On Saturday Audrey, Cathy and I had a lovely sunny country ride along the
lanes from Crewe to Congleton, in between train induced chaos.
The plan for the day was Audrey's first 50 by taking the train to Chester
then coming back along the Cheshire Cycleway - using a signed route cuts
down on time spent reading maps. However Arriva Trains Wales had other
ideas - the train we intended to get to Chester arrived in Manchester with
only one carriage already with people standing, and more than a carriage
worth of people wanting to get on. The next possible departure to Chester
was via Crewe, but as we'd spent a lot of time hanging around we decided
that Crewe would do as a starting point. Gained a bit of time back by
having the first installment of lunch on the somewhat long train journey,
which took a bizarre route west via Warrington to Crewe which is south of
Manchester.
Naively I assumed that the green blobbed cycling route south of Crewe marked
on the OS map I'd bought just that morning would be accurate, and easy to
find, but it was neither. After a bit of busy B road through Shavington it
took us a couple of goes to find the Cheshire Cycleway signs in Wybunbury.
Signs at a lot of the turns are only visible from one direction - but not
consistently the same direction. However once we'd found it, the route took
some lovely back lanes with very little traffic and the good part of the day
started. The earlier clouds had disappeared leaving a clear blue sky, but
not too hot. After about an hour of lovely lanes with some nice gentle
undulations I spotted a bench under a tree on a village green in Hough where
we stopped for the second installment of lunch.
The early afternoon part of the ride remained on very quiet back lanes, but
with a couple of steeper climbs. In Barthomley the signed route started to
diverge from what was marked on my map. The signs pointed to a lane that
crossed a main road on a bridge, whereas the map route had a junction with
the same main road, so we opted for the signed one. This led to a real
green lane with grass growing down the middle. At the bottom of a hill the
reason for the lack of use was revealed - a level crossing where cars have
to stop and open the gates themselves. I haven't seen one of those in
years.
The route now took us to the outskirts of Alsager and played around taking
us over the M6 twice and under it once. The mapped route goes directly
through the middle of Alsager; the signed one wiggles around a lot, just
touches the edge of Alsager and uses a bridlepath that was a bit too sandy
for my liking.
My plan for the day had included cafe stops, but so far the improvised route
had only passed one open shop, so the Lock 57 Cafe and shop at Hassall Green
was a very nice surprise. Here we celebrated Audrey's birthday with
excellent cake that she made. By the time we left it was almost 4pm, and we
were very little closer to home than when we'd started. I knew that there
were another 30 miles to do, and had doubts that we'd make it before dark at
our slow pace.
The signed route continued to be different to the one on the map, and also
continued to be lovely quiet lanes, until we joined the A34 just outside
Congleton for about a mile. We were all glad to turn off onto a side road
through the outskirts. After quite a distance through the suburbs the route
turned onto the A54 for a few yards and then off again, at which point it
was obviously leaving Congleton. I'd long since made up my own mind that
this ride was going to have to be finished by getting another train home, so
at this point I called a halt to discuss our options. It was 5:30, the next
place with a station was more than 12 miles away, services are not frequent
and getting bikes on can be a problem so we decided the sensible option was
train from Congleton.
Congleton has some very [censored] shared use cyclepaths that dump cyclists in
impossible places where they run out, so after trying the first two we gave
up on them. It also has a ring road system, and is very hilly, so we ended
up doing several miles of up and down on roads with very fast traffic that
didn't think we should be on the road. The station proved to be a long way
out of the town centre up the biggest hill of the day, so we got off and
pushed. I wish we'd had our confab a bit earlier, we could have saved an
hour's touring of Congleton.
The station had notices about weekend engineering works, and every single
train on the timetable had the symbols for Saturdays excepted against it,
inducing visions of B+Bs and regret at having passed several open fish and
chip shops down in the town. A phone call to train enquiries promised us a
train 90 minutes later, with a rail replacement bus from Stockport to
Manchester because of the engineering work. I tried a bit of lateral
thinking and asked about going from Alderley Edge instead, only to find
there were no trains at all from there, only rail replacement buses.
Audrey had spotted a pub on the other side of the road, which reassuringly
did B+B in case the non-timetabled train didn't turn up. It also did about
half a dozen real ales, and food. A pint and a plate of chips cheered us up
somewhat. The promised train did arrive, with the added bonus of stopping
at Cheadle Hulme - a nice downhill ride home instead of up and over the hill
from Stockport.
Audrey didn't get her 50, and was somewhat later for her birthday dinner,
but it was a ride we'll never forget.
--
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selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. - Sinclair Lewis
Steph Peters delete invalid from [email hidden]
Tatting, lace & stitching page <http://www.sandbenders.demon.co.uk/index.htm>