Sunday, June 27, 2010

An amble to Aldreth and back (by bicycle) Part 1

I picked up my Marin hybrid bicycle from Ben Hayward Cycles today after its repairs (Wednesday 26 June 20100). One of the things I had noticed whilst riding my Longstaff bicycle is how much more comfortable the saddle was on my Longstaff. In fact on most of my bikes I have fitted Brooks leather saddles.


Now saddles are one of those interesting talking points on bicycles. Most non-cyclists see any saddle as an instrument of torture - however like all things it is horses for courses and well, saddles for bottoms. Whatever type of saddle you prefer, sitting on a saddle for a few hours takes a bit of getting used to. I am not quite sure what the physiological changes are but non-cyclists will find when they first start cycling that their nether regions get a bit tender. Generally this tenderness goes away after a few days of cycling and then you tend only to notice problems if you spend a few hours in the saddle. (Last year when I went cycling in India with my son he had a difficult first few days on the saddle as the only preparation he had done for the trip was eating a few curries.)


I was unable to ride my bicycle for 6 weeks last year after breaking my collar bone after being hit by a car - Sorry Mate I Didn't See You - SMIDSY. After getting the OK from my Doctor I found after my first ride there was a bit of tenderness but after a few rides it went away.


A good saddle is important though if you are going to spend several hours at a time cycling. Although Brooks Saddles are not the lightest they have a reputation for being comfortable for long stretches in the saddle because the leather moulds to fit you. It is generally reckoned that it takes 100 to 500 miles to get the perfect fit. Over time the leather will stretch further however you can tighten the saddle to restore it to the correct tension. When I cycled from Land's end to John O' Groats in 2002 (pre-Blog) I had a new bicycle built by Longstaff Cycles and specified a Brooks saddle and the combination was great for cycling an average of 70miles a day. As a result I have gradually fitted Brooks saddles to my other bikes, although they are quite expensive and not the lightest so be warned. The saddle on my Marin was getting a bit chewed up and I found that after a few hours cycling it was getting a little uncomfortable and compared unfavourably with the Brooks saddle on my Longstaff tourer so I got a new Brooks Green leather saddle and swapped it with the old one when I got the bike home.


After riding my Longstaff for a few days I realised that it also needed a bit of fettling so I took it in to Ben Haywards when I picked up the Marin. I can do my own repairs but as I get older (not that old you understand!) I find that life is too short for repairing and cleaning bicycles - they are there for riding so I generally get them fixed for me. It is more expensive - but still a lot cheaper than getting car repairs done. Just to change the habits of a lifetime I also gave the Marin a good clean as well using a citrus cleaner which you put on for 5 minutes and then wash off - it helps get rid of oily gunge.


With the cleaning out of the way it was time to go for a ride - just to shake down the bike after its repairs - it would have been wrong not to give it a test ride. So I headed North out of Cambridge and as I had not been cycling along byways for a couple of days picked a route I have taken before along the Aldreth causeway, a byway which runs South from Aldreth to nearby Rampton and runs in the middle of the countryside well away from noisy roads. To be on the safe side I started out on a byway on the outskirts of Cambridge to ensure that bike was OK for a bit of bumpy riding - it was a shakedown ride after all. So I took the left leg of Sustrans 11 to Milton. (There are three Sustrans 11 legs that head North, the second one is joined by the first one and they run up the River Cam to Waterbeach where.. it stops. The third one is over in Burwell and takes you to Kings Lynn. After reaching Milton there is a left turn onto Butt lane which crosses the A10 by footbridge where it then carries on as Butt lane. After passing the Milton Park and Ride and the Milton Household Waste Recycling Centre you reach a byway that crosses Butt Lane. According to the map it was an old Roman Road and is called Mere Way.


As an aside Butt Lane, or rather the route from Milton to Impington is under consultation for the improvement of the route for cyclists and pedestrians. After cycling halfway along Butt Lane I have to agree that I would not be happy if my kids were younger and had to travel that way on a bicycle at the moment. If seems to be a fast rat-run type of road - it is not very wide but straight and some vehicles failed to give me much room as they sped by. Did I mention that the school buses seemed to be the worst - they were Double-Decker's and sped along and left little room as they are quite large for that type of road. In the daylight it was unpleasant in the dark it would be awful, let's hope it goes ahead. (Although there is concern that a free school bus may then be withdrawn.)



The byway does not go very far - a little over a kilometre and passes through a farm and so there might be the occasional tractor on the byway. When I went past there were quite a few things growing in poly-tunnels in the adjacent fields.


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This is the first part of Mere Way - what could be more inviting to cycle along than that? If I was picky then I would say slightly flatter tracks which don't cause the bike to vibrate - although for a shakedown ride it was perfect!




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Past the farm area the path looks much less travelled - although there was one clear track to follow.




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The real reason I stopped to take a picture of these Common Mallow flowers (Malva sylvestris) was that they were not waving in the breeze and so a multi-exposure HDR picture was likely to work. Looking at the results when I got home - I think it has.




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I also took a multi-exposure pictures of this Curled Dock (Rumex crispus) - but the stalks moved around so the HDR version looked terrible - so I have made do with a single exposure. With Summer upon us the wild flowers and plants are growing profusely at the moment.




