8th March 2012: Tremeirchion (mod)

The group consisted of Clive, Dave H. Dave and Liz P, Ray, Andy, Tony and Jim.

It was decided to head for Tremeirchion for lunch and we set off in bright sunshine and a slight headwind as we approached Northop.  Up the hill through Halkyn and along to Pentre Halkyn where a slight mis-calculation took us onto the old main road at Holywell.  We were going to take it anyway but we just weren't quite where we expected to be.  Clive and Ray had by now gone on ahead to rendezvous with Mike G who had pedalled out from his summer lodge overlooking the sea to join us.  The main group continued through Gorsedd and Pant y Wacco, back over the A55 to pick up the lane down to Tremeirchion for lunch.  Clive, Ray and Mike had already arrived and as we had only done 20 miles Dave and some of the others decided to keep going to the bottom of the hill so that they could ride back up again to the pub!

Despite being short staffed the food was served fairly speedily and we were soon pedalling slowly and steadily back up the hill.  A right turn at the top took us through Babell and Windmill though by now the wind was behind us so the hills by the quarries didn't seem as horrible as usual.  Mike left us at this point and we set off downhill back to Northop.  Here the Chester riders branched off towards the coast and the greenway while the rest of the group continued to Hawarden.

An excellent day out covering about 40 miles or 60 plus from Chester.

See route map and/or gpx file download.

JD

The extended ride

Ray and I steadily accelerated away from the main group after the Britannia Inn.  The plan was to follow the same route to the Salusbury Arms at Tremeirchion but just past Lloc we came across Mike G cycling towards us.  He was out from Prestatyn.  Since we were quite early, he suggested a meander via Rhuallt to the pub and a very pleasant meander it was too.  On the return we rode with the main group all the way back to Northop and then four of us (Ray, Andy, Tony H and I) veered down to Connah’s Quay and the greenway back to Chester.  The circuit from Chester was about 60 miles.

See route map and/or gpx file download.

CA