Two really useful cycle routes through the Mile Cross estate which seem to be a closely guarded secret, in that there’s no signage to tell cyclists they exist. The Mile Cross estate is actually very well designed and features some reasonable cycle routes.
This video looks at two routes and assumes cyclists will want to connect with the Marriott’s Way at Anderson’s Meadow. There is a short missing link which involves crossing Mile Cross Road between Valpy Avenue and Havers Road.
The first route is a way to bypass Mile Cross Road, There has been talk for the past few years of building some kind of cycle infrastructure along here, but nothing has been built. Mile Cross Road is the direct route, but it’s narrow, has car parking along much of both sides and carries a lot of traffic. There is also the dangerous roundabout junction with Drayton Road, there are light-controlled crossings for cyclists, but using them can be a slow process.
The alternative route to Aylsham Road is slightly longer than using Mile Cross Road, but it’s far nicer and clearly safer.
The second route connects the crossing of Boundary Road, the outer ring road, through the estate to the Marriott’s Way.
So what’s needed? Really not very much, either a better crossing of Mile Cross Road from Valpy Avenue and a short section of cycle track to Havers Road, or better a cycle track running on the west side of Mile Cross Road down to the Marriott’s Way which would allow a crossing of the main road under the bridge. Apart from that, all it needs is signage. A part of the route is signed as a way through to the Marriott’s way via Sloughbottom Park, which is not the route into the city. But most of these signs have been turned around by kids and so point the wrong way.
One of the more dangerous and difficult routes in Norwich for cycling is along mcross Road and up to alsam Road what makes this route difficult is the sheer amount of traffic you get on it it’s a very very busy road and it’s not very wide and both sides have lots and lots
Of parked cars and to make it even worse there’s a very dangerous roundabout now there are traffic light control Crossings on the roundabout for Cycles but they involve a very quite slow detour so what we’re going to look at now is a way of avoiding all this mess
Slightly longer but very much nicer to ride we’ll start our journey on the marot’s way at Anderson’s Meadow as any regular cyclist in norit should know this is the junction of the orange pedal way and the marit’s way so it’s it’s quite a junction for cyclists we leave
The marit’s way just before it goes under the bridge which carries mile Cross Road over the top and there is this little bit of cycle track shared using of course cuz this is Norwich known as Taylor’s row which takes us up the slight Hill to join mile Cross Road at ha’s Road
C so when we eventually reach ha’s road we come to the only real problem as exists at the moment with this route which is what to do about M Cross Road and you’ll see ahead is a dirt track across the grass Verge there now that’s called a desire line path because that’s
The way a lot of people obviously want to walk and cycle it’s unofficial and a bit muddy so we won’t go that way we’ll follow the road we’re supposed to take which means Crossing mile Cross Road and it’s no surprise that people ride on the pavement here this is really quite a a
Dangerous area and if you are following this route I would obviously advise that you follow the muddy path maybe you notice on the right hand side the muddy track ends at just the point where we turn left so what’s needed then really is just a cycle track following that
Muddy track but perhaps better would be to build a cycle track on this side of the road on that grass Verge over there going down this side of the bridge and joining marot’s wav that you could cycle under the bridge and never have to ride on the road
So we turned left into valpy Avenue and we’re now on quiet roads M Cross Road is climbing quite a steep hill on its way up to Alin Road and this route does it in a series of gentle bursts and then we turn right into Dolson Road and it’s a noticeable but
Fairly gentle climb the mile Cross Estate was built in 1923 so it celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2023 one of the nice things about it is it’s designed for walking and cycling but what it means is we’ve got some routes through which cars can’t use and when we
Get to the top and turn right into Wheeler Road we come to the first of these of course these days people do have cars and sometimes they can be parked rather annoyingly but there is room to get through and then we come to the Drayton Road this is quite a busy
Road so you’d have to be a bit careful but there is a center Island for crossing and we get across and we get the first of the little cycle tracks which is nice that barrier is a bit of a pain but it’s probably there to stop
Anybody going a bit too fast from going straight into the road and we zigzag our way up a fairly steep bit of Hill and then along a fairly narrow but adequate section of Sher cycle track we are still going uphill here but it’s not too Steep and of course being uphill in this
Direction means it’s downhill in the other so you do have to be a bit careful about your speed when you’re coming down the other way eventually we get to the top and turn right into Saleem road if I’m pronouncing that properly salame road is still slightly uphill but it’s quite gentle and
Breaking the ride up like this does make the whole hill easier to climb after a short while we turn left into Burg’s Road and again it’s another slight uphill at the top we have to cross Margaret paston Avenue although not a terribly busy road
It is a through Road and so it carries a little a bit more traffic than most of the other roads but once over Margaret paston Avenue we’re in for a real surprise a traffic free cycle track the traffic free cycle track from the 1920s yes it is share juice but it’s
