Manchester - Llandudno Saturday 12 May 2018

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Pale Rider

Legendary Member
It is the first time that I have been lost for years. At first I didn't mind because it was good to explore and there was time to spare but once we had used up the spare time I didn't like the feeling that I risked missing my train if I continued to Llandudno. I was certainly going to miss the fish and chips. (BTW - what time does the chippie close?) I'm going to make sure that it doesn't happen again!

I was checking my GPS last night and it turns out that neither of my GPS batteries had died after all. :wacko:

I think the problem that I had on Saturday was due to one or both of the batteries making a poor connection to the contacts on the GPS. It is a 12 year old device and the battery contacts are now the worse for wear. (The GPS cut out a couple of times when I hit bumps in the road, which I think was due to the batteries momentarily disconnecting.) Last night I squeezed some Blu-tak behind the contacts to force them snug against the ends of the batteries. I then did an extended soak test without problems, and even shaking the GPS vigorously couldn't make it cut out.

Not having battery problems wouldn't have helped me on Saturday though, because I got lost on the route variation which I had NOT programmed in! That's what comes of wimping out of the hilly route in advance, but then being put off the flatter route by overhearing @nickyboy talking about long stretches of A-road after Flint before reaching the cycle path. The stupid thing is that I had considered putting both variations of the route on the GPS just in case ...

I have another GPS which has maps on it (kindly donated to me by Oldfentiger) so I ought to start using that. The problem is that I did a bodge repair to it (the battery contacts on that one had been eaten away by leaking battery chemicals, which is why OFT gave it me in the first place). I don't trust it to not pack up again out on the road. I should take it to bits again and do a more reliable repair. I could carry both GPS devices, each with all route variations downloaded. The old one could then be a backup for the newer bodged one. They both use the same bar mount, so that wouldn't be a problem, and I don't think carrying an extra couple of hundred grams would kill me!

I carry a paper map and a cheapo compass for such eventualities.

Nowt flash, a page torn from an old road atlas is sufficient to enable you to head in the right direction and correctly interpret road signs.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
I carry a paper map and a cheapo compass for such eventualities.

Nowt flash, a page torn from an old road atlas is sufficient to enable you to head in the right direction and correctly interpret road signs.
I have the OS maps for the entire UK at 1:250,000, 1:50,000, 1:25,000 and 1:10,000 on my phone. The problem was having to keep stopping to refer to the mapping software on the phone. It would be fine for an emergency but is a nuisance when used regularly. (Yes, I know - get a bar mount for the phone ...)

I was getting flustered and missed a couple of turns. The software doesn't know which way the phone is facing but it shows a direction arrow when you are moving. The problem is that I was looking at the phone when I was NOT moving, so no arrow! A compass would have been handy then.
 

Wobblers

Euthermic
Location
Minkowski Space
Another splendid day out.

The day got off to a bit of a bad start as there was this strange grizzled bloke with a dog when I got to the Eureka. But the dog was okay, so that made up for it. TC and I were last to leave the Eureka, as @wanda2010 sensibly caught a lift with Crackle (and I hope it was the dog that was doing the driving, Crax :whistle:).

@theclaud was clearly flagging - the after affects of a cold, I'm assured, not the consequences of the Friday night. Assuredly. She was undecided as to take the flat route or not when I pointed out Flint Station was right behind us. Decision made! We said our goodbyes, not without a little bit of jealously on my part - the route I was planning would certainly not be as quick or flat as the train.

I have to make a confession here: I couldn't face the thought of that endless revetment through Rhyl. So I avoided it entirely by going inland via St Asaph. Sorry @nickyboy!
Don't say I've not warned you about Rhyl and Prestatyn.
Warning was duly noted.

The St Asaph route proved to be very pleasant indeed - quiet roads set in a gorgeous countryside. True it was hilly, but nothing too bad. (But then, I wasn't silly enough to go via Mold.... @rich p). With the sun on my back I made good time, and reached the Tramway just after 6. Alas, Nick tried to talk to me at that point only to find that I was too *gasp* out .... of ....breath..... to string.... more than.... two words.... ....together... It's because of that last bastard hill. Clearly...

