2015-11-08 51 -0

Location

On the entrance road to Chells Park, Stevenage.

Participants

PaintedJaguar (talk)
MrsPaintedJaguar

Plans

PaintedJaguar (talk) and MrsPaintedJaguar plan to hop off a train passing through Stevenage at 15:03, and cycle across the town, taking in Fairlands Valley Park, arriving at the hashpoint at Chells Park sometime between 15:30 and 16:00.

Expedition

There are a lot of rumours about how interesting and exciting a place Stevenage is(n't) to live. This expedition did nothing to dispel any of them.

The council website for Stevenage claims that the place was designed from the outset to be friendly to cyclists. It isn't. Let's start at the station: we got off the train, and saw the steps up to the footbridge to exit. There was no indication at all that there was any alternative for, say, disabled people, or people with heavy luggage, or maybe just those with bikes who don't feel like carrying them. We eventually noticed a tall building that looked like it was the right shape to contain a lift-shaft, and, yes, it turned out that there was indeed a completely unsignposted lift available. We waited to go up in the lift (the one person in it already who saw us approaching couldn't be bothered to be thoughtful enough to hold the doors for us), and after getting out at the top, saw the line of ticket barriers, and headed for them. The attendent was thoughtfully holding the wide gate open so that those with luggage or bikes could pass through easily. Unfortuantely, continuing the theme of the previously mentioned other lift user, none of the other passengers cared about being thoughtful, and a steady stream of people in the opposite direction (without luggage) used the wide gate, delaying those who actually needed to use it. Eventually we got through, and immediately found ourselves at the top of a flight of stairs that led back down to the platform! It turns out that if you use the lift at Stevenage station, it brings you out already on the other side of the ticket barriers, and you don't have to use the barriers at all (so if anyone wants to fare-dodge at Stevenage, that's how to do it). We headed back through the barriers in the other direction, with strange looks from the barrier attendent, and headed for the exit.

We then found ourselves on a footbridge over a main road. There were steps down to road level, but again no sign of a lift. Eventually we gave up and carried the bikes downstairs. Once outside and at ground level, we were able to find, for future reference, a completely unmarked and well-hidden lift by looking for the tall lift-shaft-like building stuck on the side of the footbridge. Is it really that hard to signpost it? Anyway, we were now ready to really get going with the expedition, but were standing right next to an insanely busy dual-carriageway, not one that you'd ever want to consider cycling down, but which was nevertheless marked on the cycle maps we'd printed out beforehand as being a cycle route. And not just any cycle route, but part of the "Great North Cycleway Route 12", whatever that may be. We decided that our lives were worth more than reaching the hashpoint, or being able to say we'd cycled part of the Great North Cycleway, and were considering giving up.

Fortunately, we noticed the relatively large supply of bike racks on the pavement, many with bikes on them, which suggested that a reasonable number of people must cycle to here. Surely they couldn't all use the main dual-carriageway? Could they? Surely there must be a proper cycle path somewhere? We eventually decided to try cycling to the far end of the station car park - perhaps a cycle path would begin there? As it turned out, no. Again we stopped, scratched our heads, and considered giving up. But eventually we noticed it: between the car park and the train lines, there was not just the usual one lince of fencing, but two. And between the two lines, the very top of a street light was poking up above ground level. We headed over to investigate, and saw the cycle path disappearing into an underpass below us. Now, the question was how to get there. We cycled slowly and deliberately around the entire perimeter of the car park, eventually noticing the well-hidden entrance to the cycle path in the middle of a pedestrianised area between two sections of the car park. Wonderful planning. Nevertheless, some 15 minutes after arriving at the station, we were finally on our way!

We were now ready to experience what the council website described as wonderful cycling facilities, describing underpasses or bridges at every junction so cyclists had no need to stop, designed in such a way that cars always had to climb the significant incline, and cyclists had almost level paths. This turned out to be absolute nonsense, with many steep ups and downs into the underpasses at junctions, and no noticable inclines for the main roads. Avid readers may well remember from 2015-08-08_52_0 that PaintedJaguar's bike has not seen a great deal of TLC in its lifetime - Stevenage almost turned out to be too much for it, with the chain coming off three times on the way to the hashpoint as gears considerably lower than are ever needed in Cambridge had to be used for the the first time in, well, maybe ever.

