Road – R O T H A R . C O M

That was windy

Decided to head south and pick up the disused railway line that turns out to be the Trans Pennine Trail that you can join from the road between Sefton and Maghull. It would be fair to say that the surfaced section didn’t last long before it became smooth trail and then Singletrack.

Trans Pennine Trail on the Sefton Moss

Came back onto tarmac and headed across to Ormskirk, picking up the quiet A59 and heading up towards Preston. Ended up passing Martin Mere having explored a few route options that descended into private gravel roads.

Chuffing windy ride all in all – really suffered on the final push across the moss to Birksdale. Saw loads of chain gangs out during the ride.

Blast and Scout

Cashed in some banked hours at work and did a recce ride south, out towards Spennymoor and then into a loop back into Durham from the south west. Spennymoor looked okay, colleague at work said: “No, you don’t want to live there. I worked there for 20 years and couldn’t wait to escape.” Few other areas looked reasonable.

That evening, driving home I decided to explore some other areas. Weardale had some appeal, yet the 20 mile drive strikes me as a mission during the daily commute. Fab once you get there and some epic driving roads in that part of County Durham. Whether we live thee or not I can see some weekend and evening driving happening. Check out the views:

County Durham
Out of Stanhope towards Teesdale