Rehydration took place in a pub recommended by @MossCommuter. Good choice, Mossy,it turned out to be a very nice little watering hole. But the star of the evening was undoubtedly Crackle's dog - who spent most of the evening wandering round all the patrons putting on his best begging laser beam stare in an effort to blag some beer. Much entertainment was had seeing Crackle hopelessly chasing after him!

I enjoyed my St Asaph variation, even if I wasn't successful in persuading anyone to join me. It would make a good ride from Chester - I'm happy to arrange something (probably in July or August) if there's sufficient interest.

Thanks to everyone who was there, and especially @nickyboy - that it ran so smoothly is in no small part down to your efforts.
 
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Wobblers

Euthermic
Location
Minkowski Space
Excuse the shameless pimping of a FNRttC on nickyboy's thread ride but, for you North Western types, I'd like to draw your attention to this:-

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/manchester-blackpool-1st-june-2018.233646/

Manchester to Blackpool with lovely people, some of whom you'll have met yesterday.
It's at night and I'm organising it.

Yes, it's really about high time I signed up to this: it's been too long since I was on one of your FNRttC, Andrew. Time to look at tickets, I think...
 

Wobblers

Euthermic
Location
Minkowski Space
You can see on the map below the official route in purple and where we went, shown in red. The bit where we went off route was where we happened to choose to wait. If we had stopped further up back on the proper route then you would have found us there, and we wouldn't have gone on to get lost. You can see how much further we went on the hills before giving up. The tracklog also shows a few places where we went in completely the wrong direction. We ended up doing at least 3 bonus steep climbs.

View attachment 409003

View attachment 409004

We gave up and decided to stick to A-roads to get off the hill. What amazed me was that we didn't see any signs for Prestatyn and only starting seeing them for Rhyl when we had almost got there. It doesn't help to be told that one is heading for Rhuddlan unless one knows that Rhuddlan is on the hill just above Rhyl!

Ah, I see I mis-directed you when I bumped into you at Pentre Halkyn. I said you needed to go right then left, but I'd forgotten that it was the first left. Sorry about that. :sad: Unfortunately, because I'd never intended to follow the route all the way to Prestatyn, I didn't bother printing out the relevant maps, otherwise I'd have given those to you. Something to remember for next time, I think.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
Ah, I see I mis-directed you when I bumped into you at Pentre Halkyn. I said you needed to go right then left, but I'd forgotten that it was the first left. Sorry about that. :sad: Unfortunately, because I'd never intended to follow the route all the way to Prestatyn, I didn't bother printing out the relevant maps, otherwise I'd have given those to you. Something to remember for next time, I think.
I'm not sure that you did get it wrong. You might just be able to see that we did in fact start following the correct route but had a change of mind and u-turned at Gorsedd. After that, confusion set in.

I think I hadn't drunk quite enough and was getting light-headed. When I punctured I was trying to sort it out when a friendly woman started giving Ali route advice, but I found myself getting a bit irritated by her intervention. I knew that I shouldn't be - she was only trying to be helpful, but I was finding it hard to concentrate on what I was doing and was getting stressed. I had made a couple of really stupid navigational mistakes just before that.
 

StuAff

Silencing his legs regularly
Location
Portsmouth
About time I wrote this up.....

TL;DR version: What a great weekend. I'll want to do that again, preferably making the chippy in time to get fed there. Fewer nav fails and a little less faffing would have achieved that, ho hum. Never mind the weather, though that was lovely, could someone flatten those big ramps please...

Now, for those with longer attention spans, the verbose version....

Back to Friday. I allowed plenty of time for the journey up- more often than not riding between Waterloo and Euston is a slog involving a stop at every single set of lights, then there was the cycle reservations without orange cardboard, would that cause issues? The first part was the usual slog- over fifteen minutes for two miles. But that was why I allowed more than enough time. Thankfully, the ticket office printout proved acceptable as well. Journey to Piccadilly was uneventful, before Nick introduced himself on our way off the platform. We had a brief chat, then the three-minute ride round to the Ibis. Glad I brought the D-lock (I might have ridden back into town later on, better to have it and not need it than the other way round, and 1.6 kg extra weight wouldn’t have made a difference on Saturday & Sunday’s climbing), but the reception staff didn’t need persuading to store the bike in room, they suggested it. Nice job, Ibis staff. Hotel was up to the chain's usual high standards, it'll be first choice for next time…

A bit later on, off I walked to the first Port (Street) of pub crawl, stopping by a little-known local retailer for a photo op…

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(Closed due to evening function, or I’d have checked if they did a namesake discount :smile: ).

