Unlucky Day 13, to Bilsborrow

Off to a daunting start as we crossed a busy roundabout over the motorway to Birmingham. Away from all that, we began to cross Warrington, where the rain started to fall heavily. Our planned distance today was a bit longer, so both of us were keen to do a little more of the journey on A roads (and especially since most of them had cycle paths).

The traffic noise of the A49 was deafening, so we went off down a smaller road, but somehow missed a turn – and the Garmin crashed again. After asking a few people for directions (none of whom had a clue where they were) we met two walkers with their dog, who gave precise directions to a nice quiet cycle track leading exactly where wanted to go – though it did add a few miles.

Then came disaster as one of my cheapo cycle clips fell to pieces (again), getting caught in the chain wheel and flinging me off. Luckily I was unhurt, but the bike got a good bash and I find it very hard to ride without something to keep my foot on the pedal. I escaped with a banged knee and scratches but there’s a moral – don’t buy cheap toe clips from Halfords.

We soon passed a mountain bike shop (Ratcliffe Sports, Leigh) and although they did not sell toe clips they had heaps of nuts and bolts and managed to get it to together with the help of some threadlock. Thank you Brendan. They would not take any payment.

Onwards through Preston, and it does go one forever. Fortunately the Garmin had decided to behave and was functioning perfectly. It took us along an idyllic cycle track and country park to somewhere in Preston where we found ourselves in an enormous area of roadworks. We had to lift the bikes over barriers, huge holes and trenches – whatever is going on?

On track again, we stopped for a snack at the roadside and continued to Bilsborrow where I was overjoyed to wheel my bike into a Premier Inn, and abandon pedalling for the evening to go for a curry.

It was a pretty horrible and scary day at times, but not without its moments of enjoyment.

Stats

A reminder that these are planned route stats – and the actual distance travelled is probably a little more – or, in the case of today, a lot more.

42.6 miles (438.21 miles total), 1,025ft ascent, 1,125ft descent