29/5/22
Not been out for a week or so so today’s the day. The Linear needs using. I hoped to get to Malpas or at least to No Mans Heath today as part of my plan to build up my daily mileage. The weather has been unpredictable -wet first thing, sunny intervals but varying amounts of cloud. A bit of a cool breeze too. A headwind, though not as strong as last time and I’d hoped that it would give some assistance on the way back.
I packed a cold drink and some snacks, checked the tyres and made sure I had the right tools. I set off about 2pm, launched uneventfully and got under way. I had on my least scruffy shoes, decent casual trousers, a t shirt and a dark blue fleece top with useful pockets. A grey cap (originally black) and my ancient track mitts completed the ensemble. The wind was in my face, unpleasantly cool under a frowning grey cloudscape. I set off on Wettenhall Road and unusually followed a small car through the lights on Wettenhall bridge, pedalling furiously to keep up momentum up the other side. This was a good start so I tried not to waste it despite the annoying head wind. I certainly was feeling a bit warmer. Keeping up a good pace, I would have expected to have been passed by now. Not so many cyclists about today. Once I’d come out of the shelter of the hedges I struggled with the wind until I reached Cholmondeston, under the railway bridge, over the canal bridge then left into the marina for a pit stop. Parked outside the toilet, took a leak, leapt on and hit the road again.
No ice cream or photo this time.
Again, while the road was winding about sheltered by hedges progress was good but once the road straightened and allegedly sloped downhill progress was disappointing against the wind. Passing through Poole a couple on a tandem came the other way up the steepening hill. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Linear was longer than the tandem but we didn’t stop to compare notes. I was strangely pleased to see someone else riding something out of the ordinary and they certainly smiled at me. I got into high gear and made the most of the downhill to the bridge then turned right soon afterwards into a lane for Poolehill. Progress improved again out of the wind though it was pleasant enough to encourage me to dawdle along. I came alongside the Shropshire Union canal and I was tempted to follow the towpath as it was heading in my direction but I spotted a banner advertising a fishing competition, and there were obviously anglers at intervals so it would have been slow progress.
I came to Henhull bridge on the Chester/Wrexham road where there is a T junction. Last time traffic was light and I was able to make a right turn over the hump of the bridge without incident but there was more traffic today, so I carefully turned left for a lay by just down the road where I could turn back up the road with a better sight line. Then I heard a squeak of tyres behind me and I got a torrent of abuse as a car went past. It’s unusual to hear tyre noise in this age of ABS and traction control. The car was a BMW. What is it about BMWs? What sort of speed might he have been doing? I carried on into the lay by, turned round so that there was a good view of the traffic and launched back over the bridge. There was a clear sign warning of the junction from the other side. I carried on to a set of traffic lights, turned left to Acton then right into Monks Lane past St. Marys church. I was curious about the moat or earthwork shown on the map which I couldn’t see last time but there was a high hedge along that side of the road with no gaps, so no luck today either. What there were plenty of today were crows. Every time I passed a patch of woodland there they were calling to each other.
I carried on along Monks Lane down a long dip and up the other side to a crossroads, straight across the A534 then stopped at a lay by on a junction with Swanley Lane and Ravens Lane. I stopped for a brief break and nibbled a choc bar.
On I went down Swanley lane. The trend seemed to be uphill in the direction I was going, not helped by the head wind and I saw my average dwindling away. It took longer than expected to cover the distance I’d estimated on the map. I passed through Chorley And came to a T junction with Wrenbury Road where I turned right, downhill then uphill across the A49 to Cholmondeley.
This started with a nice downhill but as I went further it certainly looked downhill but definitely didn’t feel like it. I was surrounded by the large trunks of a mature pine forest with purple Rhododendrons everywhere, probably part of Cholmondeley Castle estate. The cool piney smell and the calming sound of the wind in the distant tree tops should be available on prescription.
I came to the entrance to Cholmondeley Castle Gardens, took a photo and carried on.
I reached the turning for Malpas but on looking at the map it goes a long way West before going South so I turned back to take a turning I’d previously passed for Bickley. It certainly was downhill back to the turning and I was tempted to carry on freewheeling but that way madness lies (and more uphills).
