This wasn’t a cycle tour, but I include it since I was cycling in interesting areas and (generally) going out whatever the weather.
Friday 11th November 2022. For the final time before Emily moves to Sheffield, I was enrolled on cat-sitting duties in Hazel Grove. To make the best use of the shorter days, I chose to drive over on Thursday evening rather than wait until the traffic died down on Friday. Felix didn’t seem too excited to see me, but perhaps that was because Emily hadn’t long left.
On Friday, the weather was warm (for November) at about 11°C but with a 20mph southerly so I decided on a route that headed initially south, hoping for a tailwind boost home. This entailed an initial 50 minute drive to Buxton, but that did miss out a lot of busy/hilly/unsafe cycling roads. The route I chose was intended to scoop up some missing tiles to increase my cluster which involved a bit of zig-zagging. It also should have involved a bit of walking to get a tile off the Goyt Valley road which had no roads through it. I’d marked it up on the ride, but the Garmin was misbehaving which meant I missed the reminder. When I turned it on in the morning, the Garmin was only showing 18% charge, so I immediately switched it to battery-saver mode which meant that it was blank for most of the time. It did its job satisfactorily until just south of Longnor when I noticed that it failed to wake up to warn me of a turn. I was stopping in Longnor, so I ignored it until I arrived at the café. There, I discovered that the machine had turned itself off even though it had 9% battery life. I tried to restart it, but it only worked for about 30 seconds before closing down again. I’d switched to Strava after leaving the café, so it wasn’t really an issue. I just had to navigate the old-fashioned way for the remaining 10 miles which wasn’t difficult.
The café was lovely and served a delicious scone with a cappuccino. It was good to warm up too, since although the mercury was showing 12°C, the 20mph wind made it feel colder. From Longnor, however, I enjoyed a tailwind, so I was never cold afterwards.
My route allowed for a 10 mile extension North of Buxton which was intended to gather a few more tiles, but the traffic was really bad trying to get to the start of this extension, so I reviewed my options on Veloviewer. I was quite surprised to discover that I already had those tiles! Not sure how that oversight had slipped through. So I abandoned the additional miles and returned to the car leaving the day’s mileage at about 36.
Once ‘home’, I decided to walk to Aldi to buy a few groceries to save me eating all Emily’s essentials. As I was packing away my purchases, I found that Emily had some cereals stored in a different location, so I needn’t have bought any. Similarly with bread, but not to worry. More is better than less.
I watched HIGNFY once I’d worked out how to operate the TV. (I had to watch it on catch-up since it took me 10 minutes to get the thing working! During the evening, Emily’s neighbour called round to ask if my water was off. It wasn’t, but the pressure was low. After I’d flushed the loo before going to bed, I found that the water had indeed gone off and I couldn’t wash. Neither would the toilet cistern re-fill! I’ll worry about that tomorrow.
Saturday 12th November. The water was back on this morning, so things are OK now. After breakfast, I made a quick getaway heading first West to catch a few missing tiles near Hale Barns, then I headed generally South through Tatton Park to Knutsford where I had a snack. The rutting season was on so I had a close encounter with a couple of stags in the park. Thankfully, I mustn’t have looked (or smelled) like a hind, so I escaped unharmed.
I’d planned to get one tile in what appeared on the map to be a park, but when I got there, the entrance was guarded by a powered gate and entryphone, so I moved on to abandon that part of the route. At the point where my initial route would have come back onto the road, I was surprised to see large, secure gates guarding the entrance (or exit, as it would have been for me) to a secure data destruction facility! Just as well I didn’t get in by my planned route: I’d never have got out!
The wind was lighter than yesterday at about 10mph from the south, and as I approached Goostrey (my planned refreshment stop), my speed was picking up. After a delicious mincemeat and oat slice (about the size of a house brick), I headed north at quite a lick. Very satisfying. It would have been even more enjoyable had my freehub not started creaking again. All the climbing yesterday and not a peep, and today, with no climbing, it sounds like a bunch of spanners in a tumble dryer.
Home by 2.15 only to find that although the water is on, the pressure is so low that the shower upstairs didn’t work! Well, it did, but only if it was running cold. (Not sure why that was so). So I had a quick was in the sink which was not at all satisfactory. I enjoyed a delicious chilli with rice for tea along with a bottle of ale, so now I’m feeling very content.
Sunday 13th November. Today turned out to be a lovely day: sunny and bright all day with only a light southerly breeze. I had two rides planned for today, both gathering tiles, but the 33 mile one passed through Stockport on the way home, and the shorter 20 mile ride started off through Stockport. So I combined them which made a very pleasant 46 mile trip, gathering several new tiles, and boosting my cluster in this area.
It was Remembrance Sunday, and I passed by four services during the day. I stopped at one in Charlesworth so as not to disrupt proceedings, and I missed another one at Mottram by a few minutes. However, many local car drivers knew a short cut to avoid that delay, even though the road they chose was closed. So as I was climbing Gorsey Hill (one of the 100 NW climbs) I met a constant stream of traffic coming down, who must have previously ignored a Road Closed sign at the top. I didn’t do a good time on the climb: stopping for 30 seconds or so at the start to assess whether I could get through didn’t help, but I got a 3rd fastest time. (But I’d only done it twice before!)
I was home by 2.15 and showered and dressed by 4pm with all Veloviewer updates done. I spent the evening listening to podcasts, reading and thinking of ideas for a Scottish tour next spring. Bed by 9.30.
Monday 14th November. I had a rather slower start to my final day today, only leaving the house at 9:30 in bright, sunny conditions. My route followed a SE direction climbing almost from the start towards Whaley Bridge. At the top of the hill after Disley, the road was posted as being closed but I tried it anyway and went through easily. There were some large tankers at the top of the hill and they seemed to be pumping water into a reservoir, probably to resolve the water pressure problem. As I began to climb up Rushup Edge, the low cloud became fog above about 300m, which caused the temperature to fall to about 6degC. By the time I was descending towards Edale, I was getting cold and very wet. I couldn’t enjoy the descent because I simply couldn’t see much further than 20m. I stopped at Hope to enjoy a lovely scone and cup of cappuccino at the Adventure Café there whilst warming up nicely.
The Garmin route showed that from Hope, I faced a 5.5 mile constant ride, climbing 359 metres. It wasn’t as bad as it appeared since the climb did have a short bit of descent before continuing to climb to a height of 440m. The descent was lovely more or less down all the way to Whaley Bridge. Overall, it was a very hilly ride, climbing 1450 metres within the 48 miles. Oddly enough, the freehub which was creaking all the way round the flat ride on Sunday was completely quiet both today and yesterday. I don’t want to change it if it will keep going a bit longer.
I tidied up before feeding Felix, packing the car and setting off at 4pm, arriving home soon after 5pm. Overall, I rode 207 miles and climbed 4500 metres (21.7metres/mile). This means that I have climbed over 95,000 metres this year. I had set a target of 100,000 metres which is now almost completed.
