#CamRideHome October 30th 2015 - Hills Road Review

Join us on #CamRideHome this Friday for a leisurely social ride starting at 6pm at The Mill, Cambridge. Then a pint after to talk about anything worth a good natter about!

The Ben Hayward Cycles led #CamRideHome is to go along Hills Road and look at the newly installed infrastructure this October. I'm the temporary route guide for this month as Rob has been called away at short notice.

Also, we'll go along a few useful links that help riders get through awkward places.

New South Cambridgeshire Cyclepaths

One of the issues of cycling in Cambridgeshire is that whilst the town is relatively (to the UK) well provided, the county is less so. Some may say "Why bother? There's not many out in the villages." without spotting that Cambridgeshire has large locations of employment where people need to commute.

One example of this is the Babraham Institute, south of Cambridge and just north of the village of Babraham. With road speeds of 60 mph on the connecting A1307, an off-road route is vital to give any people wanting to ride the confidence to do so safely.

This first clip shows travelling all the way along Hills Road from Addenbrookes to the Babraham Institute,who have been very helpful in creating this route. There's a number of old route clear up issues still to iron out, some maintenance practices that ought to be considered (gritting and hedge-cutting/clearing), and taking the route further.




This second clip is of the official opening ride, starting from Wandlebury and overlapping the first clip a bit. It also goes on to show the issues of the next bit of infrastructure, from creating a path through the Babraham Institute,which needs carful negotiation, to working with a local farm or two to improve surfaces, and to looking at a bridge which could prove expensive to update for all bike users. It also goes onto looking at the new path next to the A505, a vital link from the Granta Park, another big employment centre, into Sawston.