England : Cheshire Cheshire Safari, 160 km, Sun 8th November

[ColinJ]

I was chatting with @Littgull on my forum ride yesterday about doing a ride together in November. I had intended to organise one last forum ride this year but Brian told me about the Cheshire Safari, a 160 km (100 mile) audax event whose HQ is in Cheadle. It sounds like a nice, undemanding route so we are going to ride that event instead.

There is nothing to stop a group of CycleChatters getting together and riding as a group so I thought I would start this thread and invite anybody interested to join us.

The ride starts at 08;30. I looked up sunset time for the day and it is 16:23. That means nearly 8 hours to get the ride done without lights, but bring lights anyway, just in case! I think it would be good to try and get round in a sub-8 hour time. The terrain is easy, very similar to the Manchester 100. I used to complete that in 6 hours of riding when not particularly fit , so I reckon 8 hours with a couple of stops at the controls should be be pretty comfortable unless the weather turned bad on us.

I have just entered online and included a stupendously generous donation of £1 to Steve Abraham's year record support fund while I was at it - a clever idea including that option on audax event entry forms!

So, who is up for it?

NB Closing date for entries is 25th October so if you want to come along, get your entries in before you forget!

PS It seems that you might be able to enter until 1st November - see THIS PAGE.

 

[busdennis]

put me down please Colin, think I will do this instead of the SOM as my thread has been so popular

 

[ColinJ]

put me down please Colin, think I will do this instead of the SOM as my thread has been so popular

Your wish is my command!

The CycleChat Cheshire Safari audax peloton:

• ColinJ
• Littgull
• busdennis

The website link on the audax page is broken, but I did find an older description of the event on the Peak Audax site HERE.

 

[DCLane]

@ColinJ - how different is the route from the 210km Eureka?

I'm considering doing that so it'd make half an addition.

 

[ColinJ]

@ColinJ - how different is the route from the 210km Eureka?

I'm considering doing that so it'd make half an addition.

I haven't compared the routes but I assume that they have a lot in common. I think the longer ride sets off 30 minutes earlier.

Actually, it is a good question so I will load the GPX for Eureka and compare them. I'll get back to you later ...

 

[ColinJ]

Ha ha - the GPX file had hundreds of waypoints in it and crashed my copy of Memory Map. This may take some time ...

 

[ColinJ]

I got it to work ...

The outward leg on Eureka takes an 8km shortcut relative to the Safari route. The Eureka route is coloured purpley pink on the map below, the Safari route in red. The purple/pink line disappears behind the red one which shows that most of the outward legs are identical, but we will be doing a little detour to let us come back up through Tatton Park.

You can see where Eureka accumulates all the extra distance with a short foray into Wales before turning and heading back up through Cheshire, eventually rejoining the Safari route just after Jodrell Bank and near Over Peover.

I measure Eureka at 216 km. If you had a rush of blood to the head and decided to ride out with us, you would be delayed by 30 minutes (and our slower speed!) and end up doing about 224 km in total.

 

[mythste]

@ColinJ - I've done a number of 60-70 mile rides but yet to go so far as 100, would you guys mind a newbie tagging along? Chester etc is also a nice bailout point for me if it's not for me!

 

[busdennis]

not speaking for Colin (I'm sure he will be along soon) but if you've done a number of 70 mile rides, 100 will be no problem. You will be very welcome to follow my wheel and when you turn out to be stronger I will follow yours

 

[DCLane]

I got it to work ...

I measure Eureka at 216 km. If you had a rush of blood to the head and decided to ride out with us, you would be delayed by 30 minutes (and our slower speed!) and end up doing about 224 km in total.

224km is fine. I don't mind being a few minutes slower if I get the chance to ride the event.

Note I'm using this to keep fit practice for a go at a 24 hour TT next year

 

[ColinJ]

Sorry for the delay in responding - I have my family up for the weekend so I haven't got much time for CycleChattting for a couple of days.

Sounds like we should have a nice little group ... The CycleChat Cheshire Safari audax peloton:

• ColinJ
• Littgull
• busdennis
• DCLane (as far as Eureka with the rest of us)
• mythste

Don't forget to get your entries in - there is no 'entry on the line' for this event.

 

[13 rider]

Hi Colin really interested in this ride Just trying to sort out travel .looks like a two hour drive or very complicated train journey overnight to make start time .I've done one 100 mile before in 6.45 solo so time and distance not overly concerning . Just one question regarding navigation as I have no Garmin and obviously don't know the roads I presume the plan is to all stick together and follow the leader . Alright two questions if the weather forecast is terrible is there a call off option before I travel

 

[ColinJ]

Hi Colin really interested in this ride Just trying to sort out travel .looks like a two hour drive or very complicated train journey overnight to make start time .I've done one 100 mile before in 6.45 solo so time and distance not overly concerning . Just one question regarding navigation as I have no Garmin and obviously don't know the roads I presume the plan is to all stick together and follow the leader . Alright two questions if the weather forecast is terrible is there a call off option before I travel

Yes, we will just ride along together since there are no major hills to split us up. (Mind you, I did one audax ride out there into a howling headwind for the first 40 miles or so and that was pretty tough! Hopefully, that will not happen this time ...)

I don't know the roads either but my Garmin is very reliable and I will have the route on my phone for backup. These days, I always use Streetview to check routes before I ride them, to spot dodgy-looking junctions etc. I already used it to find out where the mid-ride Eureka cafe is, having never been there before.

You can print out the audax route sheet which will give you turn-by-turn instructions. (You really need at least a bike computer to follow a route sheet because being told to turn left after (say) 11.7 km is not much use if you don't know how far you have ridden!)

I suggest we all check the forecast on the Saturday evening and come back on this thread to confirm whether we will or will not be riding. If we cancel, then our entry fees will be lost but we have to enter in advance for this event - no entries on the day.

 

[potsy]

What's the general route after you come through Tatton Colin?
I had half a mind to come meet you for those few miles but unfortunately I'm down for working that weekend.

I will be coming home via Cheadle though around 7pm so could bump into you yet

 

[ColinJ]

What's the general route after you come through Tatton Colin?
I had half a mind to come meet you for those few miles but unfortunately I'm down for working that weekend.

I will be coming home via Cheadle though around 7pm so could bump into you yet

The general route after Tatton is the red line on the map in post #7!

If you want a more detailed general route ... Rostherne, Bucklow Hill, High Legh, Appleton Thorn, Preston on the Hill (southern fringes of Runcorn), Frodsham, Helsby ... then just south of Ellesmere Port and on to Eureka. Back through Chester Zoo, Delamere Forest, Great Budworth, Lower/Over Peover, Wilmslow, Cheadle.

If you bump into us at 7pm then we must have had serious problems because that would mean we had only averaged about 9.5 mph!