England : Cheshire Sat, 2nd June, 2018 - 200 km Cheshire ride (with shorter route options)

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ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
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! :okay:)

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):

Cheshire loop 2018 158 km.png

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 ... :welcome:
 

Attachments

  • Manchester Piccadilly to Dunham.gpx
    5.9 KB · Views: 67
  • Dunham-Marina-Dunham.gpx
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si_c

Guru
Location
Wirral
I might be interested in this, other commitments notwithstanding. What time are you likely to be starting at?
 
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ColinJ

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
I might be interested in this, other commitments notwithstanding. What time are you likely to be starting at?
Subject to whatever the rail timetables are on the day (they are currently in a state of flux) we would be pretty much replicating what we did last time, which was ... (consults link to last year's ride) ...

Provisional times:

Manchester Victoria - 07:20
Manchester Piccadilly - 07:35 (we will ride straight past unless someone wants to meet us there)
Dunham Park - 08:50 (we took 1 hr 15 mins to get there on the Llandudno ride, though we could probably have done it quicker.)
We will be doing the flatter route option that we took last year - i.e. avoiding steep, cobbled Swiss Hill.

I did the ride on my 52/19 singlespeed and didn't have to walk any of the small climbs. There were a couple of short ones back up from river crossings in dips, but a bit of 'grunt' was enough.

The full ride from Victoria comes in 1 or 2 km short of a '200' but I easily made that up going to and from my home station.
 

GuyBoden

Guru
Location
Warrington
I'll be there, unless my wife has something else arranged on the day.


Edit: I'm a definite, as long as it's a nice slow ride like last year. You can leave me behind if I'm too slow, I know this area well, I can't get lost, apart from around parts of Crewe.
 
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ColinJ

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
Sadly, having checked my diary, the youth brass band that I tutor with are taking part in a competition that day.
That's a shame, but at least we have your Knaresborough ride to look forward to!

We are still a bit short of riders for this ride, maybe because I have been a bit slack in posting details. I'll try to update the thread over the next couple of days.

PS I need a volunteer to keep an eye on things here mid-May because I will be holidaying somewhere with no Internet AND no mobile signal!!! :eek: 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.
 

GuyBoden

Guru
Location
Warrington
That's a shame, but at least we have your Knaresborough ride to look forward to!

We are still a bit short of riders for this ride, maybe because I have been a bit slack in posting details. I'll try to update the thread over the next couple of days.

PS I need a volunteer to keep an eye on things here mid-May because I will be holidaying somewhere with no Internet AND no mobile signal!!! :eek: 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.
I'll volunteer @ColinJ and keep an eye on the thread, while you are away enjoying yourself. :okay:

It's a nice, pleasant, easy, slow, all day ride in the flat Cheshire countryside, so it is for everyone, but especially if you're not good at hills.

You maybe need some more advertising. Maybe in the General forum section and the 100km Challenge thread.
 
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ColinJ

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
I'll volunteer @ColinJ and keep an eye on the thread, while you are away enjoying yourself. :okay:

It's a nice, pleasant, easy, slow, all day ride in the flat Cheshire countryside, so it is for everyone, but especially if you're not good at hills.

You maybe need some more advertising. Maybe in the General forum section and the 100km Challenge thread.
Thanks, Guy - that would be very helpful.

I still intend to update this thread today but I am just taking a short break from rebuilding/cleaning my best bike and would like to go for a sunny evening test ride after that so it may have to wait until tomorrow.

I have been dropping hints about this ride elsewhere but maybe an actual 'advert' in the metric century challenge chat thread is a good idea! I'll do that immediately after I post this ...
 
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ColinJ

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
I have finally updated the first post with details!

I hope when I get back from Wales that a few more people have decided to join us.

I'll try to pop in to this thread if I can next week, but I only have 100 MB worth of data a month and no phone signal where I will be staying, so any such visits will be fleeting!
 
Hi All

Colin is away on holiday currently and returns over the weekend. In the meantime, he has asked a couple of us to keep an eye on this ride thread.

Reading through the thread,I can summarise the interest as follows:

Definites
@ColinJ
@Littgull
@GuyBoden

Possibles
@si_c
@skudupnorth (probable)
@Katherine (maybe part of the ride)

Tagged (as have either done the ride previously or expressed an interest)
@Freds Dad
@Pale Rider
@McWobble
@mythste
@potsy
@Buck
@k_green
@SteCenturion
@Rickshaw Phil
@MartinQ

For anyone who has never ridden this route before it's a smashing day out at a gentle pace with attractive scenery on largely quiet lanes and roads. Ideal if you fancy a long ride without any steep hills.
 
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