Saturday, 21 April 2012
Nigel writes: I thought I'd skip my normal Saturday morning chores today and instead start my weekend off with the shortest and most leisurely ride on the club's weekly calendar. The forecast was for sunshine and showers, but the rain never amounted to much and we had a pleasant and relaxing ride. I arrived at Brookside to find six other riders waiting in the sunshine: Julia, Ian, Mike S, Mike K, another Nigel, Anne and Angela.
Julia was our leader this morning, and started by leading us west over Garret Hostel bridge and along Burrell's Walk and Adam's Road to the start of the Coton path.
We only followed the Coton path for the short distance to the junction with Clerk Maxwell Road. Here we turned north for a long clockwise loop around the city, via the university observatories, Storey's Way, Oxford Road and Gilbert Road to Chesterton, where we turned onto the path along the north side of the River Cam.
We followed the river north all the way to the bridge at Clayhithe. The river was busy with all sizes of boats, from rowing eights down to solo canoes, but the path was relatively quiet, especially beyond Bait's Bite Lock.
As we left the city behind we could see the rain approaching, and a few minutes later it arrived. Fortunately it was just a short, light, shower and in any case we didn't have much further to go.
Soon we reached Clayhithe, where we crossed over the river and followed the road south to Horningsea, where we stopped for coffee at Peter D's house.
Although the rain had stopped, Peter suggested that instead of sitting outside in his lovely garden we sat inside in the conservatory, where we were served with coffee, tea and some lovely home-made (and home-grown) rhubarb cakes.
Afterwards we returned back to Cambridge via Fen Ditton, where Julia took us across a handy bridleway which brought us out at the northern end of the village. As we rode along Green End I spotted a bicycle-shaped garden feature and stopped to take a photo.
From Fen Ditton we took the Wadloes Path to Cambridge and the Jubilee Cycleway across Ditton Meadows and Stourbridge Common to the city centre. I was home by about 12.30pm, having cycled a very pleasant and leisurely
15 miles.
View this GPS track on a larger map
All photos except 7 and 12 by
Julia.