Winter is hanging on tight

This time last year we had a heatwave, in fact March was our summer.  But I think this year I'm hardier than I have been before. The cold conditions have not kept me off my bike or away from the hills. I must be living up to the tradition of the Rough Stuff Fellowship ahead of my appointment as Lancs Area Secretary - which I think means I can't chicken out on rides when the weather is bobbins.

Blacko Tower from Clarion House

For those people at work who said that I have a 'healthy glow' this week - it's just wind-burn from cycling & walking in minus conditions with wind speeds in the 30s and gusts in the 40s.






Two Rough Stuff rides, two hill walks and some grotty commutes have kept me in check this week. I have been toying with the idea of aiming for some Audax achievements this year, so I'm getting myself in gear.

Last week I took a day off to play in the hills over Rossendale & Bury, discovering bridleways I didn't know about before. From up so high you can see the weather coming in to get you! We got lucky only had a short bust of snow.

Spring had threatened to spring early this week...












But that all changed... 

Entwistle

Newchurch in Pendle

 It does make for lovely scenery though.

Pendle Hill

Descent to Downham

Whalley Nab, Waddington Fell & Clitheroe Castle

Llangollen

Llangollen, Denbighshire was the destination of the second weekend trip for 2013.  After the success of the Lakes, the weekend had a lot to live up to. 

Friday morning, laughing about being off work, we set off and had our lunch break in Chester. I've never been there before and had heard much of it's charming Roman walls. We walked along the walls to the River Dee (the river we would be stopping next to all weekend) to the castle.


We lunched at The Falcon. I was happy to discover it was a Sam Smith's owned brewery - 6 different Sam Smith's brews on tap. I will need to go back when I'm not driving!

We set off again destined for the tallest single drop waterfall in England and Wales, Pistyl Rhaeadr Falls. The road twisted and turned until we reached the end of the valley, stopped by the waterfall. The place was deserted, even the tea shop was closed.

The climb to the top had lovely views, not to mention patches of ice and icicles on the waterfall.  You can stand right on the top of the falls, in summer I suspect this would be an amazing picnic spot.

Saturday morning we woke bright and early to a beautiful sunrise, eager to get some peddling miles in. 

River Dee

I have wanted to visit the famous Telford Pontcysyllte Aqueduct since the first time I saw it on tv, so I peddled along the Llangollen Canal (Route 84) smiling into the sunshine. 

 














Stephen was much braver than me - he cycled most of the way across, where it took me until almost at the end to brave putting any pressure on my pedals. It was giddying!

We cycled down to Chirk, around the castle, then back on ourselves to a lovely lunch in a Victorian style tea room. We were seriously under-dressed for the place - I wonder if that's why the waitress kept giggling at us (not convinced my jokes are that good).  We admired the vintage Raleigh bikes before we set off for the long climb ahead.


We climbed up afew miles, to be rewarded by a view of the aqueduct we had just left, the viaduct and road bridge in the distance...

count the bridges... view from Garth

...we thought it was the top of the hill.... it wasnt ...

but when we rounded the corner at the top, the view that enfolded was better than we could have imagined.

I looked at the time, 3.30pm - I knew this would be a worthy sunset spot, so we spent two hours off-roading at the very tops over Trevor Rocks, watching our shadows lengthen.

 




















We watched the clouds come in... and thankfully some colours develop as the evening chill moved in. 

We had the road to ourselves by this point, so enjoyed a carfree/carefree freewheel down to the bottom of the valley on the twisty road. A perfect end to a day in the saddle. 





On sunday, we enjoyed a walk to Horseshoe Falls and then a wander round the town, enjoying plenty of the tastes on offer and picking up a Llangollen patch to sew onto the pannier. An ideal place to explore over a long weekend. 

