Saturday December 19th saw us dress up, decorate our bikes and embark on our Sponsored Santa ride. About 20 members and councillors joined us at the start for a tour of the infrastructure around Royston.

All set to go

The purpose is to initiate match-funding opportunities toward a safe off-road A10 path and A505 bridge, linking Melbourn and Royston.

Although some high quality cycle path is being built at the northern end, the Melbourn-Royston stretch remains a rough walking track that has disintegrated and overgrown to such an extent that it resembles little more that a building site. The A10 roundabout at the A505 junction is a busy and dangerous crossing. We want to show Local, Regional and National Government and local businesses that we local residents are prepared to do our bit to help bring about much-needed safe cycling conditions.
Our JustGiving page,for community fundraising on missing A10 cycle links, can be found here. It is open until December 23rd. Donations are still welcome.

Some very good work has been done in Royston, particularly the railway underpass, so we made out way from the station out to the underpass, stopping the view the first class and hugely popular BMX track that has been built

Viewing the BMX track

We than headed down the A10/ A505 roundabout. There is a very good selection of cycle tracks here by the existing housing estate. We looked from the track and all envisaged how good the bridge would be. You are so close here to the employment, leisure centre, schools and other facilities that Royston and Melbourn have to offer. Those of us who had ridden in from Melbourn were all to painfully aware how difficult this is becoming for non-motorised users with the existing  path now in bits and the dual carriageway crossing extremely hostile at peak times.

Some shots around Royston including of the proposed bridge crossing site:

We followed the cycle paths past the school and leisure centre and were soon by the town centre. Quite a few children were excited to see Santa on his bike!

With a better cycle path, Santa could have brought has trailer along the A10 and filled his trailer with presents too!

We did a loop of the town centre and arrived back at the station, all happy to have had a ride and a get together.

Finished

A huge thank you to everybody who attended, especially so close the Christmas.

A massive thank you to all who have donated and left messages of support as well, helping to surpass our target.

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