Back Out on the Hildersham Circuit

Contents

• Intro
• Map
• Video

Intro

So, I work outdoors with bikes. Yee haa! Lucky me!

However, this isn't all the roses and happiness it can be. Sadly, over the winter term, I'm really rather reticent to spend my weekends going outdoors very much. Whilst friends are shooting off for a good time in fields and on tracks, I'm sat there going "No thanks, just done that for the past five days".

Then Spring comes along and all that "stay in" feeling disappears. This weekend was very much that time. The blooms where blooming and the blossom, er, blossoming. It was time to be outdoors on my bike for the fun of it!

I usually end up on a simple 20 mile circuit to the south of Cambridge. Luckily, there's plenty of decent off-road routes, bike paths, and (at worst) quiet roads. I get down as far as Hildersham on my way dropping through Cherry Hinton and Fulbourn on the way there, then Abington and Babraham on the way back, This time, I had the new Babraham Institute path in mind, rather than Stapleford and Shelford. It's more direct and I wanted to find out what it was like.

Map



So the clip starts near the station on Hills Road (and ends in the same place!) and heads out through Cherry Hinton. The first bit shows how poor the station area has become with the new development. The cycle bridge is a welcome removal from that poor environment taking us over to Romsey Town and then on to the pleasantries of The Tins. A final wiggle through Cherry Hinton and we're on the cycle route to Fulbourn.


Path from Marmora Street


The Tins

After Fulbourn, it's up into the hills. Well, what counts for hills in these parts. They are still very pleasant with lots of people enjoying the outdoors, with all kinds of animals! The roman road of Worsted Street affords a great route south with stunning views over the landscape. Small hillocks dot the landscape, along with the odd majestic wind farm.



Daffodils south of Fulbourn


Horses on a Walk


Woody Worsted Street

Hildersham is a delightful little village, with a pretty bridge (and ford for over 12 tons) at the centre. And then the Pampisford Road round behind Abington towards Granta Park, which is pleasant enough. Then, a short section of unpleasant road, often with 1 or 2 cars only but doing 70mph, sometimes far too clsoe for no reason gets us to the footbridge over the A11.


Hildersham Bridge


A11 Bridge

And this is the one weak link here. It's a "converted" footbridge. It's a long distance up and down on very steep metal tracks. Not something I can do with a normal commuting load. The down section is just as difficult, as I can't brake even with walking the bike. I was working nearby recently, and simply had to drive because this isn't a choice when commuting. And sorry too that this blocks cargobikes, different ability bikes, young and old people, and anyone that can't hold onto a lot of weight.


A11 Bridge Path

Once in Babraham, turning left towards the Institute entrance felt odd, I'm used to heading to Sawston. Avoiding the narrowed spaces near the school is good though. And it's into the Institute!

I've done this in more detail here. The funny little start section is possibly good, not quite sure. I'd think it adds to the option if traffic is backed up on the main road, but does lose the priority as you come back out again. Then I was a little concerned about where to go. There were bike symbols on the road, but people ride into the Institute itself so didn't give me a strong feeling of going in the right dirction. Then, a sign appeared in the distance and helped guide across a rather odd "Stop" line and onto the path itself.


Babraham Institute Entrance


Access to Babraham Institute Path

The path was open, smooth, and thankfully not absolutely straight. It's not near trees, so root damage is unlikely. The park is quite pleasant to ride through and there's plenty to look at. Changing angles regularly helps that as well as to stop the boredom sinking in of constantly going in exactly the same direction.


Tree on Babraham Insitute Path

At the end, the route out to the cyclepath over the Magogs seems sensible. You have to cross the A1307 and having it just a few metres form the roundabout is fine. There is a central refuge, and thankfully it's not staggered the way town street designers get wrong.


Exit from Babraham Insitute Path

The path over the Magogs is, well, next to a busy road. It's pleasant enough when a Sunday, not quite sure how it'll be on a weekday. And, from this direction, it feels like quite a way up! It's really not very far up, totalling 45 metres, it's just it starts about a mile out and slowly ramps up. It feels like it's gone on for ages! Still, it's next to pleasant beech woods for the steeper second section. And also, there's all that potential energy to release on the way down!


