Saturday was the SCCC Cuerden Valley Ride. I have to admit that when I got up on Saturday morning and I could see slushy snow on the ground outside, my first thought was I don’t want to go cycling in that! As the ride didn’t appear to have been cancelled and because I was the official back leader for the ride, I thought I would have to at least drive to the start of the ride. So rather reluctantly I set off. I think a lot of other people must have had the same thoughts when they got up too, as there were only 5 riders in total. We met in the Kem Mill car park near Whittle-le-Woods, Chorley which is part of the Cuerden Valley Park. There was no snow around at all and the sun was out.

The last time that I had been on this ride, Andy had rather a bad day – the blog post about that can be found here and I never finished the ride.

Our route followed the cycle path through the park, which basically follows the River Lostock.

The first section was mainly on trails (or cycle paths). There were a few road sections but not too many.

We picked up the Preston Junction cycle path (an old railway line) which we followed to Avenham Park.

As we approached Avenham Park, we crossed over the River Ribble.

We stopped for a coffee break at the cafe in Avenham Park itself. In the summary the gardens there can be wonderful but not so much at this time of year. There were a lot of runners around that morning though.

 

 

Leaving the cafe, we cycled along the River Ribble for a while

Crossing over the main road near the retail park before heading down quieter roads.

This turned into a slow climb which continued for quite a while.

We stopped for a short break near a railway crossing.

We then continued up the hill.

We then turned right and continued up to Top O’Th Lane

There were some lovely views at the top. In the distance you could see hills with snow on the tops.

It might have been cold but it was a lovely sunny day and I was really glad that I had made the effort to go out cycling for the day.

Our route can be seen below:
[sgpx gpx=”/wp-content/uploads/gpx/CuerdenValley2016.gpx”]