#CamRideHome April 2019 Great Kneighton and Trumpington Meadows Permeations

So with a lot of the development in Great Keighton and Trumpington Meadows getting closer to completion, how about a little look around to see what it's like cycling (and walking) around these places.

Here's the route, with the main route in blue and cut-throughs marked with sissors. There are a couple of exploratory routes and an idea for a fantastic linking route on the East bank of the Cam. It really is worth opening this up larger in a separate window.

Open Map Larger.

Lots of good traffic concepts with these developments.

First, all the sides roads are narrow, winding, and have only a small amount of parking spaces. This slows all vehicles down and ensures not many will be coming in anyway. An interesting caveat to this is the main junction into Kneighton, a huge multi-lane affair with traffic lights. And it's hardly used. For some reason the developers simply couldn't get their head around that lack of vehicle transport mixing here.

Also, there are a lot of cut-throughs for people walking and cycling. Specically ways that make journeys like this shorter and more convenient. There were a few niggly bits, but mostly pretty good.

We did stop to look at the new cycle racks in the Trumpington Park & Ride. This does look like a big step backwards. Poor access, fewer racks, and all to add in a few more parking spaces.

Finally finishing at The Blue Ball in Grantchester for a chat and a beer.

Just for comparison, here's a local link to the National Library of Scotland maps from the late 1940s to 60s.

Here's the video of the route. Look out, music!             (Go HD see * below)

0:11 Starting from The Mill
0:24 Lathams Lane, a nice new surface
0:57 Accessing Hobsons Conduit Path via uni road
1:09 Hobsons Conduit Path, lots of care and slow speeds
1:36 Stopping on the start of Vicars Brook
2:11 Builders access directly opposite, should have been opened up by now?
2:24 First cut into Great Kneighton, but gravel?
2:33 Narrow winding streets to slow vehicles
3:08 Dual-use "segregated" path outside (secondary) school
3:32 Onto the original public bridleway from Addenbrookes
4:27 Crossing the Guided Busway and on towards Shelford Road
5:15 Cut-trough from new to old developments
5:37 Up Bishops Road to last Great Kneighton cut-through
6:11 Poor barriers forcing active travellers into conflict without slowing vehicles
6:28 Loking at the new poor P&R bike racks
6:50 Out the back of the P&R and into Trumpington Meadows with lots of cut-throughs
7:34 Turning down onto the Meadows themselves
8:00 Heading onto The Ball Blue in Grantchester


































* How to go HD.

#CamRideHome Visits Trumpington Meadows Country Park

Finally we get a pleasant, sunny, evening ride after a wet couple. So, what better than to look to the sun and the south city Trumpington Meadows Country Park?

The start point, as always, is from from The Mill by the river in the centre of town.


The Mill in Sunnier Times (from their twitter stream)

Here's the route.

Open Map Larger.

A short meander around west Cambridge, with the sun dripping off the tops of the hedges and verdant trees, but constantly heading towards Grantchester. Getting out of the city feels great on this lackadaisical Friday early evening, even cars are a rare and hardly noticed event.

Once through the beautiful Grantchester and across the river valley, the turn ito the route to Byron's Pool was welcome. We decided to drop the bikes (quite hard!) and walk down to the pool. Discovering ducks and the fish route round the weir was a little special.

So then off across Trumpington Meadows Country Park. It was just lovely. And clearly not well known about. When I had a look for any online activity about it I could only find rather awkward PDF history, and the local residents association run down which, whilst enabling lots of images, could really do with someone with website design experience (a bit like I might need to!).

So, it's great for people to walk and ride for a place to go. In some sense, it also could be used as a route through for people cycling from Harston and beyond into the city centre. Staying away from the awful road from the M11 to Trumpington High Street would be great. This could be the beginning of a green route in just like the other end of the river going out across Ditton Meadows. Of course it needs to be done right, but that should be easy with the space that's here.

On the way back we had a look at the new Clay Farm developments near the Guided Busway. It's great to see a new community centre appear, I hope it's well used.

We did wander up Limes Avenue and were quite disappointed. For a new development with so much space, why no dedicated cycle infrastructure? This would have been so easy to do, but there's absolutely nothing. On top of that, the development sticks to 1970s design models by making lots of straight roads, encouraging speeding by drivers. Again, and I know there are other issues, why not look at Cambourne? A place where few people drive faster than 20mph because it's too hard to go faster. Just like Eddington we seemed to have gone backwards. And this is a town where you'd have thought they would be thinking about these kind of things. But no. A poor development, infrastructure wise.

