It seemed as good a time as any to take a pic.
Tony and I had met up with Andy . We rode up from our end of town , meeting him at the little Rivi infant school .
Bit of everything , weatherwise, today. Cold and damp first thing . Lots of rain overnight , so the ground is thick and claggy .
Anyways , about halfway up the industry standard gardens climb , the heavens opened with hail .
We were right at the seven arches bridge , so we sheltered underneath , for 5 mins , or so.
Possibly due to the intensity , the hail didn't last.
On to the industry standard capitalist oligarch Victorian folly.
My spellchecker is insisting I capitalise Victorian. Bastards.
Weather quite nice now.
Descent off the back , ( industry standard ) , super tasty .
We've had a heap of rain , so the back is very slippyslidy , and very rutted . Halfway down , a line change spelled imminent disaster , but I hung on and nailed it .
From the bottom we head up towards ' Two Lads ' , via the Humphrey's Ditch climb.
Often a very slippyslidy climb , but I dunno , maybe we had soooo much rain , the top surface is fairly washed away , revealing the stones underneath , offering a modicum of grip .
Still lost the back wheel halfway up .
How nice ?
At the top of ' Two Lads' , thanks to the government's efforts with Quantitive Easing , the finite amount of cobblestones that make up the two cairns , have been rearranged to make 3 .
The third cairn takes it's value from the other two , thus devaluing the whole.
The Descent down to the kennels was ace , also,I guess, due to the weather of late . Slippy rutty , with the big drops a little bigger than the last time .
Slipped a slippy pedal , but hung on to nail it.
From here we head back to take in the industry standard ' Ice Cream Run'.
Just super dooper . Washed away , exposing the under surface . Just enough to keep you on your toes .
Nearly lost it near the bottom, Slippy bit , but hung on to nail it.
We split off from Andy at the back of the barn.
Tony and I head along the bottom path . Again , very wet , but just look at it ....
 |
| Tony in the distance |
At this juncture , we took the ridiculous short drop to the road through the trees. Urg.
Tony was up to his brake disc in mud.
So , heading back . A short roadie hoof , through Blackrod / Little Scotland , to take in Haigh Hall .
Guess what ? Bone dry .
Yea , right .
Still , dead good . Old school , slippyslidymuddyboggy , and then the canal back home .
Tony endomondo'd it . When we split off , with both of us with a couple more miles to do , it was on 34miles .
A good spin then .
NEXT WEEK : REMEMBERANCE SUNDAY LOCAL EPIC.
I've pondered the proposed route . I was hoping to do a circuit up to the TV mast at Winter Hill , to get to the war memorial at Leadmines for 11.00 .
THEN , head over past Roundloaf to Great Hill . Unless we get an autumnal heatwave , it's probably not a dead good idea to bog yomp it across the moorland . We'll see eh ?
I have wellies.It's not like it hasn't been done before.
The industry standard route to Great Hill( Long road descent to White coppice / mini BC woods ) will be a better bet , but that part of the circuit would then be out-back.
It's mapping at about 20 miles from the barn rd carpark.
Great if you can make it .