Bench at theTop of the Magogs

Finally, the route into Cambridge has it's pros and cons. Whilst it's a good route as you start to come into town, you suddenly have to switch sides. Although there's a section around 200 metres long with cycle routes on both sides, it's just not long enough to find a gap. Getting onto the new Hills Road Cyclepath is great, although there's no guarentee it'll be clear, and you have to mix it again at the bridge.


Floating Bus Stop


Video

And here's the clip (music warning!) with a variety of start points which open YouTube in a separate window.
Go HD see * at bottom

At the start
00:32 Cycle Bridge
00:57 Marmora Path
01:07 The Tins
01:40 Cherry Hinton High Street
01:58 Fulbourn Cycle Path
02:27 Fulbourn
03:05 Babraham Road Avenue South
04:07 Worsted Street
05:01 Crossing the A11
06:15 Path to Hildersham (stunning views)
06:50 Hildersham
07:12 Crossing the A1307 to Pampisford Road
07:36 Abington
08:05 Granta Park
08:20 A11 Footbridge
09:00 Entrance to Babraham Institute
09:30 Crossing the A1307 to Cyclepath
10:39 Top of the Magogs
11:16 Back into Cambridge
11:49 Hills Road Cyclepath


The music is in sections too, all from the Film "Moulin Rouge" and they roughyl follow different areas of the video.

00:12 Sparkling Diamonds, getting out of Cambridge and through Fulbourn to open country
03:05 Spectacular Spectacular, riding up into the hills
04:12 Because we Can, riding along the off-road section and back towards Cambridge
07:40 Bolero, the Institute path and steadily getting back into Cambridge















* How to go HD.

Hildersham Anti-Clockwise Circuit

I've often done this circuit as it can be a favourite, last minute afternoon ride. Sometimes I vary it (with photos) to avoid the slightly unpleasant hill to the back of Wandlebury (due to speedy traffic, not the incline).

Only this time, the variation became doing it anti-clockwise rather than clockwise. This did show me places where there are hills I didn't know about!




A Relaxed Sunday Afternoon Ride (Go HD see * below)


00:12 Cutting through to the Guided Busway.
00:20 On the Guided Busway, a great smooth surface.
00:55 Heading over the bridge to Addenbrookes.
01:05 An irritating bit of road riding. Why!
01:18 Bumping into Jim Chisholm on the Genome path.
01:55 Into Shelford.
02:11 And onto Stapleford.
02:24 Using the shared-use path out of Stapleford, the road environment is a bit harsh.
02:45 A slightly odd crossing, not ideal for riders.
03:10 A fete going on in Sawston!
03:37 Onto the Babraham path, again smooth and quiet.
04:16 Turning through a farm in Babraham onto the path south-east
04:39 A very difficult bridge over the A14. I know of people complaining they can't use this route.
04:55 A slightly unpleasant road. Very low traffic but often well over the speed limit.
05:10 Past Granta Science Park and onto the quiet road to the back of Abington.
06:08 Crossing the A1307 carefully to get to Hildersham.
06:42 After a disk failure I've turned left onto the path from Hildersham.
06:58 Onto Worsted Street which takes me all the way home.
07:45 Back over the A14. And yet more beautiful views.
08:40 Dogs come to play! I stopped to pet.
09:05 At the back of Wandlebury.
09:55 Peaking out the climb and back onto roads down towards town.
10:15 Some good downhill speed.
10:38 Chose the path, incorrectly as lights turned immeidately!
10:55 Hills Road mid transformation. A good change but I didn't know where to go.
11:25 Finally back over Hills Road railway bridge.



* How to go HD.

Hildersham Circuit

A quiet 22 mile ride around the country to the south east Cambridge. A few villages along the way and very little Sunday traffic. This is an update with much better video from last year.

Here's the picture map (starting in the top left corner).


And here's the map in Google Maps.

View Hildersham Circuit in a larger map



A few photos along the way.
Click on any photo for a HD version.

01 Worsted Street near Copley Hill

and on Cyclestreets. Worsted Street near Copley Hill. Fantastic, all year riding route here.

02 Worsted Street




03 Worsted Street Beech Avenue

Glorious colours all autumn.


04 View Towards Hildersham from Worsted Street

and on Cyclestreets. View Towards Hildersham from Worsted Street. Fantastic, all year riding route here.


