Buoyed by the success of my first tentative trip onto the trains, when the next weekend looked fine but the wind was in a similar direction, I figured I'd take things a little further and head back to Peterborough again. On my last two trips I've always managed to do this in the middle of March with dubious weather and mud, so I've perhaps not fully done justice to the countryside in between.
I'd always pretty much headed directly North, so to make things more interesting (and add some distance) I plotted a rather elaborate scenic route, taking me some distance into Northamptonshire to the north-west, reaching the fancy small town of Oundle before approaching the city from the west along the course of the Nene, the major river that flows out from Northampton before flowing into the Wash on the other side to the Ouse. There is a tourist steam railways that plies the Nene valley - it wouldn't be running, but I figured it should still be a pleasant way to approach the city (which is something of a vast suburban sprawl outside the compact medieval centre). I managed to stitch together a lot of off-road sections I'd never ridden before - so this was something of an exploration for me as well.
The first part of the ride would take me up to St. Neots and Grafham water. This stretch is likely somewhat overfamiliar now to readers of this journal - so it perhaps isn't entirely bad news that my camera decided to glitch out after the first 15 minutes, and only started working again as I was leaving St. Neots. Anyway, it was a gorgeous and rather still day.
Leaving Potton and past the ever-present sentinel mast
I managed to winch my way up the super-steep Greensand hill and had a good and rapid ride down into St. Neots. Slightly concerned that I'd permanently buggered my camera: it was refusing to focus, so I assumed something pretty bad had happened to the lens - I was pleasantly surprised when it randomly decided to start working again on the road out of St. Neots. Perhaps it was just bored of taking photos of the Everton estate.
Taking the roadside cycleway out of St. Neots. The B645 was back to its usual (terrible) traffic conditions. For reasons which I'll explain below, the government effectively blew its credibility this weekend with respect to the lockdown, and there was noticeably more traffic about.
A natural burial ground for cremation ashes, with quite an interesting neo-pagan vibe to it. There are quite a few of these in the area - there's another big one, in woodland in this case, near Cambridge too
The big reservoir at Grafham water was still closed up, to prevent people congregating during the lockdown, so I couldn't take my usual route along its shore. I did use some of the peripheral cycleways to avoid riding on the (busy) road to Perry - to my annoyance, they'd closed the gates on those too. As I met the closed gates some other cyclists, in full lycra get-up, appeared on the other side. With an understanding nod we both lifted our bikes over, and continued on.
Looking over Grafham water in the distance, which is a beautiful blue today. Bonus hawk (a Red Kite, I think) is also in shot.
After picking up the bridleways around the west side of the reservoir, I regained the roads to the north and then worked my way across country towards Stow Longa. It's a tiny village, but the road through Stow is one of the only really convenient crossing points of the great A14 highway further north, so I find myself travelling through it quite frequently.
At Spaldwick I crossed the A14 - but instead of continuing to follow the very quiet roads into Northamptonshire, as I usually do, I almost immediately peeled off to pick up a succession of byways crossing towards the west. There are a whole network of tracks, which seem very little used, and which I've never explored before - part of this run was to try them out and to see whether they were viable routes for future reference. Absolutely nothing to do with avoiding the big hill up to Hamerton.
On the way to Stow I passed the stop I'd stopped for lunch, several months ago.
My escape from the big hill climbing away from the A14 up to Hamerton took my across a rather rough track to the west. Good views back into Cambridgeshire, though.
...which turned out to belong to this solid and impressive church tower, at St. Mary's. The original church was 13th century, but apparently it was rebuilt "following total destruction" in the 17th century.
At Leighton I regained the lanes and took them north to cross the "main" road of the area. In practice this is a sub-B road with virtually no traffic, and I continued on happily on the peaceful roads, soon to pick up some more off-road stretches that would take me to the Giddings.
The tracks started off superbly, and I warmed to my route across the fields. As I progressed, however, the well marked tracks dwindled, and it became clear that I was the first to use these rights of way in a long time. Eventually I found myself hacking across open fields over the rich earth, crumbly and cracked after the dry spell. Amazed that the farmer goes to the trouble of keeping them clear - whoever does this is an excellent fellow - it was still hard going, and my progress slowed to a snail's pace in the heat.
The tracks started off excellently: well defined, good surface, along the side of bountiful fields of wheat and barley
But my luck didn't hold - soon the bridleway dwindled to these tracks through the open arable fields. The right of way actually follows the minor track to the left - to my amazement, the farmer has deliberately left it clear of crops so it can still be discerned, despite it cutting right across his field. Top bloke.
