After a lazy couple of weeks, I decided to get stuck in and do a metric century ride today, my November ride for the metric century a month challenge.
@Littgull was free and he decided to join me. It had looked as though the weather might turn nasty on us so we decided to give ourselves a break from relentless hills, and especially from relentless hills potentially covered in ice/slush and being battered by Arctic winds. I'm not a fan of the local valley roads, but we played safe and largely stuck to them today, but I had allowed for the possibility of doing some quieter roads later if the weather permitted ...
So, I rode to Littleborough to meet Brian, and then we rode back through Todmorden on the A6033 and took the A646 to Rose Grove on the fringes of Burnley. My route of choice from there these days is the Padiham Greenway, but I had thought that an ungritted path might not be a good idea today. As it happened, we had only seen one short stretch of roadside ice/slush on the way out so we gave the Greenway a go. Brian had not ridden it before and wanted to take a look at it ... It was fine, and he liked it.
He entertained me along there with a tale of how a naked elderly thug had recently threatened to batter him at his local swimming baths for daring to use a shower before the old guy had finished getting dry - *** gasp - the
cheek of it ***! Yes, the man was no longer in the shower by then. No, I don't get it! Neither did Brian, nor a witness who wondered what on earth was up with the irate pensioner ... My theory is that Mister Angry had been the local hard man and was struggling to give up his thuggish ways in old age.
We left Padiham by my preferred lanes route through Read and along the Old Roman Road. No ice anywhere. In fact, though conditions were chilly with a blustery wind, it was nowhere near as bad as we had feared it would be. We could have ridden 'over the tops' without too much difficulty, but it was nice to do an easy ride for a change.
We made a quick pit-stop at the Spring Wood visitor centre where Brian used my phone to take a blurred photo of the inside of his hand. I really don't think that seeing it would add much to your day, so here is a very slightly more entertaining picture that I took instead, of Brian standing in front of our bikes and with lots of leaves lying about. Ok, ok - I did say
'slightly more entertaining' - where exactly did I suggest that you would purr with pleasure, or wet yourself laughing!
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We descended to Whalley where I spotted a couple of cyclists sitting at outdoor tables, supping hot drinks and munching food. I stored that in my mental database, under '
Places where cyclists can buy food and drinks, and consume them [Whalley/Clitheroe area]' It is the kind of information that could come in handy one day ...
We rode on through Mitton and Bashall Eaves to Country Kitchen cafe in Waddington where we
bought delicious goodies and sat about eating, drinking and chatting found a big 'CLOSED' sign on the door - oops! I hadn't bothered to check opening hours because the cafe has always been open when I have gone there. Of course, I have only ever been there at weekends ... [It is open Wed - Sun and Bank Holiday Mondays]
We decided to head into Clitheroe to find an alternative cafe there. I'm sure that there must be quite a few but we didn't see one that we fancied on the way through. A quick search of my mental database for '
Places where cyclists can buy food and drinks, and consume them [Whalley/Clitheroe area]' revealed a recent entry ...
And so it came to pass that we found ourselves sitting at an outdoor table in Whalley with brie, cranberry and red onion paninis, buttered scones (with jam), and hot drinks. Ok, Brian - you can eat it now ...
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Suitably refuelled, we headed off up the Col de Accrington Road, once host to a titanic tussle between forum climbing legend dr_pink and would-be forum climbing legend potsy***.
It was necessary to make another stop at the toilet block at Spring Wood. You know what old men's bladders are like. (If you don't, they are like old women's bladders, only more masculine!)
Back up the Old Roman Road, Greenway and A646 to Todmorden, where I said goodbye to Brian as he headed back to Littleborough. I completed my metric century along the A646 to home. (101 km/63 miles.)
Many thanks to Brian for the company.
I only have one metric century to do in December and that will be my metric century challenge done for 2015. I only have 50-odd miles left to hit my mileage target, so that one ride would do the job, but I have several others planned before the
Bah Humbug! season kicks off. All being well, I will be a few percent up on my target.
*** Result: dr_pink at top of the climb, potsy somewhere near the bottom, making impromptu and entirely unconvincing 'essential' adjustments to his tyre pressures.
