About fifteen club members turned up at Rose Farm café on a
bright, sunny, but rather chilly winter morning. Dave H and Clive were in
civvies, the former making good progress with his new hip and the latter with
his hand in bandages following an operation to cure 'trigger finger'. Jim was doing
his own thing and Dave M was going home (as usual) as was Andy B, who had ridden in from Mold. Neil was gathering a posse
to go scouting around the Sandstone Ridge and that left Keith, Trevor and myself.
Trevor is just back from holiday, so he hadn’t been on the bike for three
weeks, but said he would join us for a while.
I had two options, both of which would go south so that we
could benefit from the southerly wind on the way back. One was to Overwater
Marina near Audlem and the other to the Bhurtpore at Aston. Neil suggested that
the marina would be cold because the wind was now picking up, so the Bhurtpore
(or Bhurty as it’s called these days) was our chosen destination.
We set off along the familiar and well-trodden route via
Cotebrook, around Oulton Park and on to Wettenham. Progress was ‘steady’ to allow
Trevor to get his legs working and also because of the headwind we faced for
much of the time. The roads were dry and quiet except for the odd enormous tractor/trailer
thundering down the lane. Just south of Cholmondeston, as we were approaching
the small bridge over the Shropshire Union canal, a big artic came over it,
causing Trevor and I to stop. Fortunately, there was just enough room for to it get by without wiping us out.
After successfully negotiating our way through the edge of Nantwich
we pressed on through Ravensmoor. At Wrenbuy-cum-Frith, the road was closed due
to flooding and workmen were busy sorting things out. The diversion was along
Wrenbury Heath Road to Sound and the A530. Not fancying this, Keith went to
talk to the roadcrew and persuaded them to let us carry the bikes through the
works. Having made our way through the mud, we pressed on to Wrenbury on a
traffic-free road – very nice! We arrived at The Bhurty about 12.40 having clocked
19 miles.
The pub was fairly quiet that they soon found us a table.
Food and drinks were soon ordered from the very pleasant waitress and we were
soon tucking into curries( Trevor and me) and a baked potato (Keith). Conversation
revolved around Trevor’s recent holiday in South Africa, where he saw all the
big animals except for the leopard.
Suitably refreshed, we paused only for the group photo
before setting off for home. The bridge across the Llangollen Canal was open,
so there was a queue of traffic. Trevor had never seen the bridge open before,
so we found our way to the front of the queue, only to find that the bridge was
now almost closed.
Our return journey took us via Brindley, Bunbury, Beeston Castle and The Shady pub next to the canal. Trevor left us at the top of Bates Mill Lane to head home and Keith and I pressed on to the mayhem that is Tarporley High Street at school letting out time. Arriving back at Rose Farm at about 3.20, we’d clocked up 38 miles at a moderate pace of 11 mph. Trevor must have done nearly another 20 miles as he’d cycled to Rose Farm from home, so a great effort for his first time in three weeks back the saddle.
Another winter ride on a dry and sunny day. How lucky we’ve
been with the weather on Thursdays this year (except for last week!).
ST
No comments:
Post a Comment