ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Time for the 2018 edition of the annual 200 km Cheshire ride, heavily based on the 2017 ride.
If you want to do the full distance, meet me and Littgull at Manchester Victoria railway station or if you are arriving at Manchester Piccadilly station we can pick you up there instead on our way out of the city.
The 'Manchester escape route' is lifted from nickyboy's Llandudno ride. (There didn't seem much point in trying to invent another one!) That is 22 km (14 miles) each way.
If you would be happy doing nearer 100 miles you can skip the urban part of the ride and meet us at Dunham Town instead at the big oak tree at the t-junction. If you do that and leave us there on the way back you would be doing 158 km, 3 km/2 miles short of an imperial century. (If that bothers you, go round the block a couple of times to make up the shortfall!
)
It is a very flat route compared to most of my rides. It is a smidge under 1,000 m (~3,000 ft) of ascent in total and there are not any long hills. I managed the route perfectly happily on my singlespeed bike last year and will be riding it again this time.
The route is the same as the one we did last year except that I have cut out the unnecessary incursion into Wilmslow and made up the distance with a little loop through Plumley, near Lower Peover.
Here is a simple map of the Cheshire loop (click to enlarge it):
We will stop at a cafe at a garden centre near Goostrey (42 km/26 miles into the main loop) and we'll have a longer stop at the cafe at the Venetian Marina on the Shropshire Union canal near Cholmondeston (89 km/55 miles into the loop). After that we head back to Dunham via Delamere Forest.
This is not a quick ride. We ride together chatting and don't leave anyone behind, so this isn't a ride for getting PBs on Strava! Having said that, it is a pretty long ride and we don't want to get back too late so let's say that we'd be aiming to average around 16 kph/10 mph including stops or 20 kph/12.5 mph when actually moving. I'd suggest that you should previously have done at least 120 km/75 miles at that kind of speed if you aim to do just the Cheshire loop, or 150+ km/95+ miles for the full ride.
Projected times:
Manchester Victoria - 07:25 (my train due in 07:23)
Manchester Piccadilly - 07:40
Dunham Park - 08:55
New Mills (near Mobberley station) - 09:20
Goostrey (short cafe stop) - 11:05
Leave Goostrey - 11:30
Venetian Marina (long cafe stop) - 14:00
Leave Marina - 15:00
Delamere Forest - 16:50
Dunham Park - 18:50
Piccadilly - 20:00
Victoria - 20:15
A shout out to those who have shown interest in the past or ridden previous editions and who have not yet turned up in the thread - @k_green, @Freds Dad, @Pale Rider, @McWobble, @mythste, @potsy, @Buck, @Katherine, @SteCenturion, @Rickshaw Phil, @MartinQ!
I have attached GPX files for the main loop from Dunham and for the 'escape route' to Dunham.
Join us for a fun day out. Sign up below ...
If you want to do the full distance, meet me and Littgull at Manchester Victoria railway station or if you are arriving at Manchester Piccadilly station we can pick you up there instead on our way out of the city.
The 'Manchester escape route' is lifted from nickyboy's Llandudno ride. (There didn't seem much point in trying to invent another one!) That is 22 km (14 miles) each way.
If you would be happy doing nearer 100 miles you can skip the urban part of the ride and meet us at Dunham Town instead at the big oak tree at the t-junction. If you do that and leave us there on the way back you would be doing 158 km, 3 km/2 miles short of an imperial century. (If that bothers you, go round the block a couple of times to make up the shortfall!
)It is a very flat route compared to most of my rides. It is a smidge under 1,000 m (~3,000 ft) of ascent in total and there are not any long hills. I managed the route perfectly happily on my singlespeed bike last year and will be riding it again this time.
The route is the same as the one we did last year except that I have cut out the unnecessary incursion into Wilmslow and made up the distance with a little loop through Plumley, near Lower Peover.
Here is a simple map of the Cheshire loop (click to enlarge it):
We will stop at a cafe at a garden centre near Goostrey (42 km/26 miles into the main loop) and we'll have a longer stop at the cafe at the Venetian Marina on the Shropshire Union canal near Cholmondeston (89 km/55 miles into the loop). After that we head back to Dunham via Delamere Forest.
This is not a quick ride. We ride together chatting and don't leave anyone behind, so this isn't a ride for getting PBs on Strava! Having said that, it is a pretty long ride and we don't want to get back too late so let's say that we'd be aiming to average around 16 kph/10 mph including stops or 20 kph/12.5 mph when actually moving. I'd suggest that you should previously have done at least 120 km/75 miles at that kind of speed if you aim to do just the Cheshire loop, or 150+ km/95+ miles for the full ride.
Projected times:
Manchester Victoria - 07:25 (my train due in 07:23)
Manchester Piccadilly - 07:40
Dunham Park - 08:55
New Mills (near Mobberley station) - 09:20
Goostrey (short cafe stop) - 11:05
Leave Goostrey - 11:30
Venetian Marina (long cafe stop) - 14:00
Leave Marina - 15:00
Delamere Forest - 16:50
Dunham Park - 18:50
Piccadilly - 20:00
Victoria - 20:15
A shout out to those who have shown interest in the past or ridden previous editions and who have not yet turned up in the thread - @k_green, @Freds Dad, @Pale Rider, @McWobble, @mythste, @potsy, @Buck, @Katherine, @SteCenturion, @Rickshaw Phil, @MartinQ!
I have attached GPX files for the main loop from Dunham and for the 'escape route' to Dunham.
Join us for a fun day out. Sign up below ...
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I will be back at least a week before this ride takes place but I'd be grateful if the rest of you could field any questions for me while I am offline.
