Sunday, 19 December 2010
About two inches of snow fell in Cambridge yesterday evening. There wasn't any more snow overnight but with the roads and paths still covered in snow, and with the temperature still -5C even at 9am, Gareth sent out an email to cancel today's day ride and rode to Brookside to notify anyone who hadn't seen it in time. I rode over as well to see what conditions were like.
When I arrived at the start I found Gareth and Brian (-from-Beds) discussing what to do.
Gareth suggested we cycle to Scotsdale Garden Centre for coffee, along main roads which seemed reasonably passable. There was very little traffic, and what motorists we did encounter were driving slowly and cautiously and seemed to accept our need to ride in the middle of the road where the passing of cars had cleared a path through the snow.
We arrived at the garden centre at 10am to discover that it didn't open for another 30 minutes.
We decided to continue into Great Shelford and then try riding back to Cambridge via the DNA path. This turned out to be covered in rutted snow and completely uncycleable. We decided to walk instead, which was rather pleasant.
When we reached the Addenbrooke's Road bridge we rejoined the road and cycled back into Cambridge to Nigel's house for coffee. Our route took us over the station cycle bridge, where the evidence of its heated ramps was unmistakable.
My mileage today was 8 miles, of which only 7 miles was actually spent cycling. But it was nice to be out, the landscape was lovely, and it was good to be able to forget about Christmas shopping for a few hours.
View this GPS track on a larger map