Distance 18 miles
Classification Easy
Start Cambridge railway station
Finish Wicken Fen visitor centre
Duration 2-3 hours
Route NCN routes 51 and 11
Maps OS Explorer 209 and 226, OS Landranger 143 and 154, sustrans.me/16DGWub
Route notes
A saunter through wild wetlands and ancient fenlands. Don't be deceived, though – a headwind can make even these flatlands a struggle. Approaching Wicken Fen you need to lift your bike up and down eight steps at the footbridge over Burwell Lode – a cycling bridge is being built here but it'll be a few years in the making.
Terrain and gradients
Flat, featuring a mix of well-surfaced traffic-free paths and country lanes.
How to get there/away
The starting point is close to Cambridge railway station, but there's no convenient station at the finishing point: carrying on to Ely along the river Ouse is your best bet.
What to see
Jesus Green and Midsummer Common are grand green spaces to ride through, especially in summer, and the river Cam, which runs alongside, is usually alive with rowers. The remoteness of the Cambridgeshire Fens can be unsettling at first, as can the linear flatness, but vast moody skyscapes and atmospheric marshes more than make up for the lack of tumbling scenery. As you pass through Bottisham and join the Lodes Way, you're moments from Anglesey Abbey , well worth a visit for the working watermill, which sells freshly ground flour. From Wicken, you can press on for another 7 miles or so on NCN route 11 to Ely, where you'll find Oliver Cromwell's house . Ely's undeniably impressive Norman cathedral, known as the "Ship of the Fens", is the town's real treasure, though – you'll see it looming from the floodbank by the river Ouse long before you're close to it.
Watering holes
Stop for something to eat in the RAF Room at the Eagle, Cambridge (8 Bene't Street, CB2 3QN) beneath a ceiling of lipstick and candle-smoke graffiti scrawled by second world war airmen; ghosts of several pilots are said to linger there. Or you could take a five-minute diversion halfway through your journey to the Hole in the Wall in Little Wilbraham (holeinthewallcambridge.com) for remarkable food cooked by Masterchef finalist Alex Rushmer. Wicken Fen, the National Trust's oldest nature reserve, has plenty of picnic spots, as well as a National Trust cafe.
