Scot on a Bike: Day 1 – Cambridge & the Fens

Heading out from Cambridge

[Music] Hey there. Um, this is Martin and this is me on my bike. Thanks for checking out the video. Um, I live in Cambridge in the UK. For years I’ve traveled, um, and for years I’ve had a dream of, um, cycling around the world on my bike. I uh I’ve had a chance to get to lots of great places, but the idea has been to cycle out of Cambridge, head north toward the coast uh and see how far around the world I can get. I’m not quite ready to go at it full tilt, fulltime just yet, but I decided I’m going to do it in stages just like the tour to France. So, um so yeah, this is the video number one. Um thanks again and uh here goes. 700 a.m. Sunday morning, 6th of April, 2025, and beautiful day. It’s chilly. Uh 3°, sun’s coming up, and we are at Cambridge North. Cambridge North train station. And this is going to be the start point. So, from here, we’re uh we’re going to head up towards uh St Ives and then up to the coast. Uh it’s going to take us most of the day. So, you take a north out of uh or take a right turn out of Cambridge North train station and and you’re straight onto the guided busway. And this is 12 mi of straight flat smooth path that takes you to St Ives. There’s a couple of nice pubs on the way. Um the station house uh at Hist. This is what it used to look like before the guided bus was built. And then a bit further along, just after Longstanton, there’s a a new pub called the North Slow Tap and Social, which is a nice place where you can get lots of different um drinks and food and whatever. And then a few miles further along, 12 miles into the ride, and you’re in St. Ives. St Ives is a lovely, lovely little town, um St Ives in Cambridge. the spot down by the stone bridge in the center of St Ives on the river great ooze a beautiful spot and a lovely old bridge that was built in 1424 um the other uh interesting thing in St Ives for me is right in the middle of the town um there’s only really room for one statue and it’s always interesting to know when there’s only room for one who do they choose to remember uh in the town and here in St Ives it’s Oliver Cromwell um it’s interesting for lots of reasons um I mean He’s a towering figure in English history. Even if as a Scott I was taught to despise him, he’s definitely a divisive character, but um he only lived in St. Ice for five or 6 years uh in a part of his life when he hadn’t really done anything very interesting. So, uh, it’s really interesting to me that the nearby town of Huntington where Cromwell was born, uh, in the at the turn of the 18th 19th century in the year, uh, 1899, Huntington tried to raise the money to put a statue in the town, but because Huntington was a royalist stronghold, they simply weren’t able to raise the cash. So, neighbor in St. I’ve stepped in the local town counselors um put up a fund, raised the money, built the statue, stuck up the middle finger to Huntington, and the the rest is history, as they say. But I’m going to try to learn more about um Cromwell on my travels uh just because I think he’s an interesting character. From St. Ives, there’s a nice psychopath that follows the river all the way up to the little village of Hton. Um there’s a beautiful picnic spot there called Hton Mill. And then we’re heading for the main roads now to take we’re going to skirt past Huntington, take a right there and head up towards Chatterus and then onto Elely. Um but just as we pass Huntington by um it makes no secret of its connection to Oliver Cromwell. Uh the road signs as you see um there’s a a large plaque right in the center of the town um claiming him. There’s a a a plaque on the side of the house in which he was born, which is now a nursing home. Nice building on the high street in Huntington. And finally, you know, they’ve built a really lovely museum with um about a thousand different pieces of artifact related to his life. Um but anyway, I say I’ll come back to Cromwell um as we go. Um but for now, we’re going to take the crazily flat roads um up through towards the fence and Chatteris. Um it’s uh around about 50 miles from uh um from uh from this point up to Chatteris and then about another 20 odd miles 25 maybe on up through Elely to down a market. Um I stuck this drone shot up just to show you how crazy flat this part of the country is. There’s literally no hills and then you’re not long through Elely before you’re into Norfolk um and heading up for uh for down the market. Just one interesting spot that I came across here is um the wetland center at Welli. Um it’s uh marshland, lots of birds. Uh and then um follow the cycle path up the river all the way to down a market where I’m going to take the train home. And that’s it. End of day one. Just one other comment on the town of Elely. Um before leaving is this rather imposing building right in the middle of the town next to the cathedral. Um this is where Oliver Cromwell spent the next 10 years after he left St Ives. So he moved here from St Ives in um 1636 and by the time he left in 1646 um quite a lot had changed uh as we will learn over the course of the next few weeks. But anyway uh onto some stats from today and uh yeah look forward to next episode. [Music] [Music]