RSF Tandem Guild Wheel Run

The tandem has had it's first proper Rough Stuff Fellowship ride. It has been christened (though still doesnt have a name yet).
Our RSF winter rides tend to be more in the Western areas of Lancashire (where it's a bit flatter) to avoid any adverse Pennine Winter Weather that might make a winter ride need to be cut short.  Although west Lancs winter rides can be very muddy, which can feel a lot like hill climbing... not on the Guild Wheel! The 21 mile route is well surfaced and signposted, so anyone can enjoy the route. 
Stephen & I have done the GW a couple of times already, so to make things more interesting we cycled to and from the meet, making a 45 mile round trip.

The lunch stop near Catforth

cyclists infront & more behind

For a cool, grey Northern day we had a great turn out and there were smiles for the whole ride.  Finally someone from my work took us up on the invitation to join a ride and I'm pleased to say that she was still smiling by the end. Phew.

Brian's pic of us all

One rider had come all the way from Derbyshire for the day! 

Other riders had cycled from Chorley and Southport. Cycle routes to the Guild Wheel are great from all directions (Sustrans mapping shows the National Cycle Network routes)

Brian's pic of S, me near the Docks

Brian's pic of W Lancs lanes

we said our goodbyes

After a leisurely few hours, we took the tandem back to the hills.  Last time we tried an off-road route home, which was not rideable on the tandem, so we tried a new route (to us) following part of the Lancashire Cycleway and were rewarded with some beautiful evening sunshine.

Lancashire Cycleway

It's slightly uphill

sunset looking towards Ribble Valley

February route planning

A trip planned to visit an old uni friend in Bolton spurred me on to plan a ride for The Rough Stuff saturday riders this weekend. Now, I dont really know Bolton all that well, so with the help of OS maps, Sustrans website and the spurious Cycle Bolton leaflet I came up with a general route that looked ok.
Thank goodness we did a test run the week before. We battled the cold heavy rain and soon discovered that the original route was not exactly suitable...

this was one of many sets of steps that we came across after consulting Cycle Bolton leaflet! I think it needs a hefty rewrite. 

Stephen & I arent strangers to a good bit of off-road riding and the original route left us both feeling like we'd had completed a big challenge after only 17 miles. Mind you the heavy rain did mean we were riding a bit faster than usual.

Back to the drawing board and after moving Google maps' little man down some streets we hadn't test ridden, I was mainly confident in my final plan.

Saturday morning arrived - over the tops it was foggy, but dropping down in to Bolton the sun broke out & what a lovely day. Eight riders came along for the leisurely ride.
We had a morning brew at Smithhills Open Farm before hitting the bridleway across the tops which looks down over the town centre and across to the Pennines over the other side of Bury.  The contrast in the weather from the week before was dramatic.

Rainy Bolton.

Sunny Bolton

After 2 miles of off road uphill, there is some fun smooth downhill through the picturebox area of Barrow Bridge - the area is incredibly pretty, however the fact that we've gathered speed on the road means none of us stopped to take any photos.  Then through a park where I saw a lady practising her unicycling skills!

We skirted part of Doffcocker Lodge then on to High Rid Reservoir which was a good mile of rough uneven cobbles. Stephen complained bitterly of his saddle sore & other people mentioned knees & concerns for other parts of the anatomy. We made it to the end of the cobbles all in one piece each.

Leaving Doffcocker Lodge

After a long wait to cross the busy Chorley Rd we free-wheeled down to Route 80 which runs alongside the football pitches where Bolton train, some golf courses and the railway & leads into Bolton centre via Queen's Park.

Route 80

After lunch we hit probably every cobbled street in sight back to the farm. Everyone agreed it was the RSF ride with THE most cobbles on!
After such a successful ride, something had to go wrong - we managed to lock the carkeys in the car. This resulted in a 60 mile trip to collect the spare key.

Really looking forward to plotting my next route. The feeling you get when the ride is a success & everyone has had a great time is brilliant!


