Today's ride is meeting
at The Tea Rooms Café in Chirk so for me it was train assist.
Setting off from home it was heavy snow, although too wet to stick
but the forecast was to be a fine dry day after rush hour traffic!!
Nonetheless I had donned additional clothing!! Mistake.
Gathering at the café
were an equal number of riders for the Mods and Brisk groups. I had
circulated a route to Tilley and visit to The Raven Inn. Four brisk
riders, John, Nick, Steve and myself set of down Chirk Bank taking
the right turn over the canal and to Western Ryn. The road side along
this stretch was covered in snow, so it is lucky we are here this
week. Up and onwards towards Hengoed and then the top of the hill, before the
downhill stretch into Oswestry.
We
skirt the town via numerous streets to join B5069 passing through
Morda and crossing the A483 and continuing along the B4396. The route
along this narrow lane suffered heavy snow recently (see photo).
Passing through Ruyton X1 Towns then towards Baschurch, we pass
through the small but pretty village of Burlton where Nick has a
click from the wheel and stops to inspect it; meanwhile we continue
UP hill before realising we had a tailer! Back down the
hill then to find Nick getting ready to call home. Up again and
onwards to Loppington taking the route towards Tilley and Wem.
Arriving in Tilly and
the Raven Inn, we are met with a closed pub!! Oh well, we continue to
Wem where we are advised to try the Castle Inn, a Joules house.
Seating in the best and softest pews in the house, we are soon served
with drink and lunch. The Yorkshire pud and sausage was very tasty
and reasonably priced at £7.00.
We leave Wem via the
usual route the B5063 towards Northwood and Welshampton and Dudleston
Heath. While approaching a right-hand fork, we have a peloton cock-up
culminating with Steve hitting a pot hole, curb and finally landing
on the deck. This results in a front wheel flat. All the tools are out,
and we are soon performing a precision pit stop repair stripping the
wheel and inner tube out only to find Steve’s replacement as holey
as the original.
A new replacement was donated and tyre refitted. Due to John's meticulous fitting of the
tyre to the wheel, the fit was exactly as it came off. Once the inner
tube inflated, we noticed the tube popping out of the side wall!! Off
again, and emergency boot patch fitted. Thank heavens for these easy
fit solutions.
Ready to roll onwards
again through St Martins, we then negotiate the very busy Lord Morton
roundabout to head towards Chirk. Passing the Poacher inn, we take
the canal route passing over the viaduct into Chirk. We are beaten
back to the café as the Mods are all sitting in the window seat
awaiting our return.
A distance of 49 miles
round trip with a 2087 ft of ascent at an average of 15.2 mph. A very
enjoyable route covering some new lanes and revisit of old territory
with good companions to ride with; plus a new lunch stop at Wem.
ID
Photographs by John M
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