Surprisingly good dead straight slight Hill but otherwise it’s fine we even cross a couple of Roads admitt very quiet roads with probably some of the besty Crossings in Norwich I mean these is just brilliant but one really annoying feature about this whole route actually is there are numerous uh quite good blue
Finger posts that direct you to various places and most of them have been turned around probably by kids I would imagine but uh nobody’s ever corrected them so until they can be put right don’t follow the signs we reached the top of the hill and a Crossroads of
Cycle tracks we turn right into Peterson Road worth mentioning the running surface along here is terrible but we run into Peterson Road and follow that for a little while nice and flat no traffic don’t turn left not yet anyway if you did you’d end up back here or
Maybe at the next road on the left the road layout can be very confusing eventually you get to a huge roundabout which just seems well I don’t know out of proportion for the whole area really I don’t know why they built this but we take the first exit so this
Is Bloomfield Road which is nice and flat the hills we’ve climbed of course are just the hills you have to climb to get to alsam road but the way this route takes you is to zigzag up the hill which makes it much less of a slog going back the other way of course
It’s downhill and with so little traffic it’s so much nicer than mile Cross Road so nearly into the final stretch now we get to the end and we turn right into Ry Avenue Ry Avenue used to be a three road that connected directly into the junction of M cross road and alsan road
But at some point it was closed off so it’s a dead end now so pretty low traffic and it feeds us as I say Direct to the end of M Cross Road and the junction with alsan road so there you go there’s a way to avoid all the traffic on marcross road
The thing about this route is it’s all there there’s nothing to be built apart from the little bit down near Marriott’s way where we have to cross mile Cross Road but apart from that it’s all there all that’s needed is to tell people about it get some signage up repair the
Signage that is there and it’s good to go the second useful route through marcross is from opposite the crossing of Boundary Road by B andq through marcross to marot’s way this actually takes in about half the route that we followed to get to alsan road so we set off along the side of
Boundary Road following this not too bad share juice says cycle track now this is downhill but it’s actually not very Steep Hill so coming the other way is easy it’s a good run down the hill and there’s not too many pedestrians around either there should be a cycle track like this
Along the entire outer Ring Road that would be really useful this one only runs down the hill as far as the little park which we’re about to come to where we turn left now there’s two ways through here one of them is a foot paath only with no cycling sign and the other
One is actually a cycle track so that’s the way we’ll go bit Steep Hill here and we’re climbing back up the hill we just come down but it doesn’t take long to get up it pretty soon we get to B’s Avenue where we turn right so we ride on the road for a
Little while but like everywhere in Moss they’re not very busy so there’s not a lot of traffic basically fairly shortly we go past uh small shopping arcade on the left with a chip shop and then we turn left into Lefroy Road and we just follow Lefroy Road around the
Corner then we turn left into Clark close and down a little Cher’s cycle path and this brings us out on the big Nord Road directly opposite the entrance to the Norman Center which is where we go and just as we go down the entrance we turn right onto the cycle track that
Takes us around the side of the Norman Center and back to that crossroads where we turned right on the way to alsan Road in part one of this video we go straight across the crossroads of cycle tracks and we’re back on that cycle track that takes us down the
Hill as a point of Interest the tower you can see in the distance is the Roman Catholic Cathedral on Olan road which of course is just the other side of the wion valley and over the first of the side roads and then we start going down the hill
Over the second of the side roads and then down another Hill and then we come to marget paston Avenue a bit of traffic here so be careful but we go straight across and carry on going down the hill get to the bottom of Burgess Avenue and we take it right into selem Road
And then fairly shortly we take a left go down that fairly narrow cycle track uh do be careful about your speed down here it’s it’ be very easy to go too fast and there is a Bend so then we come out onto the top of the zigzag down the really steep bit of
Hill and we get to the annoying barrier which stops us riding straight into St in the road carefully as should cross here there is the central island so it’s not too difficult and then straight across into Wheeler Road then left into dson road and the last a good bit of
Downhill until we get to valy Road at the bottom where we turn left and head towards M Cross Road at the end of alpi road all you have to do then is to turn right into Mar Cross Road this is by far the worst bit of the whole ride
Actually and you might want to consider using the muddy desire line track through the grass Verge on the left hand side rather than riding on the road it’s not far till we turn left into ha’s road and then immediate right onto the little bit of sher’s path down to mer way
And at the bottom of the little bit of shared use path we come to the marot’s way and you’ve now got the clear ccle ride into the city or to join the orange pedal way or to go out towards hon so there you go two of the secret cycle routs of Norwich