anyone ride in/nearabouts/around, thetford...

[kedab]

and tell me if the a11 is as worrisome to ride as it looks on googlemaps?

i'm looking to add some miles to a local loop and coming out of mildenhall, the most obvious thing to do (other than going out to littleport) is to head for thetford...just wondered if it was worth it or if anyone knows of some other roads around that neck of the forest?

Cheers CC'ers...

 

[alpine fenlander]

The A11 is a motorway in all but name, except the bit around Elveden is worse because it's only single carriageway. So unless you are going at 3am it's not going to be fun. They are dualling it atm so maybe they'll keep the old road for cycling and it might be usable in future (don't know though).

Plenty of nice roads around Mildenhall:
A1101 towards Lackford - plenty of lanes for loops (you can cross the A11 and check it out yourself - I think it's a 4 lane round-about with 70mph cars coming towards you - helps with sprinting training :-) ).
The whole area between Newmarket and Bury is lovely for cycling, little hills, some trees and other weird things we don't see in the Fens.
My Mildehall loop is usually Ely -> Prickwillow -> Isleham -> Mildehall and then back via the A1101 towards Littleport. No trees, no hills and very easy on the headset as you only have 3 junctions to navigate the rest is straight on.
Mildenhall to Lakenheath has often horrible speeding drivers, but it's not usually very busy outside rush hour and north + east of Lakenheath are many great Norfolk lanes.

So on the whole no reason to use the A11 unless you are in a hurry to get to Thetford...

 

[kedab]

Cheers AF - nice username by the way i'd been told that they were 're-doing' that road and it sounds about how i'd imagined it to be, so i'll be avoiding that.

i use the 1101 all the way out to littleport and then come back round the a10 (also a little 'focusing' at times) towards Ely and Soham which is where I begin - no trees and no hills is true but crosswinds aplenty and nowhere to hide so it can be a good test at times...though i get an earache if it's blowing too hard out there. love that road in the summer though, beautiful country.

not thought too much about newmarket/bury - i know the roads out the back of newmarket going back towards cambridge that pretty much parallel the a14 are lovely rolling roads...most of them are fairly wide too and i see plenty of riders about...i just get stuck in my ways i guess! must try harder and remember rule #5 on roads I'm not used to

EDIT - i have just re-read your post and noticed that you ride some of the exact same roads i ride, you've probably seen me trying to look casually deliberate while snotting all over my top on some sunday morning or such. if you see a lad matching this description on a Mercx and wearing a Great Ormond Street Charity top in warmer weather or black and red Pearl Izumi gear, or a luminous yellow hotpack in our standard weather...that'll be me! come say hi, i'm not hard to catch up with and i'll only be scared of you for a minute or so

 

[alpine fenlander]

Ah a snot comrade! That's me too, but I don't think I'm that scary :-) Sounds like we'll definitively bump into each other at some point. I go out with Ely CC sometimes, good way to get shown new routes. Lots of new people on the Saturday beginners rides atm.

Do try the Newmarket area, I've cycled around there for years and still find new lanes. The A10 can be ok for very short sections I find, esp north of Ely, but I usually try to avoid it as there are usually alternative routes (Littelport to Ten Mile Bank or Wilburton to Cottenham for example).

I just thought, this is quite a useful way to find good routes:
http://raceshape.com/heatmap/?lat=52.381488804633676&lng=0.5015945434570312&zoom=11&opacity=90
It shows rides from Strava, some of it is probably a bit off from some races, but it gives you some idea where most people ride....
Doesn't look like anyone has been on the A11 yet :-)

 

[vickster]

Have you looked for suggestions on cycle-route.com ?