Just a short ride today
.... went over to meet up with @
TeeShot for a leisure ride around the East Cheshire country lanes. Luckily he hung around long enough for me to get there some 15 - 20 mins late because of a) it just being one of those mornings, b) stopping to take a photo and c) a slight navigational mistake of letting Garmin plan my route and not double checking it... and finally d) heading off in completely the wrong direction when trying to deal with a Garmin Edge 500 that does not seem to want to deal with the concept of someone not sticking rigidly to the route...
I set off in beautiful sunshine and clear skies, but it was still that early that wearing a black top & black bib tights was not a good move, so over to glow in the dark hi-viz waterproof which was doing a superb job of looking like it is radioactive, but on the brightside of things no-one was going to miss be, which was good news because Northwich was chocker and cycling up the wrong side of the middle white line (when there was no oncoming cars that is) soon became my only option for making any progress on getting to a right hand turn I wanted...
Much more progress was made and stress levels dropped once I had left Northwich. I even had a really nice driver of a black BMW stop and give way to me when it was his right of way along a lane where the cars all park on one side and you play the "how far can I get before I have to pull back between parked cars game". I even checked behind me to see if there was another car, but there was not. He got a big smile and a wave thank you.. Once I had gotten out into the due east country lanes I was to follow up and over the M6 and onwards right up until a wonderful "No Through Road" signpost... ***** various swear words muttered very loudy and phone gotten out to examine map software to see what the alternatives were - a length detour which was going to make me late. My new Garmin then decided to not give me the breadcrumb trail of what I was doing and where my 'course' was and pretty much crashed from a course point of view... then I made a fatal mistake at a junction in the road and headed off south instead of north and soon found myself looking at a sign that read Rudheath. More swear words were said, because I knew where that was and it was much closer to my parent's home that I should have been and also A50 Kidsgrove is not the most inspiring signage when you are trying hard to get to somewhere near the A34 near to Macclesfield/Congleton.... About turn and try again...
View attachment 35938
I did finally make it to the RVP, where luckily @
TeeShot had hung around waiting to see if anyone else would turn up. I had pretty much made up my mind that if I had missed them I would just cycle the route anyhow given the weather was so nice getting out there. It had by now clouded over but the rain held off until midday, and then was only a brief sharp shower. We nattered and did the standard cyclist things, covering some of the roads I had already cycled this am, but mostly covering newer roads - we even found a wonderful section of single track lane that has recently (2 weeks ago) been resurfaced for miles and miles which was bliss to cycle on! Lunch at Jodrell Bank followed and then off again onto new roads to me... We soon came to our parting point, and after saying goodbye and thank you, I headed off in what was initially the correct direction...
but somehow I thought cycling into a head wind and towards the sun was better than following my Garmin course and it may have been, but it did not take me where it should have done. A lengthy examination of the road options left me with a couple of miles to do on the A50 which to be completely honest, was actually fine - it was the big wide section where there is plenty of room to overtake and before it narrows I had turned off down more country lanes/rat runs and found a way home that I knew. 55 miles (88km) found me still on the wrong side of the M6 so I stopped at a village post office to purchase some water because I was running very low at this point. 1/2 L should see me home OK, so I thought. At least from here I knew the roads and shouldn't get lost... then I started to work out the distances... there is a strava challenge that is 130km for a single ride and for a while I considered exactly how far lost I would have to get to manage that... from my original course, it should have been 40km more, but with the distance I ended up doing, I was left with only 21km from the target, but I knew I was too tired and needed to get home, wash my bike down and get ready for tomorrow's 43 mile commute... so home it was, but it is my first metric century since Easter last year, so I am quite please, even if I am knackered...
http://www.strava.com/activities/105100883
@
TeeShot - thank you and if you can put up with my pace, I would love to ride with you again sometime soon!
. Great riding in your neck of the woods too. Stiperstones and the amazing descent into Church Stretton are more great descents I remember fondly, got film of those badboys too. Lots of huffing an puffing getting up there but the down hills made it all worthwhile.