Jon AylingTo Scott AndersonYogi Berra! This always makes me think of a similar quote which I seem to be using a lot at the moment, from Woody Guthrie: "Take it easy ... but take it!" Reply to this comment 4 years ago
Leaving the woodland, I joined a slightly more open track, but one intermittently blocked with large sticks and whole branches that had obviously come off the trees during some of the windier weather we'd been having. When I saw a pick-up truck blocking the way, I was cursing a little as I had to push and lift the bike to get round it. But any irritation immediately evaporated when I saw it belonged to a chap that was working to saw up some of the bigger logs and clear the path. He gave a friendly but rather shy smile at me as I greeted him - a nice, quiet man.
The last push towards Great Gidding was even harder. The path became hard to discern, and the grass was very high. With my big wheels I can still ride (slowly) through this, though!
Finally regaining the road, to my astonishment it was only now I passed the sign indicating the Northamptonshire county border - so I'd still been in Cambridgeshire for this whole off-road odyssey. It really is a behemoth of counties.
Just after I passed into Northamptonshire, I passed a couple of road cyclists riding the other way and chatting to each other. I thought nothing of it, but then just after I passed them I was certain it was my good colleague from work - who lives 50 miles away and I hadn't seen for 3 months due to the pandemic. Unfortunately they were gone before I could shout his name! What are the odds?
For some reason I hadn't had enough of off-road punishment, so at Luddington-in-the-brook I peeled off again. I can't say the route was particularly better travelled, but at least I didn't have waist-high grass to contend with. This last stretch would take me to the valley of the Nene, which I could then follow pretty much all the way to Peterborough.
The bridleway took me through several fields of sheep - we are leaving the flat, rich Cambridgeshire soil with its endless fields of cereals, and entering green and hilly pastoral country. A strange phenomenon here is the sheer amount of wool the sheep have deposited on the wire fence to the left. Maybe they scratch themselves against it?
At Barnwell, I crossed the major Northampton-Peterborough A605 and made quick progress on unfamiliarly busy roads to the small town of Oundle. I've passed through Oundle several times, it being the only town of any size in the surprisingly sparsely-populated hinterland of Northamptonshire. While many parts of that country can have a slightly provincial feel, Oundle is an oddity - a very upmarket, affluent town dominated by its huge and prestigious "public" (i.e. private) school. With its honey-coloured limestone architecture, it wouldn't be out of place in the Cotswolds, and it certainly has a similar air of (maybe slightly stuffy) prosperity. To the class-obsessed English eye, Oundle is unmistakably upper-class (compared to say Biggleswade which is solidly middle class, or largely working class Bedford).
To reach Oundle I crossed the Nene, riding with the traffic over the impressive old bridge from Barnwell.
"Cast thy bread upon the water" - 400 year old alms houses in Barnwell. Also a good motto for ducks.
Welcome to Oundle - a very old place indeed - in fact older than this sign suggests. The market charter was only granted when the town was already very well established (as was usually the case) - in fact it dates back to the 8th century, at least.
At any rate Oundle is an agreeable place, and one I was rather glad to see, seeing that I was out of water after my thirsty ride through the exposed fields. I worked my way through town to find some shops - stopping only to do a double take at a fantastic satirical mural (pictured below). Oundle of all places is not where I would expect to see this!
The satirical painting that made me do a double-take, and ride back to get a photo. The references are rather all very UK-specific, so I'll (try to) explain what's going on here for an international audience. It's satirising a scandal of the previous week, whereby a chief government adviser - who has spent virtually his entire career attacking the institutions of government - was caught with irrefutable evidence that he drove the entire length of the country after being diagnosed with coronavirus just to leave London - and then, to top it off, spend one day on a 60-mile round trip to visit a tourist attraction, Barnard Castle. He refused to resign, and his "excuse" was that - and I'm not making this up - he had to "test his eyes", and intended to test them by driving 30 miles with his family in the back of the car. Needless to say, this has not gone down well in pretty much every part of the country. That's him, in his Noddy car, driving to the castle (with a sign indicating the 260 mile trip), and an eye test sign in front. The malignant gnome is the government No#2, and other architect of Brexit, Michael Gove. "Stay Elite" mocks the meaningless and impossible to follow government advice that we should "stay alert" for the coronavirus (rather than, say, provide our key workers with vital protective equipment). Needless to say, I did not expect satire of this savagery in Oundle, which must be the most conservative town in Northamptonshire.
Thus refreshed, I left the town and started to pick my way to the north. My target was Apethorpe, another village I had visited on my way towards Rutland in past year - but this time I would take (yet) more off-road tracks to reach them. Fortunately, the gods of the bridleways were smiling on my again, and I had a much better ride of things.
