NCN11 South from Cambridge, Part 2

The route south from Cambridge along National Cycle Network 11 makes a good commuter route for several villages to the south. The combination of separate active (not specifically cycling) infrastructure, quiet roads, some "converted" footpaths (as in with a sign only) make for an interesting mix. It's mostly good but there are some awkward bits where it's not really been thought through. I've written previously about this route, comparing to local road routes.

South from the City

So this is south from the city, here's the part south through the city.

• Maps
• NCN11 from Cambridge
• Francis Crick Avenue Oddity
• Addenbrookes Genome Path
• Mingle Lane
• "Converted" Path
• Poor Junction
• Sawston
• Whittlesford
• Sawston Bypass

Here's an interactive map (click to open).

NCN11 from Cambridge (green on map). 

This route starts at the railway station although this blogpost looks at other starting places and routes in the city. The NCN11 route really joins at the Long Road tunnel. It heads south the Whittlesford and beyond. This is a good route. However, there are lots of little niggles along the way.

From the railway station the route heads south along the Guided Busway, which is quite good active infrastructure. It's clearly not just for cycling but the width is fine for the current levels of traffic. Actually more people use this first section for walking to various places nearby, including Long Road Sixth Form College.

At the Long Road tunnel, the main NCN11 route really joins. From the city centre it uses to Coe Fen and Trumpington Road to get south, rather than the via the railway station. From there on the route turns up and over the railway on the Addenbrookes Guided Busway spur, at the end of which the infra runs out.

Francis Crick Avenue Oddity

It is rather bizarre and ironic that at Francis Crick Avenue, good infrastructure for people cycling suddenly disappears for a quarter of a mile. This is the section that was built for the local hospital trust, which is growing to being the biggest healthcare area in the country. A place that would benefit from promoting health simply didn't see fit to do this, despite the vast amount of space available to do so. I've written about this before.

As you can see from the video, I correctly cross over the road to join in with traffic, and cross back 1 minute later. Although it's a 20mph speed limit, it's very rare to see anyone driving obeying it, compounded by the road environment simply not encouraging it. Also you'll note that many people simply don't see the reason to cycle like this and stick on the path. This is so prevalent that the building site operators have set up manned entrances to the site to ensure lorries coming in are fully aware of people cycling on the pavement.

The building site is for AstraZeneca, whom I happen to know are very keen on helping cycling. One can only hope that they might bring it up for the hospital trust and point out the error of their ways and get the wide area just outside their building converted to shared space at the minimum.

Addenbrookes Genome Path

After this is the Addenbrookes Genome Path, so named because of the local discovery of the BRCA2 gene matching the 10,000th mile of the National Cycle Network. This path was great and still is good. However, it's rather a victim of it's success. There's now too much traffic for it's width, especially factoring in people walking along here. At the end there's a crossing of Granhams Road to negotiate, although it's either stopped with traffic (fine) or empty. A last little section of the path before a quiet residential area.

Mingle Lane

At the end of the residential area there's a wiggle through to Mingle Lane. This is usually okay to ride along, although I've encountered some pretty poor driver behaviour here. Notably at the straight section where speeding is very likely. However, it's luckily quite quiet. The twisting section of Church Street can make it very difficult for drivers to see round, so be prepared to have them behind you for a while. This is usually not too much of a problem.

"Converted" Path

At the main road, cross into the "converted" footpath. This is a conversion in name only, there's no specific activity to make it a proper shared-use path. It doesn't have very many walkers but it's quite narrow for passing riders. It is good to be off the road, though. Just leaving the built up area brings in two more poor parts of this "infra", two awkward side roads. One with little space, which could have more allocated, and the other with a odd priority for a side track that's hardly in use. Again, it's good to be off the road but I wish they could spend just a little money and thought making this good infra.

