Elisa Francesca Roselli <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...
Quoted message said:Luigi de Guzman said:Goodness, we might even see each other in Cambridge--I'll probably be up reading at the UL for a
bit. I'll roll Bekah (my much-maligned pink and black MBK, the London bike) onto the train at
KingsX. How's that for multimodal transportation strategy...?
Hey cool, another Cantabridgian! I'm King's, History Tripos, BA 1978 MA 1982. I'll certainly be
visiting the UL, although this year I have no specific research projects. My notion of an ideal
summer hol is Cambridge for a writing project with time in the UL and buying books. Also I like to
cook for the person I'm staying with. Sure, I'm a nerd - I know most people wouldn't consider that
a holiday at all, LOL!
I read History at St. John's BA 2001...tell me, were the windows on the Seeley always so dirty, or
were they clean in your time? If you do go back to the Seeley, note the new 'meathook' bike storage
thingies ranged around it...these occasioned much protest when they were put up, and several
prominent members of the Faculty went so far as to campaign for their removal....[I signed the
petition more out of dutiful obedience to the fellow teaching my Part II special subject than out of
genuine conviction]
As to reading in the UL--well, I miss it because there are books there...but seeing as I spent my
fair share of time chained to a desk (naturally one of the ones near the radiators!) on North Front
6 in that most fascist of cambridge buildings, I'm not sure how much I want to go back.
(Although my grad friends have told me that the tea room is *the* place to go if you want to pick up
grad students....)
But since i've got a lot of friends still there, taking their PhD's, I've visited a lot...
Quoted message said:
As for multimodal, I was recently really pleased to notice that in Paris the RER, the suburban
milk-train, takes cycles in the first and last wagon of every train - there's even a picture of a
bicycle on them!
Those RER trains are huge. although having brought a bicycle on one, I'd wonder how on earth I'd be
able to carry it *off* again, on entering the city, since from what I remember of the few RER
platforms I saw when I was last in Paris, there are usually quite a few steps to carry the bike over
on arriving....
You will find no such accomodation on the trains from London to Cambridge originating out of Kings'
Cross--you may roll your bicycle on the end doors of each carriage, but there isn't any way to
secure them. I usually find msyelf sitting on the floor next to my bike, lest it fall and hurt
anybody else.
It's easier to take a bike on a train that runs nonstop from London to Cambridge, if only because
you know that nobody will roll it off the train as you doze off somewhere in Letchworth or some
other godforsaken place. [1]
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:I always found the Backs to be a bit of an unnerving place to ride, personally. I wasn't as
confident back then, and Queens' Road was the only place in Cambridge, it seems, that anybody
was allowed to develop any real speed, and so all the cars would gun it through that stretch
Actually I meant on that broad grassy sidewalk behind [censored] Hall and Clare - I'd be spooked by the
actual road.
Ah, that bit. if you're too spooked by the road--and don't mind yielding to every pedestrian
ever--you could move *slowly,* if illegaly, down the footpath from Silver Street until it ends at
the back gate at St. John's. Mind the crossing cars at the back gate of Trinity, though....
There are a lot of new bike trails built parallel to the roadway, too...Maddingley Rd. has a
bikepath on each side of the roadway, so if you're really scared, you could stay there, but the
usual bikepath cautions apply: you must be prepared to watch for cross-traffic from the driveways fo
the houses , you must be willing to share the path with pedestrians, dogs, etc.
This is all fine if you want to pfaff about Maddingley Road, but if you really needed to get into
town--to buy books at Galloway & Porter's or G. David's or Heffers' (sadly now only an outpost of
Blackwells', and much poorer for it, as they no longer stock independently of Blackwells' and so
getting stuff for the reading-lists is far chancier) you'll need to get on the road....
Quoted message said:Or perhaps Jesus Green then. It'll be on the way between home and the Town Centre. I've always
walked it previously and it seemed to go on for miles and miles. I suppose it will look really
short on a cycle!
I used to head up the baseball society (imagine!) and we used to play every Sunday on Jesus green,
occasionally endangering passing cyclists with our foul balls....
anyway this is all rapidly sliding off-topic for rbm...if you like you can e-mail me.
-Luigi
[1] apologies to anybody from Letchworth, but I've been stranded there far too often, once by
excessive drunkenness on the way back from London, and twice by excessive incompetence on the
part of the railway network....