Got to the Brew House to meet Mossy, Andrew B, Sonia and Rich. Shortly thereafter, on we went to Bundobust, which proved to be, er, a bust in regards to getting seated and eating anything. Byron proved a most acceptable alternative. Skolly joined us there and demonstrated his growing repertoire of ‘how I got my neck brace’ stories (think Dave Allen on how he lost his finger…). Then, on to Beermoth, where Claud joined us, having been held up by train delays. Drinks promptly spilt before being rapidly replenished. Then, on again to 57 Thomas Street, before, having learnt more about craft beer than I’ll ever remember (and have forgotten already!), walking back in the rain to the Ibis.

Despite the later-than-expected night, I set the alarm for six (less of a rush to get ready, eat and round to Piccadilly) and promptly woke at ten to. Plenty of time to extensively carb-load from the breakfast buffet before making my way back to the station. Went to the Fairfield Street side, and despite leaving that way the afternoon before, couldn’t find the lift to the main concourse level and ended up lugging the bike up the stairs. Whoops. Still in plenty of time to join the somewhat depleted peloton (unsurprising given the rail shenanigans). More were of course to join en route, at Altringham and elsewhere, though not the numbers of previous rides. All your fault, Network Rail. First part was the usual schlep out to the ‘burbs. As per Nick’s plan, we all stuck together until the bakery at Weaverham (top-notch steak and stilton pie, nom). After that, we all started riding at our own pace. In my case, this ended up as being somewhere in the middle. First of multiple nav fails at Norley (spotted it quickly enough and the road I took lead back on to the one I should have taken). [For the benefit of those not familiar with Garmins, when following a GPX track, it will give you turn by turn directions but does not tell you when you go off course. The Garmin can recalculate its routing for you, but this takes an age, and frequently comes up with hopelessly stupid choices, so I leave that off]. Back on course for a while, then on the road south of Ellesmere Port, the Garmin decided to translate the track (round the roundabout and straight on) into the instruction ‘make a U-turn when possible’. In English, though clearly not Garminese, that would mean ‘head back the way you came from’. I eventually worked out the way I thought I should have taken in the first place, was the way I should have been going, but not after a good ten to fifteen minutes of trying every exit on the roundabout, then ending up on the wrong side of a 50 mph road from the cycle path and having to get across it.

On to Eureka (a gem of a place, very nice cake) to find some of the faster guys already there. McWobble joined us there, whereas Sonia decided to load her Brommie into Crax’s car, once the handsome Crackledog (personality of the day) had been moved over. With the benefit of hindsight I should have eaten more and faffed less there, that cost more minutes in the race for chips. As it was, I left with a small group including Nick and Andrew B, but rapidly fell off the back. It was just after two, I wanted to be in Llandudno at six to six-thirty, much later and there was no point going to the chippy. After a while, nearing the Welsh border, I joined up with Ali, who had been following the not-entirely-advisable, and certainly not entirely successful, policy of route following on his phone (at least before the battery conked out). Ali tagged along with me, as someone with a working nav device, and we carried on together to Flint, with a few hiccups along the way (he’d go a bit up the road, miss a turn, I’d shout a warning and wait).

In Flint, we found ourselves alongside Colin, who, as he’s already posted, was also navigationally challenged. Thanks to Colin, we got an extra bonus climb, southbound on the A5119, before we carried on to the delightful grind of Cornist Lane, where bottom gear was deployed pretty much the whole way. I stopped to eat the apple I nabbed at breakfast, thought the other two would want and need a break too….Colin just carried on, Ali waited for a bit, and I didn’t see them again, for reasons Colin has since explained. I carried on, not enjoying Lleprog Lane one little bit (steep descent on gravel-strewn lane, aargh), thankfully there were no more roads like that. Another minor detour between Lloc and Trelogan added another little bit of mileage. With more benefit of hindsight, think I should have just kept on going and made it up as I went along rather than getting back on the track, as remarkably not-hopeless for comfortable and speedy progress most of NCN 5 was. On to Prestatyn, where I stopped off for a breather at a WC/car park opposite the Pontins site. A local told me I didn’t need to buy a ticket for the bike (?!!). On to the coastal path, reasonably quick along there, despite dog walkers and sand drifts.