Poor Junction

As it gets fully clear of the village, the path stays the same width but feels better as it's open. You can see that the path is used quite a bit still, as kids go to the secondary school in Sawston. The junction in between the village has a rather awkward junction, where the cyclepath needs to cross one road, but decides to cross two roads, one in two jumps with awkward sight lines in between. I've written about this junction before. Since then it's been redeveloped, sadly with little improvement. It still means crossing roads twice, which means waiting is inevitable. A lot of people riding here abandon the infra and use the road.

Sawston

The path now veers off the main direction of Whittlesford to take in Sawston. This is great for those wanting to go to Sawston, like schoolkids, and I applaud that. However, it's twice as long as the road route using the Sawston bypass. Using the Sawston bypass has it's bad points. Drivers really don't expect riders there and have pretty poor behaviour around riders (see clips).

In the village, the cycleroute runs out at the school. Getting onto the road isn't too easy and once on, it's pretty busy at rush hour! Most traffic seems to be pretty good here, possibly because they are mostly dropping kids at school. Notice I ride centre lane when there are parked cars on the other side, thus giving very limited space. This is to dissuade people from thinking there's enough space to pass from either direction.

On the outskirts the speed limit goes up quickly. It's not far to the bypass and crossing to the level crossing for the final path to Whittlesford. This level crossing timings are based on a section of track, which can mean a long wait. 4 minutes for one train can extend to a 8-minute wait with two trains together. Although it's good to get people off the tracks, this seems excessive.

To Whittlesford

The path from Sawston to Whittlesford is a great example of converting to shared-use infrastructure! It's smooth, wide, gives warnings of bends and to slow down for people walking (without the ubiquitous poor blue "Cyclists Dismount" sign), and is a long way from a road! Under the trees it can get a bit wet and have some awkward debris, but that worry really disappears given the pleasant nature of this path. It may be a little narrow, if it gets more popular, but has expansion space if needed.

On entering Whittlesford there is an odd development. The path goes through the churchyard. It seems odd to be in this space that's designated for quiet reflection. The signs on the entrance are a little confusing, but generally fit into the blue "Cyclists Dismount" sign rules. So, slow and considerate riding is expected, get off if needed. Sadly, at the other end of the churchyard, this is pretty much required. The gate is locked with only a tight "kissing" gate space to get through. This blocks anyone coming this way that's not on a standard 2-wheel format bike. This is pretty bad as there's a great rise in parents using cargo bikes to transport kids to school, simply not feasible here.

After wiggling though a residential, quiet area, the route heads up onto the bigger road south towards Duxford. Again, there's lots of space to put in a separate cyclepath to, at least, the A505 maybe even onto the busy villages of Duxford and further south.


NCN11 from Cambridge (music warning!) (Go HD see * at bottom)

0:00 Setting off
0:07 Crossing into infra, watch out for speeding buses
0:35 Long Road Tunnel, NCN11 really joins here
0:51 Turning up Addenbrookes Guided Busway spur
1:09 Turning into Francis Crick Avenue past AstraZeneca
1:17 Turning onto Addenbrookes Genome Path
2:06 Crossing Granhams Road
2:22 Wiggle to Mingle Lane/Church Street
2:50 Onto "converted" path
3:05 Bad side access crossings
3:19 Bad junction and long way through Sawston
3:59 Passing the school and road
4:18 Faster roads outside the village
4:25 Railway crossing
4:37 A good converted path
5:06 Churchyard
5:31 And onto the main road

Sawston Bypass (orange on map)

So the route through Sawston is great for getting into the village, and that is fantastic for supporting schoolkids getting to the secondary school here. However, it's 1.6 miles to go through the village and 0.8 miles to use the Sawston bypass. Here's a couple of clips showing what happens on the bypass.

Going South (Go HD see * at bottom)


Going North (Go HD see * at bottom)


Sadly, a large enough proportion of people driving are simply not aware of their actions influence on the world around their sealed and quietened interiors. When threatened like this no one is going to cycle down here. There is plenty of space on this bypass, why not build infra alongside to improve the environment? There are plenty of businesses down this link from Cambridge, it's ripe for improving cycling. And likewise getting people into Cambridge from these villages.