Here's the video of the route. Look out, music!             (Go HD see * below)

0:11 Starting from The Mill
0:43 The road to Grantchester
1:01 The Blue Ball
1:14 The Green Man
1:37 Heading for Byrons Pool
2:03 Entering Trumpington Meadows Country Park 
2:25 The Lark Sculpture
2:36 The Hare Sculpture
2:48 Pool
3:42 Harston cycle route
3:53 Clay Farm Centre
4:14 Limes Avenue
4:45 Returning to The Mill for a pint and a natter
































* How to go HD.

#CamRideHome on 30.06.2017 The Rush Water Course and Trumpington Road Cyclepath Video

As planned, the June ride this year was to The Blue Ball in Granchester looking at a couple of sites along the way. And yes, I've spelt it deliberately like that.




And here's the video of the route!

##CamRideHome Does Cambridge North on 30.06.2017 (Go HD see * below)

0:12 Start up Laundress Lane
0:33 Through a poorly placed No Entry sign to get to two-way cyclepath
0:52 Onto Sheeps Green
1:03 Progress temporarily halted by boggy bit
1:16 The newly rejuvenated "The Rush" stream
2:27 Simon goes for a paddle which interests the locals
2:57 Back onto Fen Causeway shared-use path
3:15 Onto Trumpington Road shared-use path, lane opposite not yet finished
3:25 Floating bus stop still being built
3:45 Onto cyclelane from new crossing place
4:00 Up ramp to shared-use path, is it all the way?
4:22 A little known shared-use path to St Faith's School
4:52 Over and up Lathams Lane
5:25 Back onto the Coe Fen
5:52 Brief rain coat stop
6:19 Simon's bike decides to stop
7:25 Turning over the field to The Blue Ball


So we spotted a No Entry sign that's to stop people cycling and driving the wrong way down Malting Lane. However, it also covers the entrance to the two-way shared-use path along Church Rate Walk.

The first main site was on Sheeps Green. In March they renewed The Rush water course by adding in rocks and building the banks with logs and hazel. It looks like it really does rejuvenate the stream, and I spotted an Egret at the bottom pool. I do find it a little incongruous to have rocks in a stream in a flat, fen area, but it does make the stream work.

UPDATE: More video here.

The second site is the new cyclepath along the east side of Trumpington Road. This change gets rid of the awful doorzone cyclelane and connects to the Brooklands Avenue cyclepath enabling loads of local school kids to avoid the busy main road entirely. Here's Mike Davies talking about the scheme.

We do note that the west side of the road still needs completing as they intend to widen the offroad route. Also, the floating bus stop area isn't yet complete, that should improve it even more. Let's see how the end of Bateman Street works, with loads of school traffic coming out in busy times. It's good to see that they have already removed the railings on the west side shared-use path, there's now a lot more space.

At the end of these sights of sites we'll take a leisurely ride across Granchester Meadows to the delightful little independent Blue Ball pub with it's excellent atmosphere and great beers. Simon's bike decided to give us a little fun as we almost get onto Grantchester Meadows. And we were shamed that none of us were carrying spanners!










* How to go HD.

#CamRideHome on 30.06.2017 The Rush Water Course and Trumpington Road Cyclepath

So for the June ride this year we are making our way to The Blue Ball in Granchester seeing the sites along the way. And yes, I've spelt it deliberately like that.

UPDATE: Video and story here.

The first site at The Rush on Sheeps Green where in March they renewed the water course by adding in rocks and building the banks with hazel. I remember seeing the work taking place and thought it well worth a look to see how this improves the widllife habitat [PDF].

The second site is the new cyclepath along the east side of Trumpington Road. This change gets rid of the awful doorzone cyclelane and connects to the Brooklands Avenue cyclepath enabling loads of local school kids to avoid the busy main road entirely. Here's Mike Davies talking about the scheme. We can note that the west side of the road still needs completing as they intend to widen the offroad route.



At the end of these sights of sites we'll take a leisurely ride across Granchester Meadows to the delightful little independent Blue Ball pub with it's excellent atmosphere and great beers.