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The Mere Way gets you to Landbeach where I then turned off towards Cottenham on the Cottenham Road (what a surprise). One of the features of Summer is that a lot of roads get patched up. Not replaced - they seem to get a surface dressing of gravel. It is a way of cheaply prolonging the life of a road that is still structurally sound. The trouble is there is a period when the road has lots of loose gravel and despite the warning signs for motor vehicles not to exceed 20mph many do. The gravel does not really deal with lumps and bumps in the road very well - it slightly smooths them out. if you look at this picture you can see that there is a lot of loose gravel apart from two ruts where motor vehicles normally drive. On a bicycle the best bet is to cycle in the leftmost track - which is generally far enough from the verge to avoid any problems - but there is some trepidation every time a vehicle passes. It seems that vehicles not owned by their drivers just disregard the speed limit (it is only an advisory limit) and tear by. I have not been hit by flying chippings very often but when I have been it hurts. I have a cynical view that this is a cheap way to get the cars and vans to do the road squishing.


The other thing I don't like is that the gravelly surface is not as easy to cycle along and so I normally avoid a surface-dressed road until it has been reasonably flattened and the loose chippings swept up. In this case there was not an easy alternative. I did not get hit by any flying gravel though - the mainly private cars travelled a suitable speeds. Is it me - or is silver a popular colour for cars nowadays?




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I took a few side streets through Cottenham, this house on Rooks Street caught my eye.




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After Cottenham I headed off to Rampton along the Rampton Road. There is a shared cycle way along the right hand side of the road. However the road out of Cottenham drops down a hill, it is only about 15m in total and so as there were pedestrians on the path I felt it was safer to cycle down the road - my speed was greater than 20mph/32Km/h. Although in general I prefer to use shared paths rather than cycle on roads - this was a country road and the path was not really wide enough for a bicycle and pedestrians with a speed difference of 20-25mph (32-40Km/h). What I hadn't realised is that the church is one of a small number of English churches with a thatched roof - at least according to Wikipedia, I must have a look the next time I cycle through. The village sign has four bucolic scenes. (Bucolic= rural and pastoral.) My route then headed down Cow Lane - this both avoids traffic and is quite fast - I could have carried on through Rampton towards Willingham and picked up Haven Drove Track - which leads to The Causeway - either way is fine.




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On cow lane there appeared to be a field of peas but I was prevented from taking a closer look because when I stopped there was a large ditch in the way. (Next time maybe - if I pass by before they are harvested!)




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I have been past this byway sign many times - but not really thought about where it might go - there was a bike symbol on the sign and it showed Cottenham as 1.5 miles so I though why not? I did not know where it actually would come out in Cottenham so I would learn something. The actual path was quite bumpy before reaching a road (Great North Fen Drove) in Cottenham. I then re-traced my steps (pedals) through Rampton to Cow Lane. This time around there weren't any pedestrians so I used the shared-use cycle path between Cottenham and Rampton, it is fine for tidal-flow traffic.




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The second time along Cow lane I stopped before the ditch to have a closer look at what was growing in the field - yep those are peas I think.




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After Cow Lane there is a left turn onto Irlam Drove - although looking at the map there is a right of way along Cow lane which then stops at Mow Fen - it does not go far so it might be worth having a look sometime. After a short cycle along Irlam Drove there is the Aldreth Causeway track. There are a few caravans along here sometimes, travellers I guess - but never any hassle. The route then carries on pretty much straight to Aldreth. in the dry the tracks are a bit rutted, but ok to cycle along at a reasonable speed. I was overtaken at one point by a chap on a bike - the first time on this track ever. Here he is pedalling off into the distance.


Time for a confession - if someone cycles past me I generally speed up to keep up with them and then if they aren't going that fast I speed past them - yes it is childish - but I think it is a bloke type of thing. I was cycling at a sedate pace looking around seeing what was different from the last time I cycled this path. When he overtook me naturally I sped up - pedalling fast was not the problem - keeping in the ruts was the real challenge - but I caught him up and then he stopped on a bridge over the River Great Ouse (which comes by these parts). There is a farm nearby called High Bridge Farm - so I assume that the bridge is High Bridge.


We had a chat - it turns out that he commutes from Aldreth to Bar Hill on this track which provides him with a direct route compared with the road route. Guessing from the map the direct route is around 8miles the road route around 12miles. He also mentioned that as I was busy catching him up a fox crossed our path - which in my haste I missed - which is why I normally cycle more sedately. His bike was also a full-bouncer - it had front and rear suspension, my Marin has a suspension seat post (and a new Brooks Green leather saddle).. So that is my excuse for why he was finding it easier to cycle at a reasonable pace. He also cycles the route in the winter and apparently sets off in the dark and sees the sun rising up over the Causeway - now that is a real incentive to cycle commute on a byway. Mind you I am sure it takes some determination to set off when the weather is bad.


We also swapped a few doggy stories - most cyclists have been chased - it can be most unpleasant. He had been nipped twice, which beats my record by two. Nothing too serious, but he as a dog owner recognised that some owners were not really capable of controlling their animals. I mentioned the Richard's Book of Bicycling advice - if all else fails ram the pump down the dog's throat - not that I am advocating this approach. Mind you I have had to draw my pump once when two Alsatians ran to confront me.


We also talked about routes we have cycled and he mentioned a couple of tracks - one of which I had not cycled on and the other was where I had decided to head for on this ride. It seems that cyclists are very courteous people or am I biased. (I will have to check out the other route the next time.)




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The bridge is a utilitarian metal bridge - seen here next to my shining, nay gleaming bike. Oh and check out the new Green Leather Saddle - even before it had moulded to my shape it was very comfortable




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The River Great Ouse from the bridge looking East - how great is that barely anything on the horizon.




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The same river taken from the same bridge but looking West - the horizon is way into the distance.




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When I am not in a huge hurry this route one of my favourites. Although not quite such epic cycling as the Hadstock route last week the countryside is wonderful. Next stop Earith Marina.

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