Monday 25 February 2019 – Summer on the Fallowfield Loopline

Click on any image to get a better version and a slideshow at the foot of the screen

 
Today was the ideal day for taking the 29 year old, recently rebuilt Shogun Trailbreaker bike out for a spin.

The old bike performed impeccably – as always it was a delight to ride, and afterwards it just needed dusting to bring it back to full sparkle, whilst I enjoyed a cuppa in the garden. That won’t always be the case. Nor the cuppa in the garden.

With Paul and Jeanette away sunning themselves, I met Richard at Timperley Bridge for a short ride involving the Fallowfield Loopline. I did variations on this with P&J on 10 December last year, and again on 17 December.

Can you spot Richard arriving in the top picture?

It was a lovely morning. We pressed on in the sunshine and I didn’t stop to take many pictures. The sun shone brightly through the woodland that borders Chorlton.

Soon after the above photo, we turned away from the Trans Pennine Trail at Jackson’s Boat Bridge, soon joining the Loopline that leads nearly all the way to the Ashton Canal. A few km along the canal towpath, we failed to cycle past the Velodrome café. Coffee and cake are obligatory here. As is a puncture. This time it was Richard who returned from our break to a flat tyre.

Shogun waited patiently, happy to be gleaming in the sunshine after weeks spent either in bits or in a shed.

Continuing through Manchester, we came upon an area where in the shadow of some new tower blocks the canal is shut for repairs – between locks 88 and 90, approximately. It seems that one boat didn’t make it out in time.

And we know why the Ark Bar uses plastic beer ‘glasses’.

Everything was normal in Castlefield though, on this beautiful sunny spring day, where record temperatures of over 20C were being logged in some parts of the UK. It reached about 18C in Timperley.

Returning home along the Bridgewater Canal towpath, there was certainly enough water in the canal for this barge to enjoy itself.

The 43 km ride takes about two and a half hours, plus stops. Ascent is only about 100 metres, and it’s almost all off-road. An excellent way to spend a Monday morning, savoured especially by “this is so much better than going to work” Richard, who has only recently retired.

Here’s the route: