The Chuckle Brothers Ride Again
20th August 2015
Click Here For Route Via Strava
This evenings ride should have taken us along the Outwood trail, but in typical Graham and Ebay style the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
On arriving home from work I remembered that my bike still had road tyres on, so a quick rummage in the shed found my knobbly tyres, into the garage to change them over, a 10 min job for extreme bikers ,so not a problem, wheels off, tyres off , tyres on, wheels on quick check and off I go. Oh no not so simple, everything went well until the back brakes wouldn’t release. After numerous attempts, adjusting re-adjusting still no joy, then get a text from Val, Graham’s better half letting me know his phone had broke, a quick text back advising of my problem and Graham would be better off coming over to me. Now after a short time of head scratching I rectified the problem and set off to meet Graham at some point on the canal.
Reaching the Meccano bridge with no sign of Graham it was obvious he must have taken another route, on the phone to Val but no answer, so only one thing for it, head back along the canal towards home, low and behold just as I reach Hall lane my phone rings, its my partner Peggy Lou “ I’ve got a man here looking for you”. After a quick conversation we soon met up to start our evenings adventure. Due to the Chuckle Bros escapade our plan of going along the Outwood trail had to be rehashed with the light nights now coming to an end. A quick conflab and Graham took charge, so down the hill into Moses gate country park, alongside the lodges and headed left on the path up onto Cemetery road near where they are boring the new Farnworth railway tunnel, here we took a quick detour and then down the hill towards the Blue bridge, half way down we turned sharp right along the very over grown path towards the site of the tunnel works
After a steep climb, we soon came upon a large clearing alongside the fence of the building site, where there were some very large dumper trucks and construction equipment. The site is huge and we could just make out the new tunnel that is under construction for the electrification of this section of line. After a short break we ploughed on, quite literally, as the area had been excavated and well churned up, but we soon found the path again running alongside the railway which brought us to Ford st in Stoneclough near the En-tune garage. Now we had a decision to make, head back along the canal or on up the hill to our original destination, I now took command and we set off up Ringley rd where after about 1.5 mile we turned left along the Outwood Trail which was developed along a section of the former East Lancashire Railway line, which originally ran from Clifton Junction to Accrington.
Click Link Below
We followed the trail to its emergence, at Sion St in Radcliffe, now we rode along Sion st past what was the Masons Arms where Graham commented he had spent many an good night, but sadly like many pubs it has now closed and is a private dwelling. At the end of the street is a steep path up to the canal , Graham went gung ho up the hill, as he reached the top a group of people where out walking their dogs and as Graham exclaimed he had made it and that I was pushing my bike up , one of the group commented that it was because I was a lot older than Graham, the fact that this guy was a good 30m away from me I found a little disconcerting, but no doubt it gave Graham a lift, him turning 50 later this year.
Letting me take the lead, a bit of a ruse by Graham I think so he could get his breath back, we headed along the canal path passing a lovely sight of a family of swans swimming along, until we came to the Meccano bridge, a bit of deja vous on my part. Here we said our goodbyes until next week and arranged to get more organised for then. I rode down the tow-path with the light fading now and when I eventually got to the canal past Hall lane the overhanging trees combined with the fading light made this very eerie, so to say I didn’t hang around is an understatement. As per our usual agreement we text each other to say we had arrived home safely, until next time.
