Easy riding into December

We have been making the most of the relatively good weather as we head out of November and into December, with two pop-up Thursday rides, as well as the scheduled Sunday easy ride.

The last Thursday of November had Tim, Phil and myself riding up to the Wizard tearoom. My usual lightweight bike had a flat back tyre, discovered just as I was setting off on the last minute, so I swapped on to my 30 year old mountain bike. I usually use this for food shopping, but it is in good working order and, it transpired, has low enough gears to get me up Artists Lane without stopping. The tearoom seating is fully outdoors, so it was not very busy. It is open 364 days of the year and the coffee is excellent.

Last Sunday’s easy ride was from Wilmslow to Plumley garden centre. Our usual meeting point was very busy with runners in Christmas fancy dress, due to the Wilmslow ‘festive 10’, but it did mean that there was a convenient coffee van in the adjacent car park for cyclists who turned up early. We had a tight time limit for our ride out, in that Plumley breakfast options were only available until 11.30am. I led a smaller slower group on the ride whilst Griff led a faster group which set off first. We caught up with them just after Ollerton cross roads, where Snowy was attending to a puncture in his tubeless tyre. We carried on, and were overtaken again by the faster breakfast afficionados about half a mile before Plumley.

Fortunately the cafe was well staffed, and coped very well with the huge queue which we created at 11.20am. It was very warm inside, so a number of us opted for the outdoor covered seating, whilst the rest roasted gently indoors. We split into two different groups for our ride home, with a group of Macclesfield based riders taking a more direct route, and the rest of us heading back to Wilmslow on a longer route. We had another puncture, near Knutsford, this time it was Griff’s bike, and Claire W riding in the opposite direction stopped to say hello. We successfully navigated through Knutsford (bit of a team effort) and made it back to Wilmslow, still dry.

Last Thursday’s ride saw five of us riding over to Sandy Lane tea room at Whirley. It was great to see Lisa who was back from her holiday adventures in warmer climes, and had not heard about Jim’s Scottish adventures, so there was a lot to talk about. Our route took us through Mottram St Andrew, up to Over Alderley reading rooms, down Birtles and around the Henbury circuit, so rather a lot of climbing. The cafe was warm, so Michelle, Becky and Lisa thawed out indoors, whilst Jim and I went for the outdoor option. The ride back was much easier, particularly for Michelle and Becky who went straight home, having ridden over to the start, but for the rest of us it was mostly downhill back to Wilmslow.

Katherine

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