The rest of February riding has also been highly enjoyable - a trip with panniers loaded with wine & cake over Hud Rake to my school friend's was brilliant - I managed that hill like it was a piece of cake in my work shoes & dress too. Stunning views towards the plain of Manchester all glistening far off & below made the hill well worth while. I'm hoping to go walking up to The Halo above that road one evening after work soon.

I also discovered how hard it is to ride my 60s road bike through the snow last week. After 8 miles of dry cycling to work, the last two miles had snow left over from the day before - narrow tyres make for very poor traction going up hill. It was good fun as that section is off road on a nice smooth cycle path. And my mudguardless bike was FILTHY when we got to work.

The rest of Feb is looking like there will be more riding fun, so fingers crossed for this good weather to continue.
 

January Snow

The snow arrived, just in time for our first weekend tour of the year. When I booked it, I'd just kept my fingers crossed that it wouldnt rain!
My goal for this year is at least one bike tour per month. Getting used to hill peddling with loaded panniers is going to be my least favourite part if this weekend has shown anything.

Windermere bound by train, after a bit of a false start we got there. Seems home in the Pennines have had more snow than the Lake District, but the national park had plenty enough of the white stuff to look stunning and the view on the road up to the hostel was picture perfect.

Toutbeck Lane

I'd planned to use a fellow Rough Stuff member's route for our first day of riding that would take us to Grizedale Forest.  We set off to the ferry to cross Lake Windermere and to the start of the route.

Despite the snow and cold, the roads were fine and felt safe, however as soon as we hit the first bridleway, we knew the ride would be a challenge - ice and compacted snow made for technically challenging riding, which was made even more difficult with loaded panniers - especially on the inclines. Carrying multiple bike-locks and flasks really weighed me down - after a winter of less riding than usual, my thighs were feeling it - something very unusual for me.

Esthwaite Water

After a brew stop beside Esthwaite Water, we ascended into the forest. Rising at points, but mostly pushing. The path that seemed most logical to cycle up was the path that any water had descended the route and had, of course iced up.  Lifting my front wheel over rocks was incredibly tricky with the panniers threatening to upturn my bike backwards...

But we made it to the top and thankfully less icey and more snowy conditions lay ahead. And Stephen managed to successfully get through an unexpected 10 foot stretch of foot deep ice water without having to put his foot down, phew.

A slow descent to the forest cafe had me giggling with every slide.  It took some significant concentration to stay up right. But it was great fun!
We pretty much had the forest to ourselves. Eventually we passed one other couple on bikes and a couple of dog walkers.
We had taken far longer to get to the brew stop than we'd imagined, and at only 3:30 the skies were getting dark fast so we cut the route short and headed back to the ferry via the fun, undulating road through Hawkshead village.
The ride back to the hostel was mainly on completely unlit roads - we adopted some weird technique with the handlebars to scan the road for curbs, potholes and corners.
Windermere YHA does cooking, so thankfully someone else cooked whilst we prepared the room. Chilli and a small glass of wine later and I was out like a light at 9:30. And the first time Stephen says he's ever heard my little snore.

On Sunday, we left our gear at the hostel and went for a walk down to Brockhole Visitor's Centre for breakfast.  It was a beautiful view from the table.

We set off upwards following bridleways up, up, up the hill. The view of Lake Windermere improving every few hundred feet. The snow and ice worsening ever few hundred feet...

Eventually we reached Troutbeck village which had stunning views towards Kirkstone Pass - the white hill tops merging with the wintry skies. 

Across the valley there was a field littered with dozens of children playing on sledges. You could see the cars parked on the road behind in a long snake and a car even stopped asking for directions of how to get to 'where all those sledges are?!'

Troutbeck

We disturbed an eagle which flew afew feet alongside us, sadly we werent quick enough with the camera to capture it, you'll just have to take my word that it was beautiful and very majestic and the loveliest way to finish off our walk as we turned the corner to the hostel.
One last look at the view before we headed back home.

View from the hostel