I was very lucky with the weather for the annual NSPCC Liverpool-Chester-Liverpool Charity ride today. It was a bit breezy, but stayed dry (for me at least).
I signed up because I wanted to cycle through the Mersey Tunnel, but now I’ve done it, I won’t be doing it again. I don’t really like organised cycle events, especially when there are such a large number of entries. Strava suggests that well over 800 were riding the (most popular) 50 mile route, and there were five other routes offered.
At the start, it was downhill into the tunnel, and although there were two lanes available to us, people were weaving all over and I found the first 2 miles very stressful. Once on the roads through Birkenhead, discipline improved, but it took a long time for me to settle into a rhythm and find people travelling at a similar speed.
There were refreshment stops every 15 miles, so even though I’d just set off, I called into the first one for a coffee. It was only 8:30, but I’d been up for three hours by then. This meant that I didn’t hang about at Chester and headed straight back arriving back in Liverpool at 11.15.
All manner of bikes and levels of experience were in evidence. Many people were on mountain bikes, I saw several tandems and quite a few fat bikes. To be honest, you heard the fat bikes long before you saw them. I understand that there was even a bloke on a Raleigh Chopper, but I didn’t see that.
The course was perfect for a Veloviewer tile-chaser like me: it zig-zagged down and up the Wirral peninsula and allowed me to gather 21 brand new tiles, although I did have to sneak off-route a couple of times since I couldn’t resist two tiles which were tantalisingly close. And it was flat, too which was a bonus. The biggest climb was the last mile out of the tunnel coming back into Liverpool.
About the tunnel, it was surprisingly bendy and it also had two (or three?) turnings off the main route. Where did they go to? Although I didn’t enjoy riding in the tunnel at the start, coming back it was dead quiet and I really enjoyed the experience. It was exhilaratingly fast going in (obviously it’s downhill) although I’ve no idea what my speed was since there was no GPS signal. My Garmin alternated in informing me that it had lost the signal but that I was also off the route. (If it didn’t have a signal, how did it deduce I was off the route?)
It was, on balance, a great ride, and to top it all, I even got a medal! It was awarded for just finishing rather than any special effort on my part, but still, I am quite proud: it’s the first cycling medal I’ve ever won.
I now need to plan another Veloviewer tile raid to Wirral to hoover up all the orphan tiles remaining. It should only be a day’s job, even though they are widely spaced out.
I’d like to say thank-you to the extremely generous people who donated to the NSPCC in supporting this ride. On behalf of the NSPCC, I am very grateful.