It was a small turnout at Chirk this morning: Anthony, Welsh Andy, Clive, Nick, Shane and myself. Anthony was just out for a coffee and, following Andy’s previous week of cycling in the Welsh Cycling Festival, he was going back to his much loved lanes and roads. Clive had a route to Wem and I had an option to go to Sleap. As it was such a nice day we thought lunch watching the aviators was a good option. In the end the ride was co-led by both Clive and myself.
Nearly all roads out of Chirk plunge out of the centre only for us to become acquainted with our bursting lungs on the steep little climb from the river upto Brongarth. We now set off for Gobowen on the super little lanes that Chirk delivers in spades in the summer. These same lanes (with sand and soil up the middle) become quite treacherous in winter hence the move to Walk Mill over the wetter colder months.
Riding past the large Orthopaedic hospital in Gobowen, it was encouraging to see a huge new building being erected. This hospital has served at least two of our members well in the past. We must have had a tail wind as the miles zipped under our wheels and we were soon through West Felton and entering Myddle. As we approached Myddle Nick sped to the front and announced he wanted to draw our attention to a feature. At the side of the road there are some sandstone rocks will peculiar markings - see photo!
These channels and what appear to be a series of depressions are part of the glacial water melt , running under the glacier and causing channels and small water falls thus the round depressions. Nick’s knowledge about this glacial deposition was both interesting and informative.
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| Dimples and channels made by glaciation |
Sleap airfield is only a stone's throw from Myddle and the sandwiches and drinks service was first class. There were a number of small aircraft taking off and landing and the cafe very quickly filled up.Understandably discussions over lunch were biased towards air travel, culminating in Clive’s story of his commercial flight nearly crash landing at Moscow Airport when on a business trip there.
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| A fine day at the aircraft parking area |
The return route on my computer would have taken us on the main road into Ellesmere , so remembering our last visit to Sleap, I asked Clive to navigate us back. Apart from a mishap in Tilley where the Network Rail guys had sellotaped / zip tied the gate to the crossing closed ( they sat in their vans and didn’t even have the decency to advise us the crossing was closed). Undaunted, Clive's homing pigeon senses routed us across another way and we were soon zipping upto Loppington.
My route , as previously mentioned had us on the main road to Ellesmere , but Clive had a cunning plan to go via Cockshutt , Hordley and up into Lower Frankton. The draw of the Ice Cream shop in Whittington Castle grounds was strong and we all availed ourselves of cold ices. Clive's suggestion of a downhill route to Gobowen and then a further plunge into Chirk was warmly received leading us arriving back in Chirk having covered 54 miles in glorious weather.
Thank you to Clive for co-leading and Shane and Nick for their company.
See route map and/or gpx file download
Steve H
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