24th April 2025
Wednesday morning, 6.30 and I’m out walking my dog when out of the blue I received a message from Graham “ Mornin. Fancy goin out for an hour later? 🚲 🚲 “ obviously I responded positively . This made it one of our earliest adventures, normally we don’t start until May, this made Graham rather proud. That evening I arrived home to see Graham awaiting my arrival. Quickly as possible I got ready for our adventure, as I emerged Graham was chatting with my wife Louby Lou who had just got home from work , he turned to me “ Eyy up mi grandson’s got some shorts like them pal “ he said with a giggle which made Louby Lou chuckle too.
My bike hadn’t been ridden for a while so needed a little fettling before we could start out on our adventure but soon it was sorted , well sort of. We set off and headed over the Darcy Lever viaduct following the old railway line into Bolton. It was then I applied my brakes for the first time , Sqquueeeellll , scrreeeeeccchh , they weren’t half making a hell of a noise , people were turning around to see what was making all the noise. Graham just turned towards me and gave me one of his cheeky little grins.
As we descended from the viaduct we past a man wandering off into the bushes, Graham was bemused but I suggested hopefully he was just answering the call of nature. Just around the corner outside the police station there was a police van with a young prisoner in the back . As we rode by he bobbed his head out of the back and shouted across to his girlfriend “ See you in a bit “ I instantly turned to Graham “ Oh yeah see you in about 5 years you mean” this brought a roar of laughter from Graham.
We were loosely following the route we had taken on our first adventure of 2023 and 2024, these adventures are only short allowing us to bed back into the saddle . We stopped off at a couple of spots but little or nothing had changed. We then took a detour down Mawdsley St and spotted some very impressive old buildings which most people would just walk or drive passed without taking notice. In Graham and Ebays world these were of great interest. We wondered what they were used for, then Graham spotted the engraving in the stone above the door “ County Borough of Bolton Technical School “ with a date of 1891. Next door was another large building with a date engraved of 1865 but unfortunately we couldn’t find what it was .
Back on our route we rode around Le Mans crescent onto Moor Ln which has now undergone a dramatic transformation hopefully for the best but time will tell. The site of the old bus station is now a housing development and across the road are blocks of flats and an open area with benches. We rode over the road to Elizabeth Park where we sat and had a catch up with what had happened over winter. Graham had recently been diagnosed with an irregular heart beat and he told me that he was waiting for an appointment so they will stop his heart and restart it to fix his issue, it sounded scary. Then he told me he’d watched a program about it and there’s a time when you’re actually dead for a few seconds . Don’t think I’d have watched it , but Graham loves the medical programmes .
We then chatted about his holiday and general other things. He asked about the river cruise Louby Lou and myself had just enjoyed but a couple of unsavoury characters sat down next to us so we decided it would be better to continue our adventure.
From there we stopped off at the site of the old Blue Boar pub on Deansgate , the building work was still in progress over 12 months on but it looked like it would be ready soon. At this point we took the decision not to head to Ye Olde Pastie shop it was nearing 7.15 by now so we headed towards Queen’s Park where I could tell Graham all about our cruise . We passed the newly opened Greyhound pub which had been damaged in an explosion the year before As we rode up the steep hill towards the top of the park I could hear Graham huffing and puffing, it was his first ride on the bike since our last adventure “Hills Hills and more Bloody Hills “ back in September last year. I on the other hand had been out over the past few months, be it on my e-bike with a couple of friends Mechanic Chris and Big Andy on Sundays so I wasn’t struggling quite as much.
As we approached the top of the hill we noticed a couple of young scallies with their hoodies up and wearing balaclavas. I said to Graham “ They hadn’t intimidated us but a young woman on their own could have been quite scared by them” he retorted “ This country has had it matey, it’s beyond fixing but I hope I’m wrong “ but sadly I agreed with him , we don’t get political on our adventures but some things just get our backs up. After that its back on the adventure, we headed towards the top of the park so we could enjoy the last rays of the spring sunshine. We scoured for a spot in the sun when Graham noticed a man sat at the base of a tree in the bright evening sun. “That’s were we should be “ exclaimed Graham but I pointed out that we couldn’t just push him out of the way 😂 . We soon found a bench in the sunshine but Graham was unsure looking at it if it would take our weight, as we’d both put on a few extra pounds over winter. We risked it anyway enjoying the view of the lovely gardens, only to interrupted by a kid from a foreign family running around kicking the soil up and skidding on the grass watched by his so called parents, , sadly people these days have no respect.
As we sat there I told Graham how Louby Lou and myself had thoroughly enjoyed our river cruise along the Danube calling at numerous cities including Vienna. I actually met a real Graham and his wife Linda as well as Allan and Doreen on our cruise who made it a holiday to remember. It had been my best holiday ever I told Graham, he said it sounded fantastic and that he did fancy doing something like that if Val was up for it , “I’m sure she would love it “ I replied
It was now time to head back home, neither of us had had our tea and we were both famished. Getting up off the bench brought several moans, groans, and various other noises as we slowly arose from our seat. We took the quickest route back through the town centre. It was here we saw what Bolton on a Thursday night had to offer, it was only 7.45pm as we rode passed the Old Three Crowns but the karaoke was in full swing with drunken people dancing around outside the building in the streets. We passed the now closed down Crompton Place shopping arcade awaiting demolition yet another shop gone from our town centre.
Leaving the town centre behind we proceeded down Bridgman Place using the cycle lane. At the bottom as you cross over St Peter’s way the cycle lane makes a crazy turn to allow you to cross Bury Road, this Graham found very puzzling and confusing with him calling out to me “ Where the hell are we going now pal ?” whilst chuckling away to himself as we circled around, “ that’s bloody crazy that pal, bloody crazy “ he called out behind me “ thought you’d like that matey” I called back. We continued our way home cutting through the streets. I wanted to show Graham the hopefully new house of Carlus & Carolina.
On our way back up to the viaduct at Darcy lever we rode along the path alongside the filled in Manchester Bolton &Bury canal, as we did we met a couple walking their dogs so as extreme bikers we stopped to let them pass. Once back on our way, the man called back to us to be wary. There was a large tree trunk across the path further on. I turned to give him the thumbs up. Only then did I see Graham had crashed into a tree laying at the side of the path. Apparently, he’d turned round after hearing the man’s voice. Then he was sprawled out over the fallen tree, much to my amusement. I shouldn’t laugh, but I was in hysterics. The irony struck me, as he crashed after being warned about something further on. As he picked himself up he said with a straight face “ Well I think I did that extremely gracefully “ with that I was rolling around with laughter , Oh Graham you never cease to amaze me.
By this point we were beginning to feel the chill of the evening air and with it being Grahams first outing he was a little saddle sore and he took the decision not to stop at the point where we went our separate ways so we gave each other a fist bump and Graham as usual ” Message me when your home “, ” Same here” I replied as he rode off into the distance.
