Todmorden to Rivington loop, Saturday, 7th May, 2016

[ColinJ]

It is time for me to unveil my next forum ride, on a route which I have never done before. I have ridden the start and finish legs many times but the mid-section is new to me. I mentioned the ride to @Littgull on our last ride together and he has already put this one in his diary

The route starts and finishes in Todmorden (Lancashire or West Yorkshire depending on your allegiances - the border traditionally went down the middle of the Town Hall. We now have a Lancashire postcode but a Yorkshire council ...)

I got a lift over to Rivington (near Bolton) in 2002 to watch the Commonwealth Games road races and thought then that I would like to cycle over the hills there, but I never got round to it until now. This ride is to remedy that oversight.

As you will see from the profile below, it is a very lumpy 116 km (72 mile) route so the full route is not really suitable for those not confident to tackle a ride of that length and difficulty.

Route: Todmorden, A646 towards Burnley, Holme Chapel, Mereclough, Burnley, Fence, Padiham Heights, Old Roman Rd, Portfield, Whalley, York, Mellor, Samlesbury Bottoms, Hoghton, Johnson's Hillock, Anglezarke Reservoir, Rivington [Cafe stop - cafe to be decided later], Sheep House Lane, Belmont, Turton Moor, Entwistle Station, Edgworth, Ramsbottom, B6235, B6232, Haslingden, 'top road' along Rossendale valley****, Bacup, Sharneyford, Shade, Todmorden. (GPX file of route attached at the bottom of this post.)

**** I've been told that this road is a bit of a 'rat-run'. Let's check it out to avoid the A-road in the valley but if it IS a bit iffy, then I promise that won't choose it again!

Full ride route:

Full ride profile:

One possibility though - you could ride round to Whalley with us (30 lumpy kms) and then peel off and ride back to Todmorden on the A671 and A646. That is easy to navigate and would reduce your total distance to a much more manageable 56 km.

Short ride route:

Short ride profile:

(I have not plotted the short ride profile to the same scale as the full ride profile so it may not appear to be that much easier, but it IS - put your reading glasses on and take a look at the numbers on the axes and the maximum elevations which I have highlighted!)

Those on the full route will be having a cafe stop at Rivington. Local riders have suggested various cafes round there, but I have not made a final choice yet. That can be sorted out nearer the time.

If you are doing the shortened version of the ride, you could descend Accrington Road into Whalley with us and go to a cafe there, but then you would have to ride back up to the traffic lights at the top of the hill to head back. Your choice!

As usual the pace will be slow and chatty, and nobody will be left behind (but you must fend for yourself if you opt for the shortcut back).

Meet me at the free Dalton St car park in Todmorden at 09:20 on Saturday, 7th May 2016. We will leave at 09:30. The car park should have plenty of space at that time on a Saturday morning, but if not it will be easy to find a place to park on one of the nearby backstreets - most of them have no parking restrictions.

If you like the sound of this ride, sign up below. ALL WELCOME!

 

[Littgull]

Great route, Colin. Put my name down on the team sheet. Really looking forward to it.

 

[Siclo]

Just so you know you could cut off the run through Chapeltown to Edgeworth via The Strawberry Duck using Battridge Road, Overshores Road and Crow Trees Lane. Overshores Road is a bit rough but I've ridden it on 23's. I love riding along Crow Trees:

https://goo.gl/maps/ar18pWSbbeL2

 

[doughnut]

Got this one in the calendar Colin, please add me to the list.

Agree with @Siclo about Crow Trees Lane, its a good cut through though there are a couple hundred yards where you have to pick your route through the rough bit. The Google car must have got there on a good day - I've never seen it with that much water in the reservoir.

Also just at the point where you touch Adlington, you might want to have a look at The Street which runs alongside the Upper Rivington Reservoir. Its signposted as a no through road, but takes you down a nice road/path by the reservoir - no cars except residents for the half dozen houses. Here's the strava segment to show you what I'm talking about. Probably takes a quarter of a mile or so off the route but its much more pleasant.
https://www.strava.com/segments/9929694

 

[ColinJ]

Just so you know you could cut off the run through Chapeltown to Edgeworth via The Strawberry Duck using Battridge Road, Overshores Road and Crow Trees Lane. Overshores Road is a bit rough but I've ridden it on 23's. I love riding along Crow Trees:

https://goo.gl/maps/ar18pWSbbeL2

Agree with @Siclo about Crow Trees Lane, its a good cut through though there are a couple hundred yards where you have to pick your route through the rough bit. The Google car must have got there on a good day - I've never seen it with that much water in the reservoir.

Also just at the point where you touch Adlington, you might want to have a look at The Street which runs alongside the Upper Rivington Reservoir. Its signposted as a no through road, but takes you down a nice road/path by the reservoir - no cars except residents for the half dozen houses. Here's the strava segment to show you what I'm talking about. Probably takes a quarter of a mile or so off the route but its much more pleasant.
https://www.strava.com/segments/9929694

Thanks for those suggestions. That's the kind of thing that I put into my routes round here but if the Street View car can't get down an unfamiliar road, I play safe and don't use it unless locals tell me it is ok. I'll modify the route to incorporate those changes,

Got this one in the calendar Colin, please add me to the list.

