Hope you all had a good Christmas and will be ready to get out for a ride to start fulfilling that New Year’s resolution. Riding off-road has all the benefits of riding on the road, but it’s a bit more fun at this time of year.
Meet at Delamere Station cafe at 10am as usual, but we might try something a little different and head over to the pack horse bridges near Tarvin (see the picture above) via some tracks and lanes, depending on the weather.
Everyone is welcome – these are social rides and we won’t leave you on your own, but we will get the chance to have a blast at times.
Looks like we will have a couple or more "beginers" which is good, so if you've been holding back, this is your chance to come along and not be the slowest!
New Years resolution..No falling off..lets see how long before that one is broken!! See you at the Cafe with son
You're tempting fate. Have you seen the weather forecast? I'm thinking of swapping my tyres for ice skate blades!
At least the frost should freeze the mud which was very deep last Monday. I have a plan B if the usual tracks are unridable.
New Year's Resolutions must have been part of the reason for 17 riders turning out, a new record I think – although we soon whittled that down! Lots of new faces too: Gareth's Emma, Dane doing on the mountainbike what we know he does on the road (going up the hills effortlessly), John from Crewe, Neil from Chester RC, Geoff from BNECC, Matt's brother Ed, then we picked up Mike from the Warrington RC and his lad for a short while.
The frost made most of the singletrack rideable, so we had an entertaining couple of hours before lunch back at the cafe. We missed the worst of the snow showers then a few of us rode some more of the trails on the way back via the Whitegate Way.
Thanks to everyone for turning out on a fairly unpromising day and Jonti for being "tailend Charlie" – hope the newcommers weren't put off too much; better conditions make for more fun – honest.
Not put off at all, lucky we missed the worst of it. Looking forward to the next off road ride.
Delamere is different every time I go there. You never know what you are going to face,and the single track along Whitegate Way is good too. Thanks Nick
cheers nick, and great to see so many out
Hi guys sorry we missed it – impressed to hear about the turn out! And well done Matthew and Nick for the Macc cyclo cross race – and there we were thinking you'd both give Nick Craig a run for his money! We've had a great time in the Pyrenees – only one day skiing for me, then switched to biking with Kev cos of high winds/poor snow – did some cols and also a v. muddy mountain bike route, both on borrowed bikes. See you all soon, I think it's MTB not road bikes in this weather!
I think we were both glad we gave Nick Craig a chance in the end El, it would have been pretty embarrasing for him to be beaten into 4th place. If you look up the video of the race on YouTube however you will see that I did acutally finish just in front of him.
Yes I noticed you came in just in front of him – and also noticed the rather nifty placement of your foot as you took that corner just in front of the other Nick earlier on in the race. There'll be no stopping you once you get a proper cyclo-cross bike – you could have borrowed mine if I'd thought about it, sorry!
'the other Nick'?? Surely you meant the REAL Nick!
Any one facy a MTB ride Sat/Sun given that the roads may well be a bit dodgy still?
I'm working but Kev's keen – I'll leave you two to arrange details!
Let me know if you arrange owt kev and I'll see if I can make it, so far I'm off to macc forest Sunday morning for a few hours if that tickles yer fancy?
Can't make Sunday sorry Andy, but will probably go round the forest Saturday morning. Meet at the station cafe at 10am as usual. Will try to get around 4-5 hours in, possibly head over to Primrose wood and back via Cotebrook, Oulton Park etc.
Jon C and I are meeting at the Blue Bridge in Hartford @ 10:00 and heading over to the forest via Whitegate Way then maybe summertrees for a brew.
Tempted by Macc Forest on Sunday as well
Sounds good, I'll see you there
i'll be giving macc forest a miss kev, it'll be murder up on them there hills. i'll see if i can make your saturday run but don't wait if i'm not there for ten. cheers
OK Andy. I guess we will be at the start of the road that leads to Vale Royal GC if you decide to make it.
Hello chaps Kev says he'll come too (tomorrow morning) – he's currently on the M62 coming back from Leeds so I'm his social secretary for now – am slightly confused as we currently have 3 meet points, Station Cafe at 10, Blue Bridge at 10, start of VRGC drive at ? Which is it to be?!
Kev's mobile is 07771 794610 if one of you want to ring him. Have fun, I'm really jealous, I'm working this weekend…
Definately the blue bridge at the end of Vale Royal drive at 10am – I was over-ruled by Kev & Jonti. They must have wanted a lie-in. You must look at the video of the snow bike on the link