I also find that the Sustrans Map site appears to stop providing map data - I don't know why - I have assumed that it is some sort of bandwidth or performance limitation of the Servers they are using - whatever it is annoying. At the moment I cannot get it to display the Sustrans 51 route around Woolpit!
It is a good job that the Google Maps website and the Open Cycle Map for the UK both appear to be run by people who know how to scale a system to cope with the number of users. Looking at the photograph you can see the sort of problem a cyclist can be faced with - yes there is a little blue Sustrans 51 sign there somewhere. (On the signpost just behind the red car. At the time I was certain the route followed the road from which this picture was taken (looking back along the way I came). However at this point I saw no more signs. Now I could have gone back for a look - but even after a short distance, as a cyclist I am programmed to hate back-tracking. In any case it could be that there would be a gap in the Sustrans signage. It also helped that I knew that I could get to Stowmarket - the next biggish town on the route..
I have annotated the Google earth trace to show the error of my ways. The detour was not bad - it just avoided some of the interesting villages along the way such as Shelland (village link - an incomplete website) and Harleston. Mind you, if Wikipedia is anything to go there is so little information that I probably did not miss much. The red trace is the actual route I took (according to my GPS) and the yellow route is the Sustrans 51 route - according to the OSM Cycle map - the Sustrans website seemed to be constipated when I tried to use it!
Stowmarket looks to be an interesting market town, but it was not until I was on the other side did I get back onto the Sustrans 51 route so I did not look around really. After that it was Needham Market - another market town that looks to be worth an explore - but the town's website is being updated. The first time I cycled along the Sustrans 51 route out of Needham market I got lost - the signage is better now though. Fairly soon after reaching the town the Sustrans 51 route turns left under the railway line around by a mill - it then switches back to a South Westerly direction after crossing the A14. At this point the route switches to a very pleasant bit of off-road - along Sally Wood's lane. Although it is a byway (and probably a farm track) the surface is not bad (on 25mm tyres anyway).
Although the route will soon be approaching the outskirts of Ipswich it is nicely rural - apart from the A14 which you look down on. The lane is at around 50m and the A14 at 30m. As I cycled along I came across a field of pigs - the people riding their horses who came by gave me an odd look. Nice looking pigs though!
This must be a nice place to ride horses as well - no cars to intimidate you.
As you can see the pigs seem to have a pretty good amount of space - no factory farming and over-crowding here. I guess the pigs aren't too worried about the electricity pylons nearby either.
The track dips down the hill where it crosses, not the A14, but the A140 - perhaps not as busy as the A14 - but it is still a dual-carriageway and the vehicles certainly speed by. There is a wide central reservation - but I would not like to cross this if it was any busier. There are plenty of signs for the cyclists and pedestrians I wonder of there are signs warning motorists that there is a crossing? I can't say I feel any motivation to drive down to check it out though.
The path then joins an almost abandoned road in some woodland. When I see this Danger sign it makes me think that perhaps this is where they train secret agents? Looking at the OS map it seems that this might be part of Shrubland Park a large estate that the Times reports as being for sale in 2006 with a price tag of £23M. It is not clear why this is a Shooting Range though - apart from the name on the OS map given to the woodland - Long Covert. There is a byway halfway along the Park through the middle - perhaps I ought to check that out next time.
The road - now semi-abandoned at this end joins a road leading off the A14 down towards Ipswich. there weer a lot of signs warning motorists to "Think Bike" (as in bicycle this time) - it was certainly quite a busy and fast road. I guess I was on it around the evening rush hour - the last time I came this way it was nowhere near as busy.
Along the road - a clue that perhaps a grand estate lies behind the Gatehouse walls. The road appears to be called the Norwich Road on Google maps and this is called Needham Lode, I think.
At this point my concentration was needed to attempt to follow the Sustrans route into Ipswich centre. I should have followed Sustrans 51, but for some reason thought it would be pleasant to detour along Sustrans 12. It weaves its way around the Suburbs and then drops you into the top of town. Where I found it quite difficult to navigate to the train station and had several goes fighting the one way system until I found a cycle path going "my way" - well towards the station as shown on my GPS. At one point I was at a traffic light in a bus and cycle only lane - the traffic light system did not seem to "sense" my bike though and after watching the lights go through a complete cycle without going green for me a bus pulled up behind me and that did the trick. So next time I must take Sustrans 51 - it gets closer to the station without getting right into the centre.
As luck would have it I arrived to find that I had just missed the 5.15pm train and would have to catch the 6.15pm train. I decided that with the 2 hours of "enforced" rest instead of getting the train to Cambridge I would get off early at Newmarket and cycle in the last few miles, after all I did have lights on my bike. I bought a drink and a snack - to replenish lost energy of course and a newspaper and lugged my bike over to platform 4A. There are probable lifts - I climbed the stairs over to platform. It was not a climb I would like to have done in a hurry (with a bike). The fare was £8.50 - which I thought was quite expensive for a single journey.
It was pleasant sitting in the sun, but I did start shivering when the sun was behind a cloud. I was going to put on my leggings but the train opened up and I was first on. They have limited cycle space and it was a single powered carriage. I also found getting my bike on was quite a tight fit - my Marin has particularly wide handlebars, once on it was easy to strap the bike up though. As this was probably a commuter train (people finish work at 5.30pm and catch the 6.15pm train home) it was practically full. Four other cyclists also turned up. Three full-size bikes and one Brompton. I did wonder whether to alert them to the fact I was getting off before Cambridge - but in the end they all got off before me (apart from the Brompton chap) so I did not have to to any tricky bike swapping. It was a reminder that they will only take bikes if there is room - I am glad I did not turn up at say 6pm and then have to wait until 7.16pm!
I have caught an earlier train before which consisted of two carriages so I think they provide extra space for the school run. There is no electrification so the train is not that fast and has a few stops on the way. Newmarket Railway station is little more than a platform and car park and I have always thought that it was quite recent - well it turns out to have been built in 1902. for completeness I will quote the passenger numbers (as reported in Wikipedia) for '08/'09 165,000 or 452 day in day out. I am surprised, by comparison for the same year Cambridge Railway station has 7.66million almost 50 times as many people. The trains are only hourly though and two hourly on Sundays.
Here is my train leaving the station heading toward Cambridge. When I strapped my bike into the luggage area I left it pointing away from the door and had to reverse it out of the carriage - I was a little surprised how tricky it was to get out - but it went in so it had to come out.
I cycled to the top of the town to join the Sustrans 51 route though some shared paths to Exning. As the path crossed a road through an Industrial Estate I noticed these two lorries with the curtains drawn - getting an early night for an early start in the morning perhaps?
I did not need lights as it was still not dark, however I did not follow Sustrans 51 through to Reach I took a short cut to Swaffham Prior. The road passes this barn set in a small woodland - I have often thought this would make a great house project - but for the pylons nearby. According to the OS Map it is Crownall Farm - I have no idea if it is in use or not though.
Did I mention that as I cycled through Exning where the road has parked cars on either side and so is only wide enough for one vehicle - a white van man stopped to let me through! How about that for courtesy. Although I was later than planned there was some Japanese curry waiting for me to pop it into the microwave to re-heat- delicious after a day's cycling.
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