05 Cat Crosses the Road in Hildersham




06 Bike 'Infra'. Not so good for Cargo Bikes

and on Cyclestreets.


07 Centre Rut Surfaced for Bikes, Outer Ruts for Farm Traffic

and on Cyclestreets. Centre rut has been surfaced for bikes with a rough hardcore. Good enough for most tyres/wheels. Outer ruts remain for farm traffic in an interesting combination approach


08 Bike Infra Around Farm Centre

and on Cyclestreets. Clearly the farm here both wants cycling to happen and needs to keep some space for farm work.


09 Bike Infra Around Farm Centre Ending

and on Cyclestreets.


10 Bridge Over River Granta (Bourn Branch)

and on Cyclestreets. Bridge Over River Granta (Bourn Branch). A bit narrow for a shared-use path. But better than the roadspace next to it, and pleasantly green (which also means wet and slippery in winter!). This is over the Bourn Branch of the Granta river. Both are called the Granta.


11 End of Shared-use Path

and on Cyclestreets. End of Shared-use Path. Is it useful to end next to a bus-stop? Or would it be better to go to the road crossing further up? As a confident rider, I'm happy to use the bus-stop to pull into the main road and turn right to follow NCN11. However, I can see that being really awkward if you are not confident. Get off bike, walk to crossing, wait at crossing, cross, then walk to side road, cross that as well without any assistance and near the junction, finally set off from a position where you can't see well.


12 Stapleford Church




13 Temporary Path Around Railway Works

and on Cyclestreets. Temporary Path Around Railway Works. Path around temporary railway works. A short diversion, and not bad to use. How long will it be there?

Alternative Hildersham Route

I often go to Hildersham on a Sunday afternoon as there's a series of great off-road sections complemented by sections of mostly quite road. I usually go along and up Worsted Street, but the first bit past Addenbrookes and up the Magogs can be a bit offputting. The hill combined with faster road traffic is less pleasant. Sometimes, if I've planned it, this is extended to Saffron Walden.

So, I decided to use a slightly different route. I make use of more of the Cambridge cycleways and skirt round the main hill. Not that it's big, but this way does avoid a lot more traffic!


View Alternative Hildersham Route in a larger map



The video clip of it is here.



I do refer to a few incidents along the way. Fortunately, none really spoilt the afternoon, just the few minutes after each event until the (scientifically known and proven natural) drug of cycling kicked in to bring the inner smile back.

Here's that speeding MGIF from early on.And the two times (I suspect) that a car speed far too close between Abington and Babraham.

UPDATE 25/08/13: I did the route again, with less incident. The video clip of it is here.


The big thing about this time was I counted the number of motor-vehicles and people riding bikes on my route. There were 44 motors and 61 riding bikes! Yes, over 22.5 miles of country and town riding, there were more people riding bikes.

I've no doubt that the main reason for this is the number of separated (mostly just shared-use) routes that I can take ot the south of Cambridge. It just shows that this is the thing that gets people on bikes. Although I have shared a clip about the issues for some bike styles that cause considerable disruption for some local villages.

UPDATE 31/08/13: I did the route again, this time using a GoPro and taking 2 HIGH DEFINITION pictures a second to get a much clearer clip. It's all here.

River Cam and Green Lanes

an exploration up NCN11 and look at some off-road routes near Cambridge

Several parts to this post.

• NCN11 Disconnect
• Anglesey Abbey Parking
• Green Lanes
• Full Video Clip

NCN11 Disconnect

Going north-east up National Cycle Network Route 11 from Cambridge, there's a break in the route. It follows the river Cam up to Waterbeach then disappears to re-appear about 2 miles south-east heading up to Wicken Fen in a parallel fashion. Between these two ends, there are a few paths and two river crossings at Clayhithe and Bottisham Lock.



View River Cam and Green Lanes in a larger map

This little trip and video clip was partly an investigation into that gap which has 2 obvious solutions.

• A simple route from the Clayhithe road bridge would be to convert a private road, Hatridge's Lane to Northfields Farm, and cut the short distance through to Vicarage Farm on Lug Fen Droveway (which is already a public footpath). Then the route would go south-east along Lug Fen Droveway, a public road, until it met up at White Fen Drove.
• The proposed NCN11 route would be fromWaterbeach railway station car park, where the route currently ends, alongside ht railway north-east, then along Burgess Drove and turning down to Bottisham Lock. Crossing the river, turning along the bank paths until Bottisham Lode then coming along the west side Bottisham Lode until Lug Fen Droveway again.

