Rose Farm was the meet venue for
today’s extremely hot affair. There was roughly 10 of us, I think, with DM
arriving by bike as we were getting ready to leave. I guess the ‘red weather
warnings’ frightened many away.
However, I had planned a very specific
route that not only exploited the wind to our favour but also half of the lanes
used were almost totally shaded by over-arching trees, which convinced TT2
(Teflon aka Toby ,now the ‘Prof’-Lol), ‘The thief’, who rode over to RF with me, Clive
and Rapha Ray.
We set off right downhill with the
breeze. However, I had shortened my original route by 5 miles, at the last
minute, after a few discussions, in order to gain more shade, but more hills as
a consequence- Lol. Some of us who rode to Rose Farm were literally dripping in enthusiasm
and desperately needed the customary lengthy roll call and discussions about
what route to follow-Lol.
So it was that we meandered slowly up
through to Kelsall, instead of Barrowmead. It wasn’t long before we hit the dark
and very cool Langley Lane. I heard somebody remark that it felt almost chilly,
through the tunnel of trees, they didn’t even notice it was up hill-Lol. We were soon turning
right on to Ashton Rd, up through Delamere Forest and more shaded roads. It was
nice to see the major road works at Hatchmere were gone, although Keith had
already tipped me off to that.
In to the bright sunshine for a mile
or so, through Norley, before turning right into another uphill shaded
lane-Lol. After
2 miles of my favourite Gallowsclough Lane, it wasn’t long before we descend
the ridge line and turned right in to that “back door lane”, to
quote Clive, which lead us into the Whitegate Way, which is of course
completely under the cover of trees- Lol, Lol.
Anyway, 4 miles or so later we arrived
at the Station House cafe, for our planned stop. Somewhat earlier than usual,
after only 15 miles. The predicted record high temps and the H&S warnings
from our diligent De-Facto leader, pretty much convinced us all to stop early,
especially as we had done a fair bit of climbing. However, the Station house
was closed, with no indications as to why.
This did not bother me at all, as my back up of ‘The Barn’, at The Hollies farm shop, only 3 miles further on, is a favourite of mine. Despite some discord in the ranks; “bit expensive” and “blah blah blah”-Lol, we set off for said Barn, due to no alternative being available in fact. This prompted some discussions en route between me and Clive as we pedalled Shays Lane towards the Chester Polo Club. He came come up with an interesting idea- more on that later.
There was soon lots of happy faces, once ensconced in their breakfast bar seats under very cool air conditioning - “You don’t get this at the Station House” was my immediate comment -Lol-Lol. “ok yes”.
5 pinging /flashing table tags later,
we were all served and commenting on our food, especially my Hallumi / Avocado,
sweet chilly jam muffin (lush-Lol). Conversation was varied, although the all-time
record heat levels, as we all no doubt later discovered on the news that
evening, frequently interrupted the flow of conversation.
That’s my way of saying that I can’t
remember a word of anything anybody said-Lol-Lol-Lol.
All suitably refreshed and fed, we set
off towards Oulton Park, which was perfect for Clive’s suggestion about a cafe
on the inside track of Oulton Park. So, as the main entrance bridge was open,
we rode in over the track for a gander.
Not a lot was going on, not even a
‘track day’ no flashy cars around, just a few super RV’s, as the Americans call
them. Cafe
spotted, we turned around and left the circuit via the same bridge, turning
left towards Eaton. I resisted the urge to take the next left and cycle around
the perimeter of Oulton Park, which is more usual for me.
After a few miles we were through
Eaton and turning right in order to skirt around the south of Tarporley and
push on down to Brassy Green. This was the logical place for us to split up for
our various homeward journeys. ‘TT1’ and I turned left down to The Shady, while
the other 3 carried on to Huxley and their onward Chester suburbs. We both
cruised up to Beeston, although one of us cruised up a little faster than the
other and it wasn’t me - Lol.
After a few more miles along Bird’s Lane,
we turned left to circumvent Tattenhall, via Dark Lane and Bolsworth Road. I
left Shane at the foot of his climb toward home at Stretton and I turned right
to Frog Lane, getting home 2 miles later just after 1:30- ish, with 45 miles
under my belt. The actual club route was just 28 miles which at least included
some work getting over the Sandstone Ridge- Lol.
Another great day, if a tad hot. I did see 40 degrees on the Garmin,
although that was in the sun. As usual we had some cracking laughs and some.
Interesting anecdotes from TT1 And of course, even more interesting ‘snippet’s’
from The Prof -Lol.
Till next time gents,
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