Off-road all the way!

The plan was to go to Clayton Vale mountain biking today. An urban MTB trail centre doesn’t tick all the boxes for Rosemary so I suggested we rode there too, sticking as far as possible to off-road. Rosemary got planning, using my mapping software, the Sustrans website and goodness knows what else! Wow..... we got there only riding on road for around 10% of the journey! Remarkable job!

My chimp initially engaged on the trails as I struggled to master some of the short twisty climbs! Rosemary’s patience prevailed and she did well to encourage me. I also thought of the Robert Bruce and the spider story.....”If at first you don’t succeed, try try again” the spider said!

After the first few successes, I started to enjoy myself. “One last lap” I suggested and then actually started to ride as hard as my technical skills would allow. I even made it to the top of a climb that I thought was unassailable 45 minutes previous.

There was a group of lads slightly ahead and I decided to chase them down, that was until they went onto the harder route! One final lap around the ‘bowl’ and then I stopped, slouching over the bars, exhilarated and slightly fatigued! More surprisingly, Rosemary looked as though she had been working hard....something I rarely can enforce when riding off road.

It was then a long cycle, primarily along the Ashton Canal, onto the Cheshire Loop Canal and home! We saw a very bold heron in Hyde and an armoured red and white beetle on a bridge further down! Well cool. Goodness, we’d been out riding for over 5 hours and were both starving!