The Old Codgers Ride Again 

4th May 2017

JOURNEY LENGTH 7.3ml

Click Here For Route Via Strava

The longer days were finally with us and it was time once again to get in the saddle and start  our new adventures. Our adventure began like the Chuckle Brothers “to me to you, to me to you”. We had arranged to meet at the Meccano Bridge but I was running late, I took the route along the river avoiding the steep hill at the basin at Hall lane. Due to the fact that I was late Graham had set off along the tow path, so when I arrived at the bridge he was no where to be seen, until a figure appeared in the distance on the tow path. Once we had got ourselves organized we set off towards Ladyshore to the cobbled road leading down to the site of Lever Bank bleach works that were demolished in the early 1970s. The weather this evening was sunny but there was a strong gusty wind which made some parts hard going, and later nearly caused a nasty accident, but moreover that later. As we rode down we came across part of the road fenced off and a path leading around it, this was a cue for some exploring. On investigation we found out that the path was actually coming away and was in danger of sliding down the hill side . Continuing our journey down the hill we turned off at the bottom towards the old weir her we had a game of stone skimming, this turned into quite a competitive game, Graham won the biggest stone skim and I the longest, so we called it a draw. 

Off we rode along the path at the side of the river back towards Nob End, but we soon found this hard going and it definitely was not suitable for bikes, often dismounting after only a short distance and once or twice Graham took a little tumble stating “not quite got my balance back yet”. Eventually we arrived at the foot of the Canal banking which led up some small steps back to the canal, before we rejoined the canal we noticed a hatch, on investigation we found it was the overflow drain for the canal to the river.

Once back on the foot path we retraced our route to Nob End where we dropped down the hill passed the basin at the bottom and onto the “vats” which is now a nature reserve. It was the route for the trams from the brick works on cemetery road to the canal, there are still signs of the old brick works , the bricks were used to fill in a lot of the pot holes , that was even before Graham and I were born. 

Part way across we turned right along a path traveling alongside the river which led us to the bridge to Moses Gate Country Park, we followed the paths around the ponds. Enjoying the evening air we parked up the bikes and sat on  a bench overlooking the water, watching all the birds swimming and flying around. Graham asked if I knew the difference between a swallow and a swift, I replied I didn’t, he said that he  did but unfortunately he’d forgot, like there are 2 types of blueberry but couldn’t tell me what they were either, Ahh well that’s Graham for you. As we sat there, the wind picked up and a strong gust blew my bike crashing into the back of the bench the handle bars landing just between Graham and myself, an inch or do either way it would have been quite nasty. After our near death experience and with the sun going down it was time to head home for tea and plan our next adventure. So off we set, Graham home to Val and myself to Peggy Lou who I’d just texted to put the tea on, good women are hard to find but luckily for us we have  got a couple of belters.