* 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.

Silly Cyclepath Route Near Sawston

National Cycle Network Route 11 goes south from Cambridge along the fantastic Addenbrookes cyclepath. Through the leafy villages of Great Shelford and Stapleford it joins quiet roads before crossing the main A1301 in the village and joining a shared path. This is one of the better ones, although it could do with a bit more space.  It takes the rider south crossing the river Granta (a side stream that turns into the Bourn) in a nice green space called Clerk's Piece and then on towards Sawston on the side of the A1301.

The junction to the north of Sawston is a bit of a disaster area. It's clearly been designed with the idea of making sure people cycling stop before crossing either road in some kind of hyper-safe manner, whilst clearly saying that people driving shouldn't bother their little heads with vunerable people crossing, and continue to speed along the road.

Here's a satellite picture showing routes around this, although I'd recommend looking at the map in Google Maps (and below) as it's much more interactive.




View Sawston Junction in a larger map

Notice the way that the planned cycle route follows a series of tight turns. On the bike there is no need for them at all, so why are they there? The only reason that I can see for using a good perceanage more tarmac than is needed, and in such a twisted way, is to make people cycling slow down.

However, this is only done in space that is available, so it's not really a serious priority. Notice the funny loop on the east side of the A1301 is not repeated on the west side because there's limited space. So, it's fine unless digging and/or land purchase is needed. What does that say about the real importance of the loop?

What is the pratical result of this peculiar cyclepath arrangement. Well, it's quite clear that most people cycling don't use it. So, for all the posible (although arguable) safety enhancements the result is that they are completely ignored. There are 3 paths that most people cycling adopt, completely legally, to avoid the unnecessary meanderings. First, even using both crossings, there's now a well worn path (in purple) cutting the corner and straightening the route. Then, for either direction a lot of people cycling simply completely ignore the cyclepath across the island and use the road instead (green and turquoise).

Effectively, any safety enhancements planned are so over the top that they are completely ignored, thus actually making the junction more dangerous not less.



So what should be done here. A simple answer would be the red route. Taking the cycle route further down the A1301 and crossing after the junction. This reduces the number of road crossings from 2 down to 1, reducing danger considerably. It's also of similar length and reduces the need to "slow down" people cycling, something that it close to our hearts!

This could be included in a revamped National Cycle Network Route 11 that goes alongside the A1301 (yellow route) to it's eventual destination at the mill junction (next one down). For school reasons, the current National Cycle Network Route 11does a big dogleg through the village. This is still needed for the school kids, but for anyone going further it's frustrating to have to go 40-50% further than necessary!

The knock-on from the red route change is that the road junction would become more limited. By putting the crossing in that place, the turn for road traffic from the northbound A1301 (so from the bottom of the picture) onto the "Cambridge Road" back to Sawston would have to be taken away. The lane for the turn appears in the middle of the road which would be required for a crossing island. Okay, now pan back on Google Maps to see how many may be affected by losing this turn. I can see maybe 2 locations, essentially nobody really. So no-one needs to do this turn.

Then looking at what removing that turn does. It means the only required road access form the A1301 onto the "Cambridge Road" is from the north (top), which is served by the slip-lane at the north-east (top right corner). So why not make the junction one-way only? The reduces the amount of space needed for the road and could be used to improve the cycle junction.

I confess I don't know when this cycling provision was put in. I suspect the past decade. It may be a small thing, but it shows the attitude. The entire scheme smacks of a complete failure to understand any of the practical results or spot any of the obvious gains by a bit more thought. What clearly has been thought: YOU CANNOT TAKE ANYTHING FROM THE MOTORISTS! NOT ANYTHING! And with that attitude goes a whole generation of potential transport improvements for all people, including motorists.