Rhyl. Yes, I can now say, Rhylly that bad. Went past a new(ish) retail park: a Greggs, Poundworld, and that was about it. The rest had a certain (very, very) faded glamour… Another nav fail, where I eventually worked out the Garminese instruction to take the new bridge, and not the road one, across the river (more time lost). By the time I got to Pensarn and stopped for another breather, I knew the passage of time meant that chips were off menu for me, and posted as such. Abandoning the remainder of the ride for a train? Not likely. Chips would have been a bonus, the ride was the priority. I was fit, willing and able to ride on, so I did. Then Colwyn Bay (were all those ridiculous gradients really necessary, Sustrans planners, we’re not all KOM challengers or on MTB gearing, I needed to walk up a couple?), and the home stretch. Rhos and Penrhyn, both delightful, then that last, extra special grind (hard work even walking). At least we got a rather nice hello. Nice work, whoever came up with this sign….
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And then down into Llandudno. What a lovely town. Just after seven, so chips were definitely off (at least if I wanted to sit down with them!), and straight to Karden House (good call with that one Nick). A quick wash and change, then off to the post-ride drinks. Or, more accurately, to the post-ride drinks, found food other than bar snacks was not an option there, went over the road to the Albert pub (most excellent nosh, highly recommended) and then back to join Crackledog and his human fan club. Splendid night.

Thanks to acts of Network Rail, first stretch of my trip home was (at least according to usual TOC engineering work policy) a nice relaxing ride to Chester. At least, with my suggested connection to Crewe being at 1627, I had plenty of time to make it. After an excellent full Welsh, I set off at 9.25. Yet another nav fail between Penrhyn and Colwyn Bay had the fortuitous benefit of cutting out some but not all of the grindy bits on NCN 5 (back on the track, I was walking up Ridiculous Gradient on the east side of Colwyn when a racing snake sped past. Git…). After Prestatyn my track mostly followed the reverse of Nick’s flatter route, on the A548. Rather busier, rather flatter and rather duller than the hilly option. Also, when one wants to make the intended late lunch not too late, rather faster.

After Shotton, onto the (very nice) Millenium Greenway into Chester. I resisted the Garmin’s entreaty to go onto a tow path (been there, done that), instead sticking with following the signs for the city centre. Through the North Gate just after half-one. Plenty of time for an excellent lunch in the sunshine before over to the station for the train I would have got for Crewe in Llandudno Junction, had it been running from Llandudno Junction. There is a certain irony in Arriva Trains Wales running services entirely in England…Slight panic at Crewe (got the bike on the train, train manager closed the door behind me, had to get off again sharpish to pick up my panniers) but otherwise uneventful journey south. Back home just before half-nine. And relax…

Thanks Nick and everyone else. This ride has now moved onto the Ride I Will Be Doing Again list. Next time, I want to do the whole ride and get the chips…might involve taking the flatter route, or at least cutting out some of the grinds and sand/gravel-strewn bits, or just less faffing and more eating, staying two nights in Manchester so I can get the weight down a bit…I will be back, though.

And here’s a picture of a good boy (flash off because I didn't want to give him a fright)…

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Hopefully seeing him, and the rest of you, again next year!
 
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Unless he learns to ride a bike, @StuAff , or I'm crocked, he won't be there again........although if we got wobblers to tow him in a trailer, we might reduce his speed enough to keep up.
 

StuAff

Silencing his legs regularly
Location
Portsmouth
Unless he learns to ride a bike, @StuAff , or I'm crocked, he won't be there again........although if we got wobblers to tow him in a trailer, we might reduce his speed enough to keep up.
Well, there were a few candidates to tow him in a trailer, and have him ready and waiting to meet us ;)
 
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