My parents got me a book of Manchester cycle rides for Christmas, so I thought I'd do one of them. It's a (as ever, adapted - intentionally or otherwise, I always end up changing the route a bit!) ride 16 in "Manchester Cycle Rides" by Neil Simpson, published by Haynes (Here).
The route I ended up doing is linked to above or from TinyURL.
The weather was due to be 'heavy showers' so I donned up in waterproofs and thought I'd risk it. (After much debate as to whether to wear cycle shorts underneath or not... I'm still horribly self conscious and won't wear them without shorts over the top, for example. Didn't take the waterproof trousers off though, so that wasn't a problem!) As it happened it was light showering for the first half an hour and then dry for the rest of the journey, fortunately. It didn't stop the inside of my waterproofs getting fairly sodden (I did begin to question the point of wearing them at this point). Every time I stopped I got cold (forecast said it was about 8 degrees) so I ended up not stopping to look at things too much.
It all started off so well, too. My problem is that I misjudged something fairly fundamental; the book said that the Trans Pennine trail was firm and generally well drained... well, it was wrong on the latter part. Between about miles 1 and 4 it was almost quagmire state - or at least very muddy, which not only made me a bit grubby (not a problem) but it slowed me down a lot. And knackered me. At points I reckon I could have walked faster. This just made me weary for the rest of the trip, which was unfortuante. However, I do have an MTB (albeit a cheap one) so the tyres helped...!
Progress was fairly steady. Got to Lymm (up a hill which was... fun) and over the Bridgewater canal (very steep (for me) bridge). Nothing much in Lymm apart from a cross and some stocks; had some fish and chips since virtually everywhere else was closed.
Coming back from Lymm... took the main road back for a bit (a smooth tarmac surface is much easier than mud to cycle on!) and took a slight diversion to the toll bridge over the Ship Canal at Warburton. A long slow slog up to the bridge itself but some quite nice views from the top. A massive 12p for cars. Free for bikes. Interestingly, Wikipedia says that the toll is not in fact for the ship canal bridge: "Warburton Bridge crosses the Manchester Ship Canal, which runs nearby, but although users must pay to cross, the toll is not charged for crossing the canal. It is in fact charged for crossing the old stone bridge which bridges the dried up bed of the River Mersey. It is one of the few remaining pre-motorway toll bridges anywhere in the United Kingdom."
Coming down again from the bridge (the same way) I hit about 25mph but then lost my nerve as I was rapidly approaching a toll booth! Gah. Anyway, I pootled on after that, heading towards Dunham Massey as I'm a National Trust member; went under the canal (again) on the way. As it happens because I was on a bike they didn't want to see my membership card anyway (oh well) so I just popped in to have a quick look and use their loos/top up with water. Looks like they're renovating the house there.
From there, it was only a couple of miles or so back to the car; not too bad but there was another slow hill up past a golf course, which I struggled with a bit (but got there in the end in low gears!). Coming down the other side... well, I thought it'd be my chance to be able to break the speed limit on a bike! Unfortunately (again) I ran out of space before the road rejoined Oldfield Road and there were vehicles coming - so I had to slow down. Had the road been clear I think I would have got over 30mph but as it happened I peaked at 27.6. Close.
Got back to the car. As I mentioned above, because I was damp I got cold quickly. Stuck the bike on the car quickly, and sat in the (now warming) car for a few mins with my fleece on...
So, 14.4 miles; not too bad. I'm quite pleased that I can now do that sort of trip - not terribly fast (although my average speed was over 10mph, which could have been worse - particularly considering the slopes (which I won't call hills!) and mud).
