25th Aug 2022
Distance 7.5ml
Thursday morning and I get a message from Graham, “Fancy it for an hour later pal?”. Now I presumed he meant going out on an adventure so ,obviously there was only one answer “yes pal”. Arrangements were made and I met Graham at mine. Soon we’re on our way.
We decided to have a mooch around Bolton Town centre as it had been quite a while since we had visited the area. We rode over the old railway viaduct in Darcy Lever which led us onto Manchester Rd. As we rode past Orlando Bridge I commented that the last time we were here back in June 2018 (5 Parks and A SinkHole) there was a sinkhole in the middle of the road, stating the obvious Graham pointed out that they must have fixed it now.
Heading towards the town centre we came to the road works at Trinity St where they are in the progress of extending the cycle way around the area, but at the moment like most road works it is causing absolute chaos. I stopped to take a quick photo and missed the lights but graham had got through on green. I was ringing my bell , ring ring ring ring, but being old and hard of hearing he didn’t hear me. Now the temporary lights took an eternity to change, when they eventually did I found Graham patiently waiting.
We got to the pedestrianised area of Newport St where Graham enquired what was the name of the pub on the corner, Graham pondering what it was called before “Serendipities” , after a bit of deliberation and grey matter scratching we came up with the answer ” The Wheatsheaf “. Now on Newport St we noticed a lot of tent like stalls, which proved of interest to us , but unfortunately they narrowed the pedestrian area, I heard Graham behind me calling out “I’m gonna dismount”, a few seconds later “I’m gonna dismount me” then again moments later, I turned round to see him still on his bike. “I think we’ll dismount here pal” I said, obviously with extreme biker training we knew it was the right thing to do. Now pushing our bikes past the town hall we were passed by some yob riding his bike but Karma bit him in the arse as there were too many people and we actually passed him pushing our bikes. It became apparent that the stalls were mainly all food stalls, so intrigued we decided to explore the area to see what was happening. As we pushed our bikes around the stalls they kept going on and on. There were a great range of stalls including a Carrs pasties stall, and numerous vans including a Lebanese food van. Further around we came upon a stage being set up for a band, in the middle of the stage was a pair of step ladders, ” hey” I shouted to Graham ” look Steps or on stage”, it brought a sigh from Graham but a little chuckle from one of the security guards nearby.
We stopped as we headed towards the old Moor Lane bus station to debate what was going on, as we did I spotted a sign for Bolton food festival right above our heads, oh sometimes we are such silly boys.
As we looked over what remained of the bus station Graham noticed the old abandoned Albion pub over the opposite side and suggested we have a look at it. We rode around the back of the pub and past Bolton little theatre up to what Graham said looked like an old garage which now looked like a charity shop. Looking through the windows though it looked like a dumping ground for any old things.
After some puzzlement over what the building had been originally used for we set off through the town centre. What an eye opener this was, half the shops had been demolished, Poundstretchers was boarded up, people were drunk or on drugs begging on nearly every corner as well as outside various pubs. It certainly has taken a turn for the worst.
We decided to head down Churchgate and this was a little better, it felt brighter and airier. We did a u-turn, quite common for us, as we wanted to explore the area around the Church Wharf area where the canal used to end. We stopped over the River Croal which at this point is only 2ft wide and runs in a culvert through and under the town centre. Graham wanted to follow it to see where it went, and as that is what extreme bikers do, we set off. The culvert is lined with old cobbles which were very slippy. On we went slipping and sliding as the overgrown vegetation got thicker, past fallen trees we ploughed on until we were surrounded by stinging nettles. Now what do we do, both of us in shorts and tee shirts, before I could say anything Graham set of pushing his bike onwards, I followed closely behind, ouch awch, shit ahhh, bugger, ouch as we were stung by the nettles and so it continued for what felt like miles but in fact was only about 100ft.Â
Graham suddenly stopped in front of me ” by the eck that gives me the willies, not going down there pal, not for anything, really freaking me out that mate!!!”. I looked in front of him, there was an entrance to a tunnel taking the river under St Peters way, it was pitch black with just the sound of running water.It did actually look quite eerie. Graham was still staring into the darkness, in a trance like state. Eventually he snapped out of it and we made our way up towards Churchgate, at the bottom we noticed an old coach dumped over a fence and the gate on an electric sub station had been completely ripped out of the wall. What possessed some people?
We paused for a break sitting on a bench outside the parish church, taking in refreshments as we chatted about the week and our plans for the bank holiday weekend. Chatting over with and suitably refreshed we headed home, up along Bradshawgate we went and then turned left down Shiffnall St, which brought a cheeky laugh out of the pair of us as this was where the ladies of the night used to ply their trade back in the day. We joined Bridgeman place where we picked up the cycle lane towards Bury. As we crossed over St Peters way the cycle path takes an unusual route if you want to cross over the road. I had previously found this on an earlier ride but this was all new to Graham and he found it very amusing and was perplexed by the complexity of such a simple task.
We soon found ourselves back at mine where we parted company, Graham calling back to me ” message me when you are home” with a cheeky grin on his face.
