2nd May 2019
Journey Length 10.27ml
Click Here For Route Via Ride with GPS
Graham and I have been best friends for more years than we care to remember , so it’s always the highlight of the year when we meet up for our first adventure after the winter break, even though we do socialise during the break.
The winter break has given me time to plan some adventures to find small areas we’ve still not visited. I am looking to find a cheap bike rack for my car so we can adventure further afield in the future. Tonight was to be a short planned outing but like the majority of our adventures it didn’t go quite to plan.
We met up at Leverhulme Park to follow the cycle route towards Radcliffe which begins for us at the playing fields of New House Farm. Following the path to its end we emerged into the middle of a new housing estate on to Cordington Way. Not knowing which way we should head we just blindly went straight on. This did indeed take us the right way if not the most efficient .
We stopped to get our bearings then it was off again, chatting as we rode catching up on all the happenings of our time apart. As we rode up Pollington Rd I spotted a sign for Radcliffe FC, so we decided to have a quick look around, and take a couple of pictures whist there. Now Graham being considerably taller the me was given the task of taking a photo of the pitch over a rather high gate. Below his his first attempt and second attempt.
It is not uncommon for us to get lost, mainly from taking a wrong turn or two, tonight was no exception, as you can see if you have a look at the route at this point, it looks like a finger and thumb holding a nut ,well to me anyway). We came across a little park, Bolton Rd Park where we decided to have a break and a proper catch up, not before Graham decided to play Evel Knievel and attempted a nose wheelie, much to my amusement.
See link below for YouTube video
Grahams Nose Wheelie
As we chatted Graham exasperated as he said he’d had a traumatic event on Saturday but unfortunately due to a gagging order (enforced by Graham himself for self preservation) I am unable to divulge any details, hopefully it may be removed in the future.
Shortly after leaving the park Graham said that he knew where we were, so I followed his lead. We rode through an estate and came upon a pub ( The Wilton Arms) which Graham commented looked like the pub from “Shameless”.
We rode on until we came to what looked like an abandoned running track, no doubt caused by the austerity affecting us all, I decided that I take a photo but this involved a climb to the top of the tall gate, taking great care not to drop my phone over. Graham pointing out that would be a bad thing to do as we couldn’t get in> Photo taken it was time to set off then Graham spotted a path at the other side of the track, so off we went. It was along here we noticed that fence was a matter of 2 ft tall, which wouldn’t have caused either of us an access problem to retrieve a dropped phone. Not knowing where this path led we just continued until we saw the sign for Radcliffe Town centre, this actually led us to the canal and our way home.
The canal has gone through some improvements including the resurfacing of the towpaths which made our journey back a lot easier than we were used to, I stated ” it wasn’t really extreme biking” “Maybe they realised we were getting older now” Graham commented, I laughed thinking about them planning the path and thinking about us two old codgers on bikes . Soon we were at the Meccano bridge, it was here we had to sadly part and go our separate ways home, til next time bestie.
