3rd September 2015: Little Bollington (mod)

Chilly, but a bright start today so first time for the long-johns for me at Manley Mere. The start time came and went and then Steve H offered “The Swan with Two Nicks” and we were late away, except he didn’t have a route! So, recycling a lot of the outward Cheshire Cycleway Long Ride route, we i.e. Steve’s T and H, Dave and Liz, Mike G, Ray, Dave M, and myself, set off via Delamere, then down to Croxton, bound for Comberbatch. The ride is uneventful until we get to High Legh where I realise I need to look at a map to navigate the lanes down to the pub. It’s not far now as we pass the John Wesley monument under the M56. The pub doesn’t disappoint and the food arrives promptly. At 14:00 and after only 26 miles, we set off homebound via the Trans-Pennine Trail aka NCW62. This sounded like a “good idea" because it’s flat, bypasses areas of no outstanding beauty i.e. Warrington, and is new to most of us. Ivan had cycled this Merseyside route so I know we could get through.
So off over the trip-trap bridge, we edge round Dunham Massey to try to find the access to the trail. The OS shows a tiny lane, which then finds us gingerly cycling around the edge of a gas pipeline enclosure and then scrambling down a bank to finally get on the former rail track. Anyway it’s an adventure! The track is muddy in parts and there are groans from some riders about binding brakes etc but I don’t care since I’m on my winter bike with disc brakes. The signage is poor, and a few times we have to guess which is the right way through Warrington.

Photograph by Clive Albany

Here Steve T comes into his own and offers to lead us out of the mess. So ducking and diving through former industrial areas, we end up riding for miles along the side of the defunct St Helen’s canal and the Manchester Ship canal. We go past Ferry “marina” and Fiddlers Ferry power station before stopping to view the new coffer dams with their cranes, which are busily building the new Runcorn bridge. Steve acts as an excellent guide as we have to take a diversion around the works to access Runcorn Bridge. After two hours riding covering only 18 miles, we are now ducking and diving around Runcorn as Steve leads us out on yet another new way around the town. Steve drops off now as he is only 30 yds from home so we then run down to Costa in Frodsham. The way back to Manley is easy now and with 56 miles up, this has been a very interesting if somewhat novel ride. So, the day started out with no idea where we would go and ended up with 75 happy miles, yet without Steve T, we might still be finding our way out of Runcorn!
See route map and/or gpx file download.
CA