Another good turn out of CER members at Ness Gardens saw nine souls up for a ride out to New Brighton on a bright and sunny morning. I was a bit concerned that the usual crew of Clive, Steve Hu, Alan, Shane and myself had been joined by Elwyn, Fiona, Chris and Paul as the latter pair are capable of much higher average speeds than I can manage these days.
Nevertheless, we set off from the café, heading down to the path along the edge of the marsh to thread our way first through Little Neston and then Neston itself before wiggling through Lower Heswall and climbing gradually to cross Telegraph Road into Heswall itself. Who says there are no hills on The Wirral!
Then it was zooming downhill past the school to Irby where
there’s another wiggle to avoid the one-way system before we reach the
roundabout at Irby Hill where we swing left to head through Newton to pick up
the path that runs next to the railway line and the station at Hoylake.
Reaching the seafront, Fiona asks if this is New Brighton,
but I have to disappoint her as we’ve several miles to go before we get there. We
run along the seafront until we reach Meols, where we turn inland, crossing the
railway line just before a train arrives. Running along a road next to a housing estate,
Clive, who is now leading, suddenly turns left along a footpath and I nearly take
his rear wheel off as I follow him. This is a short cut that he’d spotted that
last time he’d done this route which saved a longer run through the houses.
We’re soon out of the houses and running along Leasowe Road –
straight into the wind which is now quite strong. Fortunately, I was able to
hide behind Chris and we were soon on the seafront running into New Brighton.
As usual, the Seaside Café offered their excellent fish and chips lunch which
comes with a cup of tea and a slice of bread. At £9.50 it still represents
great value for money, although only a couple of years back the cost was a mere
£8.95.
Leaving we headed along the promenade, running past The
Ferry pub at Egremont which has featured on the BBC tv series ‘This City is
Ours’. We paused a couple of times to take photos - Everton’s shiny new stadium at Bramley Dock and the Liverpool
waterfront – as this was all new stuff to Elewyn and Fiona.
Then we were soon wiggling our way past the Seacombe Ferry
terminal, the ancient priory at Birkenhead and the industrial delights of
Bromborough Pool. Approaching Eastham Country Park, Alan made slight contact with
a gate which pulled his front mudguard and had him on the deck, fortunately without
injury. After a few minutes sorting out the recalcitrant mudguard we were soon on
our way through Eastham Village and Willaston, arriving back at Ness Gardens
having covered 42 miles.
Congrats to Elwyn and Fiona who had ridden in from home, so
they will have clocked 70 odd miles on the day. Trooper of the Day award goes
to Clive who’d had a tooth extracted at 09.30, but had come out on the ride and
hour later!
ST
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