Day 9 - Forton to Chester
Distance: 73.2 miles
Elevation: 1898 ft
Average speed: 11.4 miles
https://www.strava.com/activities/2450045561
Ride report:
Oh dear.
Up until now, the routes I've been tinkering with for the past year have actually turned out to be pretty good - one or two miscues but mostly we've been on sensible roads and have made it from place to place without incident. That all went a little wrong today! It was always going to be a frustrating urban day, but with little climbing, we hoped it wouldn't be too challenging.
Started off in the rain (again!) from the canalside cottage and did pretty well getting to Preston straight down the A6. Felt a lot like the commute at home, much less fun than some of the riding we've done on the trip so far, but at least we were making progress towards the south.
Preston itself was slightly annoying due to various roadworks closing roads - where possible we pushed the bikes round them but some required some re-navigation. Once we got out of the town, we were finally back onto a more bike-friendly route!
By the time we finally made it to Parbold, where Mum was waiting, it was quite a bit past our estimated coffee time, and in fact more like time for lunch! Fortunately, the nominated coffee shop actually had some good food on offer, so we decided that we could always have two lunches if needed. Good job too...
After we left the cafe, we headed through Skelmersdale, where I discovered that planning routes in England is not like planning routes in Scotland. In Scotland, a B road may or may not have tarmac on it. Apparently, in England some B roads are dual carriageway! Fortunately, it was mid afternoon and so the roads were pretty quiet.
Just north of Rainford, the day took another turn, as when rolling past some recent hedge-cutting, my rear wheel picked up a thorn or something, and quickly deflated. Our initial thoughts were "ah well, we've made it over 500 miles without a puncture, not bad", but these quickly turned a little sourer when we rediscovered what a pig my wheels are, meaning it took us rather longer than we'd have liked to fix (we were very grateful for the roadside assistance from Mum who retraced her drive to bring us the track pump!)
Finally rolling again, it was now full-flow rush hour through St Helens, not helped by the fact that there was a rugby league match on. We fought our way along cycle paths and across roundabouts, but it was slow going.
Made it to the garden centre we'd originally planned for lunch just after 5pm, when they'd stopped serving any drinks at all. Fortunately, Mum had managed to wangle some last-minute cups of tea from the lady inside, so we sat out with our reusable mugs and put some extra power into the Garmins and phones. We still had 30 miles to go, but with the accommodation already pre-booked in Chester, we had no option but to push on
Eventually, we made it to Widnes and to the crossing, only to discover yet another bridge closed to everyone but cyclists! Looking at the rather impressive scaffolding going on, we headed across to Runcorn.
With a few more interesting diversions as I argued with my Garmin, we finally made it out of the big cities. We followed the A56 to Frodsham, then "to avoid the busy road" (my usual planning philosophy, we headed off onto a minor lane which my routing software had recommended. In it's defence, this road was not a dual carriageway, and did not have lorries hurtling down it, however it did have a lot of potholes. Fortunately, they were all flooded, so at least we could see where they were - except when they had joined together and taken over the entire path, so we had to risk riding through and hoping there weren't sharp stones at the bottom!
It took us a long time to cover a relatively short distance, but were very happy to see brand new access roads built to the industrial estates, which we followed most of the way to Chester. We finally made it to the hotel at just before 8.30pm (hence the delay in posting), tired, muddy, very hungry and hoping never to see another city again. Tomorrow's route has been scrutinised heavily with Streetview - here's hoping for a quieter day!
Elevation: 1898 ft
Average speed: 11.4 miles
https://www.strava.com/activities/2450045561
Ride report:
Oh dear.
Up until now, the routes I've been tinkering with for the past year have actually turned out to be pretty good - one or two miscues but mostly we've been on sensible roads and have made it from place to place without incident. That all went a little wrong today! It was always going to be a frustrating urban day, but with little climbing, we hoped it wouldn't be too challenging.
Started off in the rain (again!) from the canalside cottage and did pretty well getting to Preston straight down the A6. Felt a lot like the commute at home, much less fun than some of the riding we've done on the trip so far, but at least we were making progress towards the south.
Preston itself was slightly annoying due to various roadworks closing roads - where possible we pushed the bikes round them but some required some re-navigation. Once we got out of the town, we were finally back onto a more bike-friendly route!
By the time we finally made it to Parbold, where Mum was waiting, it was quite a bit past our estimated coffee time, and in fact more like time for lunch! Fortunately, the nominated coffee shop actually had some good food on offer, so we decided that we could always have two lunches if needed. Good job too...
After we left the cafe, we headed through Skelmersdale, where I discovered that planning routes in England is not like planning routes in Scotland. In Scotland, a B road may or may not have tarmac on it. Apparently, in England some B roads are dual carriageway! Fortunately, it was mid afternoon and so the roads were pretty quiet.
Just north of Rainford, the day took another turn, as when rolling past some recent hedge-cutting, my rear wheel picked up a thorn or something, and quickly deflated. Our initial thoughts were "ah well, we've made it over 500 miles without a puncture, not bad", but these quickly turned a little sourer when we rediscovered what a pig my wheels are, meaning it took us rather longer than we'd have liked to fix (we were very grateful for the roadside assistance from Mum who retraced her drive to bring us the track pump!)
 |
| The first attempt... |
Finally rolling again, it was now full-flow rush hour through St Helens, not helped by the fact that there was a rugby league match on. We fought our way along cycle paths and across roundabouts, but it was slow going.
Made it to the garden centre we'd originally planned for lunch just after 5pm, when they'd stopped serving any drinks at all. Fortunately, Mum had managed to wangle some last-minute cups of tea from the lady inside, so we sat out with our reusable mugs and put some extra power into the Garmins and phones. We still had 30 miles to go, but with the accommodation already pre-booked in Chester, we had no option but to push on
Eventually, we made it to Widnes and to the crossing, only to discover yet another bridge closed to everyone but cyclists! Looking at the rather impressive scaffolding going on, we headed across to Runcorn.
 |
| Bridge across the Mersey |
 |
| Who stole all the water? Thought there was meant to be flooding. |
With a few more interesting diversions as I argued with my Garmin, we finally made it out of the big cities. We followed the A56 to Frodsham, then "to avoid the busy road" (my usual planning philosophy, we headed off onto a minor lane which my routing software had recommended. In it's defence, this road was not a dual carriageway, and did not have lorries hurtling down it, however it did have a lot of potholes. Fortunately, they were all flooded, so at least we could see where they were - except when they had joined together and taken over the entire path, so we had to risk riding through and hoping there weren't sharp stones at the bottom!
 |
| This was not a good road to cycle on. |
It took us a long time to cover a relatively short distance, but were very happy to see brand new access roads built to the industrial estates, which we followed most of the way to Chester. We finally made it to the hotel at just before 8.30pm (hence the delay in posting), tired, muddy, very hungry and hoping never to see another city again. Tomorrow's route has been scrutinised heavily with Streetview - here's hoping for a quieter day!
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