Although my ride was of reasonable length time was short- so there are only a few photographs. The route I took is a circular one around to the West and east of Cambridge in passing through the outskirts of the North and South of the city.It is a route I take quite often. It mixes a bit of country village with town cycling and even includes a hill. The route is shown highlighted on the OSM Cycle Map. It should be click-able and also be possible to see it and download direct from my PicasaWeb Album store. (With Chrome it is necessary to alter the link to the picture if it has "img=640" at the end to see it larger.)
I am not quite sure how this route evolved - I was probably heading out of Cambridge on the Sustrans 51 route towards Burwell and decided to turn-off at Bottisham and loop back. The inclusion of the hill (out of Fulbourn) is good - especially after a bit of cycling it is easier to attack it then. I guess the route has a bit of everything in it. Including one of the best bits of cycle way in Cambridge - Coton path. On the 25K OS map it is also called the Harcamlow Way and Wimpole Way - Cambridgeshire paths have to work had doing several jobs. Or perhaps this is a way of double-counting the number of paths there are - a conspiracy? No I doubt it - just a way of confusing the unwary. As I marked up the map I also saw a slightly different route avoiding cycling down the Huntingdon road which I must try out the next time I take the route.
Generally I cycle clock-wise but every now and then I do go backwards and cycle anti-clockwise. It feels quite different and yo see different things as well as see things differently. Quite a lot of the busier roads have shared cycle paths alongside them and even when the traffic is busy I have not found myself struggling to cross roads.
I did take my Marin into Ben Hayward cycles for repair - they were also surprised to see that the sprockets bolts had fallen out - it is not a common problem. (It also needed a new chain and rear block - the chain was worn to the extreme 2,000 odd miles (3,200Km) of cycling on dusty and muddy tracks had taken its toll. I really should replace my chain a little more often and then the rear block would last a bit longer.
The weather had picked up since the somewhat cold (for Summer) drizzly Saturday and it was only Monday. Actually before I set out I put on a liberal helping of sunscreen - it is very easy to get sun-burn when cycling. the backs of my legs are prone to being forgotten until it is too late. I also have to put sunscreen on the tips of my ears and nose as well. Just after turning off towards Little Wilbraham I stopped to take a picture of the Oilseed Rape growing in the fields. The bright yellow has all but gone, with a few flowers around the margins.
The skies were very blue with small white puffy clouds as well.
Instead there are seed pods growing which contain the seed from which the oil is extracted. I have not looked but apparently the seeds are very small - I will have a look at them before this year's harvesting.
Here were some of the "few flowers" around the margins - I am not sure why they take longer to turn to seed pods. It is a reminder of just how yellow they are.
After dropping down towards Little Wilbraham on Primrose Farm Road I stopped to take a picture of a Dutch barn. We used to have a dutch barn near the house I grew up in. Although you are not supposed to we used to make dens in the haystacks every Summer. There are several reasons why it is a bad idea - getting buried under stacks of bales can be suffocating and if anyone smokes or lights matches the results can be disastrous. The kids I grew up with weren't smokers - well not at the age we used to make dens in haystacks anyway.
And no-one got suffocated either - although our dens did sometimes collapse.
As I mentioned I did not have a lot of time to hang around to take pictures At the Worts Causeway, Lime kiln Road crossroads I did stop to take a picture of the tracks in the field of crops leading up the hill. The skies were still blue although some of the clouds were a little bigger. There were also some contrails in the sky.At the top and to the right are a group of water reservoirs. The hill only reaches around 43m above sea level - but enough to create pressure for the Cambridge Water supply and I guess the amount of water required would have been too much for water towers.
Another thing about this route is that it follows either tarmac roads or paths which meant it was easier on my Longstaff Touring bike. The other thing I notice about my Longstaff is that it seems lighter than the Marin Hybrid - I must weigh them some time and see if that is really the case. In any case the real weight comes from the bloke riding them! The shoulder twinges from yesterday had gone - as I thought it just needed a bit of adaptation to the changed cycling position. Mind you my knee still hurt from the bruising on Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment