Ah the benefit of living locally !
Yes, someone had swiped at least two of the direction arrows, but since I knew the way from Rode to Twemlow I guessed at what the route might be and navigated across.
A few big bunches of people turning back wouldn't trust me, only managed to do the pied-piper act and get one guy to follow me.
The distance was about right, it wasn't the official route but just different back lanes and they're all flat, so 6-o'-one-half-a-dozen-of-the-other.
Official time on the telly in the sports centre was 6:21:02, bike computer said 5:56:something and 16.0mph, which I guess is about right with three foodstops.
Crabbed my way up Mow Cop easy enough (take it very slow at the botom, monster that last 100m which is the steep bit).
But, as usual, suffered on the run out of Congleton up to the Cloud which the organisers call 'the Bridestones', although to be honest for me the last little bit at the Bridestones is easier than the 2 miles before it !
I guess I didn't make things any easier for myself by cycling to and from the start (bit galling as the route then goes back only a couple of miles from my house !).
Was fancying I could do a 200K, but my legs went in the last 10 miles home, and it then started raining so I aborted home at 118m total.
Good day out. A pretty easy sportive in contrast to Fred Whitton, White Rose, Pendle Pedal, etc, but quite enough to test my state of training at the end of March !