It was impossible to say how well the surfaces of the cycle paths were maintained, because many of them were completely covered in well-trodden leaves that were well on the way to being nothing but mulch (it was noticeable that almost every pedestrian in Stevenage prefers to walk in the cycle paths than on the adjacent footpaths for some unknown reason), making for some pretty treacherous cycling conditions in places (typically towards the bottom of the underpasses, just where you'd like to be building up some speed for the climb on the other side). It simply looked like no attempt at all had ever been made to clear the leaves from the paths, despite leaves having been on the ground for several weeks now.

Eventually, we turned into Fairlands Valley Park. Despite having some greenness, this was a very dull, desolate and underused place. A few teenagers were hanging out in the kids' play area. A couple of people were out walking a dog. That was basically it. A large boating lake was completely deserted, except for three cormorants at the end of the pier. We took a couple of photos, and continued on our way, coming out of the park on the cycle path alongside a road whose name did not inspire us for what might be to come: Six Hills Way. As it turned out, this was considerably flatter than the constant stream of underpasses on the first half of the cycle ride, and also not covered in dead leaves, so progress towards the hashpoint was suddenly surprisingly quick. This was not to last, however, as the final section before the hashpoint was approached turned into a completely grassy track, so covered in thick mud and puddles, that wellies, not bikes, would have been the only sensible way to continue.

We plotted a detour through the estate, and came out in the most desolate play-area we'd ever seen: there were three basketball nets (the fourth presumably long gone) with a large concrete court between them. The area was so underused that the weeds were well-established, growing out of every crack in the concrete. We pushed on, coming out in the car park of Chells Park, where the hashpoint lay. Chells Park was even less busy than the earlier Fairlands Valley Park, with two cars in an enormous car park, and one dog walker visible. There were numerous tyre marks all over the car park, suggesting that this may be the place where those who have recently got their first car come to entertain themselves. For the first time in the entire expedition, there was a bright splash of colour, caused by a discarded hi-viz vest that somebody had left over a nearby wooden post.

We headed to the main entrance of the car park, found the hashpoint, and left a chalk marker on a nearby concrete post. The delays encountered throughout the journey meant that, completely by chance, we arrived at the hashpoint at the standard meetup time of 4pm (just a shame it wasn't a Saturday). We took the necessary photos (although we couldn't bring ourselves to do a silly grin after the day we'd had so far), and decided to head home as quickly as possible.

As we neared the station, we decided to find a pub and have a quick pint before leaving. We knew from pre-planning that all the decent looking pubs were in the "old town", north of the station, but which again had plently of cycling routes marked to it on our cycle map. We headed off to try and find a pub, and immediately found ourselves once again trapped in a large car park (this time belonging to Tesco rather than the station), with a cycle route under a nearby roundabout clealy visible, but no indication at all of how to get from the car park to the underpass. We stopped and scratched our heads for several minutes, did a circuit of the car park, but were still not any wiser as to how to proceed. Eventually we noticed a bike light heading over what appeared to be a footbridge over the top of the road/roundabout/cycle underpass. We went to investigate, and, sure enough, the footbridge was indeed a cycle route, with, for the first time in the entire day, a sensible gradient of ramp to climb it!

We found a pub and settled down in it with a pint each, noting that they were showing the Arsenal v Spurs football match at the far end of the room from where we sat. Another couple came in, bought drinks, and headed for the table next to us. The football had just reached half-time, with adverts now on the TV. The other couple asked us if the pub was showing the football (not sure why they bought drinks first before finding this out...) and then settled down at what was basically the furthest spot in the pub from the TV that could still see it. After a couple of minutes, they started a full-blown argument over the amount of time it had taken her to decide what top she was going to wear to come out in, and, eventually, just before the football restarted, they got up and left, leaving half their drinks on the table.

This was about as much of Stevenage as we could take, and so after finishing our drinks, we left for the station. Although we were able to successfully use the lifts and footbridges at Stevenage station this time around, our noses were well and truly rubbed into it for the final time of the day when, at Cambridge, the train pulled into platform 8 of an otherwise empty station, necessitating a final bike/footbridge negotiation before we could eventually get home!

One-line summary of the day: this was our least inspiring geohashing expedition so far. Without a doubt.