I turned for Bickley and found a very pleasant route through the lanes. Compared with the efforts I’d had to make up to now it was as if someone had turned down gravity a couple of notches for me. The uphills felt easy, the lanes were narrow but with no traffic. Eventually I came to a minor junction and the signs gave me the option of going to No Mans Heath down a long hill or the wimp’s option of turning back in the direction of Wrenbury on the flat. Despite time going faster than I’d planned, I pressed on in the direction of No Man’s Heath down a long hill to a T junction then right down a short hill. Then followed one and a half miles of of up, varying in steepness but I wondered how much further it was going to go on for by the time I reached the summit. At the top I could see a staggered junction with the A41 with a cycle path making the junction straight across for cyclists -a benefit of being on the Cheshire Cycleway. I carried on downhill on the other side until I reached the signboard for No Mans Heath.
I pondered whether to continue to the bottom of the hill then climb out on the road to Malpas just for the sake of it as it was only a couple of miles. I was aware of time galloping by and so reluctantly took a photo and turned back up the hill to the A41. I wasn’t too sure how much climbing it might take to get back to the A49, no matter how harmless it might look on the map. I enjoyed the long downhill to the bottom then stormed up the other side. Fortunately the climb on this side was more of a series of climbs, summits and dips gaining height in manageable stages and letting me build up speed before each step. I came to the A49 sooner than expected and then regretted having not pressed on to Malpas as it wouldn’t have taken as long as expected.
The lanes on the other side of the A49 aren’t well signposted and it is easy to take the recommended route which involves a loop of several unnecesary miles to the south of the more direct route to Wrenbury. It’s fine if you want to dawdle about and enjoy the lanes, not that I’m some thrustingly motivated mile muncher, but I just wanted to make up time. I took the first left turning into a lesser lane from an already small lane and just followed it. These buttercup type flowers are everywhere this year, in all the hedgerows.
Several motorbikes passed me in the opposite direction soon after I turned on to this lane. They didn’t seem to be together but in separate groups. It was here that I started having strange sensations of unreality. I swiped at a fly that had landed on my face and it felt like someone else’s enormous hand. I carried on for a bit and then stopped to look at the map. It seemed right, just carry on for a few miles until I reached Gaunton’s Bank, turn left and I would be on the road to Wrenbury.
Meanwhile the sensations of unreality increased. My feet started disappearing from my peripheral vision and sounds started to take on an echoing quality. I haven’t had an episode of Migraine while out cycling for many years but this felt like one coming on. I fumbled in my bag for the Migraleve tablets which I always carry and took a couple. I carried on, hoping to find a bench to sit on while I recovered. My vision began to shimmer and brightly coloured geometric patterns began to appear.
Fortunately this time they were only in the periphery of my vision. I could see to get by, by constantly moving my head. It was fortunate that it happened on a quiet lane.
A white 4 X 4 came the other way with LED running lights and they were positively painful. If I look at lights during an attack they really hurt. I turned into a remote farm gateway, parked up, and leaned on the gate for a while with my eyes shut. If I take the tablets quickly enough the visual disturbances disappear in 20 minutes to half an hour and I don’t develop a debilitating headache. Otherwise it will run a course of several hours with a grinding headache with pain above either eye, nausea and a host of other horrors.
Fortunately my visual disturbances began to clear, and the nearest thing I had to a bench was the Linear, so I sat on it. When you sit on it, you can’t help wanting to ride it. So I rode it in a leisurely manner, and found it comforting. Despite all my other faculties falling apart during an episode, one thing that continues to function is my sense of balance, even if it means riding ludicrously slowly. I photographed a fingerpost that I couldn’t actually read properly though I made out that I was going in the direction of Wrenbury.
Soon afterwards I passed someone in a fluorescent jacket on a mobility scooter, dinging my bell. He said “hi” and waved, I waved back.
I came to the junction at Gaunton’s Bank and a cheery lady digging her garden said “hi” too. Not long afterwards I was able to confirm I was on the right route as the road came parallel with the Llangollen Canal into Wrenbury-Cum-Frith (which is probably too long to put on a fingerpost without risking poking someone in the eye).
