Campaign member Rob has ridden his bike 5.4 billion kilometers, and has shared the ride with us – and how it makes a lovely family afternoon out.

York’s Solar System Trail – on the family-friendly, car-free, flat, smooth NCN65 cycle path between York and Selby – is deservedly well-known and popular: a scale model of the planets that gives a vivid idea of the emptiness of space. 

But York has another, less well known, solar system trail. This one is on the University campus, a more compact 2.7km between the Sun and Pluto (compared to 10km on the other one). 

It’s a very nice half-day trundle, great for kids and families, and there’s a rather Dutch feel to it all. Partly that’s because of the flat car-free paths, partly the newbuild feel, and partly the reedy lakes amid uncluttered green plains. You could almost be on a polder new town somewhere in Holland.

Getting there from the Millennium Bridge is easy. Head east along Hospital Fields Road, soon arriving at a bikes-only path through the barracks and across a stray to the campus. Turn right and go down the ‘except cycles’ lane, and after you go through a wooded area, you’ll see some planets and the Uni’s observatory over on the left. This is the start of the trail!

The planet models are laid out by distance from the sun according to a scale of about 1 in 2 billion, so a cycling speed of 1mph is about four times the speed of light. However, the planet models themselves aren’t to scale (most would be smaller than a chickpea): they’re all the same size, about as big as a beachball. 

They’re also vividly coloured, richly textured, and new, replacing the former set in 2022. They’re also a bit more thiefproof, perhaps with the unauthorised disappearance of the previous Saturn in mind. 

The custardy Sun is next to the observatory. They do cool stuff here such as find planets in other solar systems. Maybe some of them might have intelligent life. (Insert your own political joke here.) Close by is grey Mercury, white Venus, and rich blue cloudless Earth, its continents looking greener and healthier than they perhaps are. Rust-coloured Mars is next, round the corner by the Psychology Dept.

A hundred metres or so away, between the Maths and Physics buildings, is gaudy Jupiter, Red Spot and all. Finding ringed Saturn, a similar distance away, through the maze of Uni buildings and over Lake-Geneva-like ponds isn’t easy, but the reward is the sombrero-shaped planet amid the country-house-garden vibe of Heslington Hall.

It’s a bit of a Star Trek eastwards to the full-Dutch scenery of Heslington East now. Uranus is next, a vivid blue, circled by a steel halo representing its own faint rings. Carry on campus-ing along more paths to Neptune – also bright blue – and finally ash-coloured Pluto.

You might be able to pick up snacks from the Uni bars or bistros, but if not, there’s a Nisa shop nearby. Before finding your way north and then back to town along the Foss Islands Path, you could have a look at York’s own banked velodrome, just beyond Pluto, and its neighbouring kilometre-long tarmac bike race track.

Maps

York University’s Solar System trail 
York to Selby Cycle path Solar System trail

You can read Rob’s other blogs on the both solar system rides on his own website;

https://e2e.bike/yorkshire-ridings/places/solar-system-2-yorks-other-unique-planets-model/

https://e2e.bike/yorkshire-ridings/places/solar-system-yorks-on-a-different-planet/