Apethorpe - which I'm fairly sure is pronounced Ap-thorpe, but which I always refer to as Ápe-Thorpe because it amuses me - is a very plush little village, in a rather cut-off location. My plan was to cross the village and then pick up extensive off-road routes through an expanse of forest, eventually to meet the major Peterborough-Leicester highway - which I was reasonably sure I had a decent plan to cross.
The sun was letting a bit low as I approached Apethorpe
A minor planning update, but what drew my attention to this is the fantastic name of the applicant: the Right Honourable Henry third Baron Brassey of Apethorpe.
Emerging from the woods, I was amazed to find myself cycling past a housing estate under construction. It really was miles from anywhere - and as I continued, I found that the only access was miles down a tiny track, that started in an industrial estate, that was gated off most of the time. A truly inexplicable bit of development planning!
The area around the housing estate is churned up, suggesting this used to be a quarry, or a landfill site. What a weird place to build new houses.
The last stretch before the main road passed through an extensive working quarry. Technically this is only a footpath, but since there was nobody about (and it was the only way that would get me to a decent crossing place of the A47) I took the bike down it - though unfortunately this did mean bodily lifting it over gates.
Sure enough, after passing the quarry I popped out on the hellacious A47. This is a single carriageway road with no shoulder, but takes the traffic of a highway, and there was no way I was going to cycle on it. Fortunately I could cross it and continue on quiet lanes, making my way to the second highway barrier - the Great North itself, as the A1 heading to the North after bypassing Peterborough.
This is a full dual carriageway, and there are no convenient crossing points anywhere on this stretch. In theory it's legal to cycle on it, but only the truly desperate would do so. I'd eyeballed an area where it looked like I could cross at grade and go straight into lanes on the other side.
However, this was where I screwed up. I managed to fail to find the lanes on the other side, and found myself walking along the highway - not the shoulder, as there was none, but the grass verge. After half a kilometre or so I realised I'd overshot, but was now closer to the junction in the distance. Taking this, I found myself - back on the A47. To cap it all, I actually managed to misjudge a corner on the fast slip road and almost fall off. No harm done, fortunately, except to my pride.
After a not particularly pleasant half kilometre on the A47, I took the first country lane I saw and escaped. It lead into the Sacrewell camp site, which was closed for the virus, but the roads were unblocked and I figured I could work my way through (and surely anyone would understand wanting to get off the A47).
Some of the nice countryside before the A1. Good light effects.
After cutting across country on the byways, I picked up a lane, crossed the dreaded A47 for a final time, and found my way to the village of Ailsworth. This is close to the Nene, and from here I could find my way through well-signed cycleways all along the river into Peterborough.
It was a relaxing ride, as the late evening dusk came down and the parks started to empty. I had taken considerably longer than expected - the rough off-road sections had significantly slowed me down - but there were plenty of trains running to the south, so I had no real worry about getting home.
Nice postbox decoration - the rainbows are symbols of support for NHS and key workers. Another curiosity is the bus shelter, which has gates so it can be locked (!)
Despite the lateness of the hour and the gathering dusk, there were plenty of cyclists around, mostly having a relaxed cruise alongside the river. I passed a lady and her son peering at a bike inverted by the path - stopping to help with my usual cry of "I have tools!" (one pet annoyance is people trying to help me with mechanical stuff who have neither tools or knowhow), it turned out the chain had got caught behind the chainring. Some poking with my long screwdriver later, and we'd got it free, and set them going again. As she thanked me, she revealed she was a nurse that had just come off a 10 hour shift - so I was only too glad to be able to help in some small way.
Dimness and swans on the Nene cycleway coming into Peterborough
It was almost fully dark by the time I got the centre of the city - so without delay I got myself to the station, and was relieved to see plenty of trains on the board. Within 20 minutes I was on board an empty, 12 carriage one heading for home.
A crank back up the hill made this the best part of 100km. The going had pretty touch - I probably wouldn't pick many of the off-road routes for speed in the future, but I definitely would for fun.
Today's ride: 100 km (62 miles) Total: 1,445 km (897 miles)
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Mike AylingHi Jon
Great pics as usual.
BTW is that dodgy camera one of those that can also make phone calls and find satelites for the Ride With GPS app?
Jon AylingCheers Mike!
Ah, so in this case it's not - I'd like to say it's principal, but the truth is I've just never gotten around to getting a smartphone! So these photos are all from a little dedicated compact camera (a Sony DSC-WX350) - it's fairly basic but seems to have improved the results, especially considering my lack of photographic skill.
Of course this means if it does stop photographing it's not much use for anything else. So rather relieved it mysteriously "recovered"! Reply to this comment 4 years ago
