Long Ride Out

After discussing various plans for this weekend Steve M and I had independently
decided to ride to Sideways Cycles today. It turned out to be a real slog, reminding me why I don’t really miss riding the road bike on roads that have a surface akin to pumice and getting buzzed by traffic – particularly on the return leg, where three separate Stagecoach buses that tried to take me out. Turns out it’s 68 miles according to Google Maps, but it felt like 100. My legs are really feeling it now.

The plan for tomorrow had been to ride from the Warden’s Hut at Sale Water Park along the Mersey to Stockport and then on to Marple and the Roman Lakes before returning home as a variation on the usual river run route? Not that I know how to link through to Marple from Stockport offroad yet. This is only a minor detail – I’m convinced that from Reddish Vale you can get through to Bredbury and pick up the Goyt Valley Way and then the Canal to Marple.

Given the amount of standing water and having taken a look at the section along the Mersey at Cheadle, I think I’ll follow Makin’s advice and postpone this route for another day. All in all the weather was nice quite warm for the time of year and it didn’t rain other than for a bit of drizzle on the way out of Manchester, think is the only interesting part of the whole route is riding past Jodrell Bank, the rest of it was like the sky. Grey and dull.