Tags
On a rather cold and extremely windy (make that: gales were blowing) day myself, bro Paul and fellow club member Joe met up outside the Manchester Velodrome for the November club ride, destination: Dunham Massey. Given how windy it was and that I’d struggled controlling my bike a little on the way to meet the boys, I made the suggestion that we alter the route. This was welcomed by all parties.
Paul suggested that we head along the Fallowfield Loop to lessen the potential of cross winds blowing us disastrously off course, so off we set out onto Alan Turing Way and across to Beswick, into cycle paths inundated with collections of leaves – a pile of which my bike decided it wanted to eat and promptly got a load of leaves mushed into the rear derrailleur and hanger and making the bike give up the ghost. Yelling to Joe and Paul that I had a flat tyre (this seems to be the only way to get them to stop if I have any issue at all), I spent the next ten minutes pulling out all traces of tree and ensuring that the chain would rotate without issue. Hmm, not even 5 minutes into the ride and things were getting oily!
Leaves out and we made the circuitous route to a trail (along an old disused canal which is now the trail) which would take us to the Fallowfield Loop, carefully avoiding the moss-strewn paving slabs and bobbing down onto the muddy trail as we passed the remains of an old train station – a very sweet stone archway now half buried under soil and plant life, and across a cobbled bridge over the modern rail-lines and back onto the muddy, leafy, root addled pathway past my Mom’s childhood home which was side on to the old canal, and out through Abbey Hey to arrive at a junction of trails. My bro and Joe stopped to have a think which way was the ‘on ramp’ to the Floop as I lovingly call it, while I just breezed past, yelled “up the hill” and promptly turned off to the left and raced off up the incline to wait for them at the top. Paul pootle his way up, Joe crawled up. Giving Joe a welcome breather (and peace from the off-road jaunts for a while) I gave Paul the Zero tabs I’d promised him and he set about sorting them into drinks.
Following the Floop out towards Ladybarn was made difficult by the winds which were blowing hard into our faces; and by hard, I mean HARD, but we made good headway and were soon crossing Palatine Rd to get to the other section of the Floop. A steep slick drop onto the trail had Joe a little worried as wet leaves had really plastered themselves to the floor creating a rather slimy slope. This section of the trail was more sheltered from the wind as its valley was much lower than that we’d just ridden along, so the going was easy and the banter flowed. When we popped back out onto the roads the going got tough. Very tough. At times the wind was blowing so hard that we were pedalling flat-out to go nowhere! Paul and I took it in turns to be up front leaving Joe to have the shelter we provided – he is a fair bit older than us, so we thought this was only fair.
When we arrived at Chorlton Water Park we contemplated having a brew and a rest from the wind, but though better of it as the only seating available was outside and the wind was rather cold, so we carried on regardless and made our way over to the entrance to the lake path. We hauled the bikes onto our shoulders and clambered across the stile while a family were struggling trying to get two kids bikes through a kissing gate and descended the hill to the sound of the kids shouting ‘woahhh!’ after us as we sped off into the distance. The off-road trail here was fairly dry and the only concerns we had was not running over pooches bouncing around or running into one of many joggers on their circuit round the lake.
About a third of the way around we headed off towards the Mersey and the muddy upper riverside trail. There was more mud and puddles than dry stuff and both myself (on the roadie) and Paul (on his Scott mtb) were happily bouncing along getting muddy and wet, while Joe got further and further behind as he tried to skirt the puddles and mud. We waited for him at Jacksons Bridge where it was a case of hike-a-bike again up the steps and across the narrow bridge (Paul rode across and nearly rode off the far end before he realised it was too steep), I slid down the cobbles on the far side and Joe got down just as badly as I did. Paul was waiting for us by the football pitch nearby watching the players spend more time slipping and falling over than staying upright. Did I mention it was really muddy on the trails?!
Heading down Rifle Rd was a tad precarious as we all had mud flying off various bits of us and the bikes and the road was slick with rain so we all slid about a fair bit, but we soon got to the cafe stop at Sale Water Park where Joe nearly fell over when he realised that it’s a vegetarian cafe. We managed to get him sorted with something akin to what he would normally eat, and we all were soon chowing down on some seriously tasty grub, discussing options for next years rides in between mouthfuls of food.
When we finally decided to drag ourselves back out into the cold and wind we thought we’d head back towards Northenden via the roads, but forgot to take into account that we’d have to go round two roundabouts connecting motorway slip roads to the motorways, but we got lucky in that there was very little traffic about, even though it was around midday; it helped that we cheated on one and scooted about the pavement, but the other we rode properly. Once on the ‘proper’ roads we soon fell into formation – Paul/me at the front, Joe bringing up the rear having an easier time of it – and rode quite happily along fairly sheltered road. It wasn’t until we were getting close to Wythenshawe Park that we encountered strong winds again which taunted us for the next two or three miles. It was actually a relief to stop at traffic lights every now and then just to not have to push into the wind; a huge group of mods on their mopeds passing by us didn’t help matters as I longed to have a motor helping me along at times. Don’t know about what the boys thought when they saw them.
Two miles of shelter followed as we once again rode along the Floop, this time the winds weren’t even getting near us which was good, but we had much more company along the trail than when we were heading out along it so the going was often stop-start. It was good to see a fair few cyclists along the trail too. Back on the muddy portions and we now had to contend with small branches that’d snapped off the trees so that made things fun – roots, mud, leaves, moss, branches, people – just a few things to try and avoid! Just a mere mile later and we were back to where we got onto the muddy trail at the start of the ride and I was expecting Paul to take us off here and back on road, so got a pleasant surprise when we carried on along the trail and found we were heading alongside the police training site in Claytonbrook and heading towards the canal. I knew that we’d have to climb a steep cobbled slop to get onto the bridge to cross the mini marina and I could hear Joe muttering that he was a little lost. I shouted to him that there’s the climb coming up and to be prepared for wet cobbles. I had forgotten, however, that there were bands of raised cobbles in with the normal cobbles (kind of creating speed humps) that enabled the horses to get up and over originally. I only remembered them when I bounced across the first one of them and by then it was too late to warn Joe as he was close behind. When I got to the top I was on Paul’s wheel and stopped to look behind me to see Joe had stopped partway up and walked as the top half had proved too much for him.
We had a brief rest for Joe before heading off again, slip sliding down the cobbles on the far side of the bridge and back into muddy fun. The going wasn’t too good for Joe as the lock climbs proved a little difficult due to wither being cobbled or muddy ascents, but he was soon heading back onto roads with Paul while I carried on along the mud run to my place another three or four locks further up the canal.
It’s a shame that the club runs are now just a trio of us, and usually the same three people riding, but we still had a good ride out.
Blurbage: route can be seen here
24.1 miles
577ft climbed
7% maximum gradient
02:10:03