That's good. So far, the list of riders is:

• ColinJ
• Littgull
• doughnut

And possibly also some non-CycleChat friends of mine:

• Bill
• Carrie

 

[Pennine-Paul]

Unfortunately I'll not be up for this due to a dislocated shoulder sustained at the weekend.
I got clipped by a motorist and went down hard,went to A&E to find it dislocated and a piece of the bone
at the top of the humerus has also come away,hopefully this will have popped back into position when they manipulated my arm back in,otherwise I'll be facing an op,I'll find out on Wednesday

 

[ColinJ]

Unfortunately I'll not be up for this due to a dislocated shoulder sustained at the weekend.
I got clipped by a motorist and went down hard,went to A&E to find it dislocated and a piece of the bone
at the top of the humerus has also come away,hopefully this will have popped back into position when they manipulated my arm back in,otherwise I'll be facing an op,I'll find out on Wednesday

Damn - bad luck, Paul, and just when you said that your arm was starting to recover from previous injuries!

Actually, that has nothing to do with 'luck', that was plain bad driving, unless you did an unlikely lemming-like dive towards the car?

I hope you avoid the op, recover well, and are back on your bike in time for rides with us later in the year.

PS Not wanting to rub salt in Paul's wounds, but any able-bodied CycleChatters wanting to join us, sign up below!

 

[Pennine-Paul]

Damn - bad luck, Paul, and just when you said that your arm was starting to recover from previous injuries!

Actually, that has nothing to do with 'luck', that was plain bad driving, unless you did an unlikely lemming-like dive towards the car?

I hope you avoid the op, recover well, and are back on your bike in time for rides with us later in the year.

PS Not wanting to rub salt in Paul's wounds, but any able-bodied CycleChatters wanting to join us, sign up below!

What happened is a small girl around 4 or 5 years of age who was on a scooter on the pavement began moving down the dropped kerb towards the road,I moved over to the right to avoid hitting her and the car behind me had no chance to move over in time and clipped me and down I went

 

[ColinJ]

What happened is a small girl around 4 or 5 years of age who was on a scooter on the pavement began moving down the dropped kerb towards the road,I moved over to the right to avoid hitting her and the car behind me had no chance to move over in time and clipped me and down I went

Ouch!

I also had a near miss with a small girl yesterday ... I was riding down a narrow road and spotted her on a bike on the pavement on the opposite side of the road. I had a feeling that she was about to turn and ride straight across the road in front of me, which she DID, but I had already started braking in anticipation so she passed safely in front of me. There were parked vehicles ahead of me so I looked behind me to check that it was safe to pull out to pass them. In that moment, the girl had thrown her bike down on the pavement on my side of the road, turned, and run straight back out in front of me, an action which I had NOT anticipated!!

I managed to take drastic evasive action to miss her and shouted to her to watch out when crossing the road. It's very worrying that a child with that little awareness was out on a bike (or even on foot) unsupervised!

 

[Pennine-Paul]

Oh and it was the other arm this time!

 

[ColinJ]

I have added a GPX file for the route to the original post in case anybody wants it on their GPS for the ride (or to use it on another occasion).

Oh and it was the other arm this time!

I'm not sure if it is better to have one bad arm and one good one, or two half-fubar-ed ones!

I damaged both of my shoulders, neither seriously, but enough to hurt a lot and limit their movement and strength.

MORE RIDERS WANTED! (It is nice to have at least 6 or 7, and currently we only have 3-5.)

 

[ColinJ]

BUMP - A reminder about this ride for those of you who might be interested but had forgotten about it, or had not spotted the earlier posts.

If you like the sound of it, post below. If you think that you could cope with the distance and the hills, but are worried about being too slow - don't be! We usually only average about 9-10 mph overall and could go slower if anybody were struggling with that. (We wouldn't want to be doing only 5 mph or we would be getting back long after sunset, but 8 mph (say) wouldn't be the end of the world! )

 

[Oldfentiger]

I had my eye on this, thinking of joining as the outward route passes within 3/4 mile of my abode. On the return leg I'd prolly swing off in Rawtenstall. Who wants to go to Todmorden?
However, it looks like I have to be somewhere else next weekend, but if that changes for any reason I could swell your ranks by one.

 

[supermog]

Unfortunately I am working this Saturday so unable to join you..... However will do my best to get out on a ride ASAP.

 

[ColinJ]

I had my eye on this, thinking of joining as the outward route passes within 3/4 mile of my abode. On the return leg I'd prolly swing off in Rawtenstall. Who wants to go to Todmorden?
However, it looks like I have to be somewhere else next weekend, but if that changes for any reason I could swell your ranks by one.

Ah, that reminds me to give another reminder!

I'm sure that those of us who do the ride will enjoy it, but at the moment the numbers are low. You (and anybody else) are welcome to join/leave us en route but we can't guarantee arriving at a given point at a given time. Ideally, mid-ride companions would set off towards us but that presents the risk of taking a slightly different route and missing us. I estimate that we would get to the A6068 at Fence at about 11:00 but it could be a little sooner if we were riding well, or later if we were not or mechanical problems were to delay us.

The current forecast for Saturday is for warmish, dry(ish?) conditions, but pretty windy. We are doing a big, meandering loop so some of the time the wind would help and some it wouldn't.

So, if you are free in the area on Saturday, come and join us - don't be shy! Post below to let us know.

PS Todmorden is growing on me! I had to move here for financial reasons but I am starting to like it here. Hebden Bridge has better access to bridleways and quieter local roads so I am spending more time on the A646 than I used to, but it is only an extra 9 mile round trip so I can live with that, as long as I avoid the afternoon school run.