#CamRideHome Does Cambridge North on 26.5.17

For the Bank Holiday weekend, #CamRideHome explored the new North Cambridge station, the supporting cycle infra, and some useful links in the locality.




And here's the video of the route, with pictures along the way!

##CamRideHome Does Cambridge North on 26.05.2017 (Go HD see * below)

0:12 Setting off
0:22 Small child behind parent (wrong way round!)
0:47 Park Terrace cycleroute
1:08 Turning down Mud Lane to wiggle through to the Grafton
1:47 Heading across Midsummer Common and up the river
2:25 Past a busy Thirsty bar
2:58 Using new Water Street cyclepath and river path to get down Fen Road
3:30 Turning into Moss Bank and through to the new connection to the station
3:46 The station and cycle parking appears, some desire lines are going to take riders wrong here
3:55 Up the Guided Busway cyclepath, with connections to the left
4:25 Down into the underpass to get round, this may change
4:41 Turning down the Cowley Road cyclepath, without any connections to the businesses here, sigh
5:19 Back to the station
5:39 Second time through, taking the link to Nuffield Road
5:44 Turning down Discovery Way to go through Bramblefields Nature Reserve
6:08 Heading along Bourne Road and a cut through to Anglers Way
6:23 A missed cycle cut through to Franks Lane
6:35 A brief stop to look at the floating bus stop on Green End Road
7:03 Turning along a brief section of cyclepath on Milton Road
7:25 A final cut through from Warren Road to Eastfield
8:00 Finishing with a pint in the Haymakers


* How to go HD.

Green End Road

This is a notoriously bad space for people riding bikes. It's always made me feel nervous on it, and I'm quite an experienced, confident rider. Quite how anyone who's not confident is meant to use it is, well, reason to upgrade the space!

So, I was really pleased to hear that there was a plan to do this, and really pleased to start seeing paintwork appearing. My assumption was that it'd be a high quality physically segregated build, putting into practise what was learnt through the Hills Road and Huntingdon Road developments.

I'd not been up it in a while and was very disappointed when I did. All that's been done is a low grade, just paint, adaption of the road space. This will do nothing to improve the road space for riding.

We should have learnt, from Cherry Hinton Road, from Milton's Cambridge Road, and many other places, that a simple paint job doesn't protect people riding in the slightest. People regularly just drive along in the cyclelane.

It's even likely to make the space MORE risky to people riding. People driving sometimes think a cyclelane is a separated space, as this PR disaster from Sainsburys shows. And this leads to horribly dangerous close passes.

The reasons for Highway Code Rules 163 and 213 do not suddenly disappear when a cyclelane appears.

"give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car"

"Motorcyclists and cyclists may suddenly need to avoid uneven road surfaces and obstacles such as drain covers or oily, wet or icy patches on the road. Give them plenty of room and pay particular attention to any sudden change of direction they may have to make."

Anyway, how does the space work on Green End Road? Let's take a look at a few of my experiences from the road. Note that these aren't rare events, they are quite regular.

Go HD see * at bottom

Open in YouTube

So, these new lanes are an unfortunate backwards step. I'd recommend that people ride centre lane & ignore them. It's likely some people driving will take exception to this and hassle people riding to be out of "their space". That's still preferable to having them ignoring you completely, close passing, not quite judging it to the millimetre, and clipping you. And that could be with you anywhere in that cyclelane.

Sadly yet more infrastructure that doesn't learn from the Goverment guidelines and training about how to ride a bike.












* How to go HD.

#CamRideHome July 2015

#CamRideHome is a leisurely ride around some of the more pleasant cycle infrastructure and cut-throughs in Cambridge, ending in a short pub stop to chat about the joys of the past month. It starts at The Mill in Cambridge every last Friday of the month at 6pm. Rob at Ben Haywards has been instrumental in getting this going and is the route source on their CamRideHome page.

The July ride took advantage of the evening sunshine to explore out to Milton Country Park, including going under the new underpass on Milton Road, strengthened to allow motor traffic down ot the new railway station. Returning back along the Cam enjoying the early evening mid summer sun.




A Relaxed Early Friday Evening Social Ride (Go HD see * below)

0:12 Setting Off from The Mill
0:25 Awkward manoeuvring down the cyclelane to get onto Regent Street
0:36 Park Terrace
0:55 Quite a busy Midsummer Common path
1:08 Cutter Ferry Bridge and Path
1:38 Pye Terrace
2:08 Onto old cycle infra
2:30 The new Milton Road underpass
2:56 Jane Colston Bridge
3:15 Milton Country Park
3:35 Careful riding!
4:12 River Cam and a bike change
4:55 Faster than rowing!
5:47 Fen Road and another bike change
6:03 Green Dragon Bridge, where it's perfectly legal to ride
6:22 Onto Riverside
6:45 Back under Cutter Ferry Bridge
7:24 Thompsons Street
7:45 Kings Parade
8:04 And yet more Peace, a pint!



* How to go HD.
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