I guess the powers that be are thinking about stopping motorcycles, but not thinking it through properly.Finally time to read ride reports and add my own...busy week.
Thanks to the North of England turning into a fiery fireball, my ride today had to go in a southy sort of direction and so leaving home around 9.30am, I set off for Haigh Hall. And as it was my first ride on the new 1.75 nobby tyres...it had to be off road ish.
Past McDonald's and a right onto Boot Lane was my first port of call. Looking up to Winter Hill I didn't see as much, if any smoke as the last couple days although the air had a slight odour to it. Maybe the fire department had succeeded early?
Taylor Swifts country tunes were drowning out the traffic noise along Victoria Road through the Middlebrook trail and Aspull. She was gagged when I dropped down to the L&L Canal path at Haigh Hall. I like it quiet when I ride.
And that's when I heard it. Rattling. Argh. Wasn't the bell. Or the cables. Or the etrex. Or the bike computer. Or the cam. Or the brake levers. Eventually I discovered it was one of the bottle cap dust covers. That's a first for me.
I wasn't riding much further when some pic opportunities came up.
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The bike next to water...and
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The bike on a bridge.
There isn't really alot one can write about a canal ride because as pretty as most are, it's mostly all samey same mile after mile.
One thing that is becoming a regular feature of my rides is wrong or missed turns and today was no different. I continued cycling on the left of the canal after crossing the A58 to Platt Bridge instead of switching to the right hand path. No biggie. There was a wee bit of a smokey smell in the air here.
Shortly after passing Pennington Flash I saw a fire crew dousing a patch of blackened grassland using water pumped from the canal through their truck. Saw quite a few more small patches of burnt ground along the rest of my ride on the canal too.
At around 12.20pm approaching Astley Green I was getting hungry so stopped for a cup of tea and a chicken sammich. I was happy and content with the world then a bit further on this appeared...
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Under Lower Green Lane.
I mean, what kind of sick demented bast**d puts this on a shared use path? As I approached it wondering how I was supposed to get past it, a couple mountain bikers had to swing their bikes out over the water while trying to climb over the gate. They too were cursing the thing. One slip and that's it...bike at the bottom of a canal. There was another a bit further on but that one is wider so lifting the bike over is another yet equally challenging option. The Spa whilst lighter than the old Vantage, is still a heavy brute.
View attachment 417460 Fancy a swim? Me neither.
When I reached Broadoak Park I turned left to follow NCR55 back to Bolton. Through Queens Park and a bunch of residential streets then a short trip though Doffcocker Lodge and home via the estate.
Bike computer says 39 miles...but I've not tweaked it to calculate for the bigger tyres.
Etrex says 38.7 miles but the batteries went flat somewhere on the Leigh section of the canal and I didn't notice for a while. Both say about 9mph avg.
Nice ride regardless which I must do again soon.
Is it worth containing anyone about it?
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