I came to a T junction with the road that goes into Wrenbury over a lift bridge over the canal. I turned right then left into a canal yard as I’d spotted a Walls sign and thought there might be a shop open. I’d just got off when a mature woman with a windlass in her hand came up to me and asked if I knew how to open the lift bridge. I was amazed that anyone would think that I wasn’t someone who had recently lost their marbles and was in the process of finding them again but I suggested that these days you probably just need to press that button. She said she’d just pressed it and nothing happened, but pressed it again. A melodramatic beeping then occurred, all the traffic stopped at the traffic lights either side and the bridge lifted. Just with one word from me! I've obviously still got some influence.
I took some photos (a shame to waste the opportunity). I reflected that it’s many years since I took a boat up the Langollen canal but it was muscle power back then, either pulling the chains to open and shut them or frantically winding your windlass handle.
The boat went, the bridge closed and I crossed the bridge to find the shop.
Alas, it was closed so I pressed on into Wrenbury to try to find one.
I found the Post office and store, where I parked. A guy on an electric mountain bike got quite excited about the Linear, said he’d seen me in Wettenhall, how long did it take me to get here? If he meant he’d seen me today, I thought surely he could work that out? Myself, I was struggling to assemble enough words to ask for a packet of crisps and a Mars bar at the time. He kept asking about the bike, has it got two sets of steering, how do you balance etc. Normally, I’d have given him enough information to keep him going for a few weeks, but he had to make do with me showing that if you fumble about under the seat enough, the steering rod moves the front wheel so you can balance and steer. He seemed suitably impressed by that. I’m all for encouraging enthusiasm. But it’s unfortunate that he’d come across me when I’d run out of brain cells, and it would take a bit of time to fire up some more.
I set off with my Mars bar and packet of crisps hoping to find a bench or a wall to sit down in peace and chill a bit. This route back to Nantwich didn’t have much of anything once outside Wrenbury for that sort of thing but I was able to go quite well up and down the dips so I was motivated to keep on going. The anticipated following wind didn’t materialise at all. I finally found a field entrance with a row of what looked like giant Lego bricks across it, to stop fly tippers I expect. I leaned the bike and parked my posterior on one of them. My sight and perceptions were more back to normal by now, which was a very quick recovery for me. I crunched the crisps and really enjoyed the Mars bar, which I haven’t had since last year sometime. What an exciting life I do lead.
And so to launch. I was surprised to be in Nantwich in less than a mile, climbing over the steep canal bridge that announces that you’re there.
Then a leisurely downhill to Welsh Row, Welshmans Lane and across the Chester/Wrexham road (less crammed with traffic now) into Wettenhall Lane. As I couldn't cram in the photos of Welsh Row here is the Shropshire Union aqueduct leading to Acton and the old route to the Chester road.
Could have been a bit more level.
Where oh where is my following wind? It’s blowing in your face is what it is, mush, so deal with it, right? So I dealt with it, and accepted that my average for today what with everything would be somewhat ridiculous.
On climbing out of the first dip I got cramp above my knees after tearing downhill and trying to spin up it. What worked last time was to stop spinning and use a lower cadence. In theory, it gives your circulation more time to clear lactic acid or whatever in between power strokes. My knees don’t seem to have any complaints while doing this though it’s just a solution for when it happens. Maybe with more mileage this won’t happen.
This route with its wide open spaces, many potholes and no windbreaks is not endearing itself to me. I didn’t need to stop after my break before Nantwich until I got home, so things are improving, and my mileage was 41.43 miles today. I'll try over 50 for next time, though the ability to actually walk the next day might be an important factor.
*I felt quite good the next day!
Max 23.7, average -it’s somewhat ridiculous, distance 41.43miles.
Total Ascent:
836
ft
Total Descent:
835
ft
Start Elevation:
187
ft
End Elevation:
188
ft
Min Elevation:
122
ft
Max Elevation:
353
ft
40.6 feet per mile
. Note to self, if the forecast is for chances of rain and cool temperatures, wearing shorts is tempting fate, at least I haven't removed the mudguards yet.
i used to be able to hold evens for this sort of ride so when a guy whos a good 4 stone heavier rides away from you on a hill its WTF !
