5th February 2021 – Graham and Ebay's World

4th February 2021

Journey Length 12.94ml

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It’s Thursday, Graham had been furloughed for a month and myself since March so there was only one thing for it, a socially distanced, daily exercise, afternoon adventure. This was not the only reason we had decided we needed an adventure. Sadly last year I lost my dad to cancer in the middle of the Covid pandemic and I was looking forward to 2021 with Graham and me returning to our adventures after all the lock downs were over. Then we got some absolutely devastating news . One of our dearest friends Phil, Graham’s friend from college and best men at one and others weddings was taken from us way too soon. At the young age of only 54 he lost his life doing what he loved, running. He had suffered a heart attack from an undiagnosed heart defect.

Phil had featured previously in our Blogs when he’d completed the Bolton Iron Man event in 2017 and Graham and me had retraced some of the route, admittedly at much a more relaxed pace. Phil was full of energy. The man who always got any get together going with his outgoing nature , strong character and the ability to get on with absolutely everyone. He was the person who if you said you couldn’t do something would say in his booming voice “ of course we can, we’ll give it a go”. That was Phil always up for a challenge. During the winter months we would all meet up on a Thursday evening for a beer or two with our friend Paul when we weren’t able to go on our adventures. We would share our adventures and he would tell us of his latest challenge.

The shock of losing a friend at such a young age was devastating especially for Graham. The fact it was during a pandemic made it even worse, not being able to be there for people when they need you the most. So we decided as a tribute to Phil we would have an adventure (socially distanced) to reminisce and celebrate his life in our own unique way.

I had bought a new bike from a gift from my late dad which I am truly blessed and very grateful for. Out of sadness does come some happiness, so with this in our thoughts we set off to remember Phil. I met with Graham near the canal at Nob End. We rode along the canal towards Bury. As this was our first adventure since 2019, yes it was over 16 month since we’d been out, we took it easy. Not far down the towpath we were cheered up by the sight of a couple of beautiful swans elegantly swimming along, accompanied by a flotilla of ducks. Further along we saw a large flock of geese enjoying the winter sun. Graham informed me that when he had ridden down here last year he had noticed some work being carried out on the side of the canal embankment, so we went off to investigate . As we rode under a bridge Graham stopped and said “ wow seen that mate, that’s a big one”, “ that’s what she said” I replied. It was in fact what looked like a huge electrical plug and socket. We pondered why it was there for a while then got bored so we set off.

Indeed there had been a lot of earthworks on the canal embankment near Mount Sion Rd, but we were unsure why. Graham saw what looked like a large pond down from the canal, but after sliding down the muddy banks to investigate returned to say it was just a bog, and duly tripped up over the barbed wire stumbling back onto the towpath arms a flailing. It wasn’t long before we had crossed over Water St in Radcliffe and were heading up to Elton reservoir, where Graham told me there had been some kind of breach. Nothing for it then, go and have a look. Near the reservoir there is a weir on the canal that flows into the river Irwell. I couldn’t resist, “ Bit weary now mate”, “ bit weird isn’t it pal” I joked with little response from Graham, only a slight sigh. We sat on the bridge chatting about our memories with Phil. Some memories are very personal to us but we remembered the time we were talking about reflagging Graham’s drive which is a huge job and Phil just booming out “ Come on lads we can make a weekend of it, BBQ and a few beers we’ll sort it.” Sadly we never got the chance.

Wier Overflow Into River — Weir Overflow Into River

At the Reservoir we could see the area affected, it looked like the bank had slipped and had been repaired but the water level was really low considering all the rain we had had. I looked down at the wall and saw a load of what we would call vandalism, it was carvings where people had carved their names on the tops of the wall. One in particular caught my eye Carol Gardner 1967 , I couldn’t help wondering what became of her, but then I was brought back with a jolt with Graham flashing me his electric heated vest that he’d got for Christmas , with its own battery back, sadly he said it only lasts a hour or so, he had ordered the wrong battery pack, Ohh Graham !!

We descended down the slippery bank back onto the towpath. Our next objective was to find the statue of Victoria Wood, a famous local comedian who was born in Bury and sadly passed away in 2016 with cancer. The statue we were told was in Bury town centre somewhere. Before we could get there we were confronted by what looked like a lake in the middle of the path, but being extreme bikers we went for it. It got deeper and deeper, at one point Graham stated it must be nearly 2 feet deep, in fact it was probably about 6 inches.

We crossed the old pack-horse bridge over the river Irwell into Bury, but as usual took a wrong turning. After a quick look on the map we were on our way, well kind of I had gone on the cycle path towards the subway but unfortunately Graham was stuck on the other side of the metal barriers whoops, so had to backtrack. He soon caught up and we headed to the town centre. At the statue of Robert Peel in the town centre we checked Google maps to find exactly where Victoria Woods statue was, it said we were less than 2 minutes away. Well that’s good we thought, 10 minutes later we were still no nearer, going in completely the wrong direction. After another 10 minutes we found the statue a hundred metres from where we were 20 mins ago, we’d just gone round in circles, surprisingly not for the first time on our adventures. Graham commented that it didn’t really do her any favours but I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I must say I agreed with him.

Now it was time to head back. As we ventured through the extremely large puddle on our return journey Graham thought it would be amusing if he could try and knock me off into the water, but sadly for him he failed. We rode back down Mount Sion Road to see the earthworks from below, still no idea why it had been done. Then it was the steep dirt path up to the canal. We both pushed our bikes up saying it would be our challenge to ride all the way up in further adventures to prove our fitness, this we will have to monitor.

Once at the Meccano bridge we rested before it was time to go home. As we did a young couple came along and asked if we knew anything about the canal, well we were in our element informing them of all the places they could go. They were impressed with our knowledge, thanked us and set off on their own adventure.

Hopefully Phil would have been looking down in us and saying we’d done him proud.

RIP mate love Graham & Ebay.