It looks like both routes are experiencing some opposition, maybe from the landowners, maybe not.

Hatridge's Lane is private, although there are public footpaths that do a similar route, a few dozen yards away. "Private" signs are clear, which can simply be the landowner not wanting people to accidentally come this way, of course.


View picture larger

This route has probably the least impact and least building costs involved. However, it's not the proposed option.

Starting opposite Waterbeach railway station car park looks better to begin with. This is already a public footpath, has space, and in semi-public ownership.


View picture larger

However, looking at the below video clip, Burgess Drove quickly deteriorates and would need some work, especially as it's quite well used by other vehicles.

Then Bottisham Lock is a very narrow crossing currently with steps. That would not work with larger or loaded bikes.



Then, when approaching Bottisham Lode there's clear signs of antipathy towards cycling. Or possibly simply trying to stop the tide. I'm sure many cyclists don't know what to do when getting to the end of NCN11 and just try pushing through. Anyway, here's the signs on both routes on.






Photo from cyclestreets.net.


The latter photo is the proposed route down to Lug Fen Causeway where the path quickly joins the public road across a bridge.


View picture larger


So which route should the NCN11 try to take to join up? My preference would be neither.  Although I'd start along the Bottisham Lock route, I'd much prefer to continue up the river to Upware, then cut back at a better angle to Wicken Fen. However, much has already been done to bring the route through to Lug Fen Causeway that would make that a very unlikely option!

Food stop at Swaffham Bulbeck Lode.



Anglesey Abbey Parking

Later on my route, I found myself wondering why the residents of Lode had so many cars. Suddenly, it clicked. This was overflow from the Anglesey Abbey country house run by the National Trust.



My photo from cyclestreets.net


I did clip about this separately as I thought it quite awful. As I say on the clip:

• The sheer volume of parking inadequately, some illegally, most disruptive to the local village, and pretty much all causing a blot on the landscape, Anglesey Abbey should hang it's head in shame.

This is within a mile of a good off-road cycleroute from Cambridge. So, rather than spending money building more parking space and concreting over the country yet further, why not invest the same in a decent off road route as a public donation? There's plenty of space and I bet many people visiting would rather have the family outing in more pleasant environment of being on a bike.


Green Lanes

The second part of this trip and video clip, was to look at the green lanes that straddle the space between the fens lodes and the hills to the south east. This has some history as it was the route that tribes to the north-east, like the Iceni, would travel down to the south west, and to the Icknield Way. Fleam Dyke was one the the defenses put up in harder times.

Out from Bottisham on the High Street, there's a short stretch of the A1303 to negotiate. It's unpleasant but is a large road with very clear sight lines. Cars still shoot past far too quickly, mostly as they have no idea of what the impact of their car is at such high speed whilst cocooned in a padded saftey cell. But it's only a short distance. Plenty of space for an off-road cyclepath though!


View picture larger

The turn off the A1303 is a little unwelcoming but battle on through the scrapyard, the overrun tarmac bridge over the A14, and there's a pleasant track quite soon.

The clip shows this bit best. The first bit is a quiet lane leading towards the Westley and Dullingham in the villages along the hill tops. Again, this offers a great way of getting between these places without having to go anywhere near main roads. The route is shown as the now defunct "road used as a path". It's clearly been blocked from motorised vehicles, so drops to being a bridleway.

The second section is perpendicular to the first and provides a way of getting from Newmarket to the Wilbrahams and the on into Cambridge.


Full Video Clip

This shows the full trip at 8 times speed. Key points are as follows.

00:00 Through Town from the Station
00:54 Along Riverside
01:27 NCN11 on river path
03:33 Clayhithe Bridge
03:49 End of NCN11 at Waterbeach railway station
04:20 Burgess Drove
04:50 Bottisham Lock
05:10 Warning signs
07:03 Food stop
08:05 New part of NCN11
09:25 Anglesey Abbey Parking
10:15 Turn onto A1303
10:45 Green lane to Westley
11:34 Green lane to Wilbraham
14:30 Bad pass in other clip