Wednesday 2 November 2022 - The Preston Guild Wheel - A Bike Ride

I did this bike ride on 10 September 2020, with Lyn and Robert. (Report here.) Today's visit to the  Preston Guild Wheel (PGW) followed a decision to leave an OMC (Old Man of Coniston) walk to a later date. This proved to be a wise decision, as we avoided strong winds and afternoon rain that would have affected the OMC trip.

We assembled at Don and Liz's house in Preston, an easy 4km ride on woodland tracks to the start of our PGW route. The 21 mile PGW ride goes around the periphery of Preston and can be started from any convenient point along the route. I noticed a sign to Longridge (3 miles) at one point, so BC (Bowland Climber), who lives in Longridge, could either start from home or from near this sign.

Anyway, we got going well before 10am and soon reached the pedestrian bridge not far from the railway bridge over the River Ribble. The PGW route passes this bridge on the northern side of the river, so we joined it there, on the overcast day.

We took the same clockwise route that I'd enjoyed with Lyn and Robert. No navigational aids were needed as the route is very well signposted and Don has done it around 20 times. 

We soon passed the bandstand in Miller Park, overlooked by a fine old municipal building.

Some of the sections of the ride that are beside the river pass through lovely tree-lined avenues.

Relics from Preston's industrial past liberally litter the route. I didn't stop for many photos as I was conscious of holding up the flying peleton of Don and Sue, on a day when rain was predicted to arrive around the same time as we would finish the ride.

The River Ribble is tidal around here, and the Albert Edward Dock has a large lock to protect it from the Ribble's tidal movements.

A millennium project retored the link between the Ribble and the Lancaster Canal, but we didn't see anyone using the canal.

A strong feature of the entire ride is woodland passages like the one below, presumably taking advantage of disused railway lines and the like.

The canal needs more ducks to clear the weed!

It's noticeable along much of the route, particularly on the northern sections, that new housing estates are springing up almost anywhere. And the 'Ancient Oak' in Cottam doesn't look at all ancient!

Some trees have shed all their leaves, others haven't started, but today's breezes will have accelerated the process.

We passed a memorial, near the Pinfold mentioned in my earlier report, to Private James Towers, awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in 1918. Click on the images for more readable versions.

A little further on, before a vaguely technical descent over slippery cobbles to Brockholes Nature Reserve, there's a memorial to Peter Rimmer, the 'architect of the Guild Wheel. This was the ideal place to stop and enjoy our coffee and other refreshments.

Then we continued on our merry way along the well marked route.

Past Brockholes*, and back beside the river, we enjoyed the smooth surfaces of tree lined avenues as we cruised back to the footbridge and a final 4km back to Don and Liz's house where we enjoyed lunch and excellent freshly made cake. Thanks Liz, that was delicious.

Here's our route - 8km shorter than the one I took with Lyn and Robert - 42km with 300 metres ascent, taking us a shade over 3 hours, including our leisurely break.

It's a lovely route, I'll be happy to do that again.

*The descent to Brockholes has signs asking cyclists to dismount, perhaps for Health and Safety and concerns that fallers might sue the council if they weren't warned about the steep descent. It's perfectly easy to ride down, but if anyone is not comfortable with that it doesn't really require any significant level of intelligence to simply dismount and walk.

Thursday 10 September 2020 - The Preston Guild Wheel - A Bike Ride

 

Robert and Lyn should have been enjoying themselves on a barge trip in the south of France, instead of which they have had to accept the thrills of a Staycation in Lancashire.

 

They invited me along on this bike ride. Our rendezvous point failed to synchronise, but they managed to track me down to the Cuerden Hall car park, from where we cycled north along a disused tram line for a short distance, 4 miles or so, to pick up the Preston Guild Wheel by the Old Tram Bridge, which appeared to be closed.

 

 

So we went along to the next bridge over the River Ribble, and took pictures back towards the Old Tram Bridge.

 

 

In the other direction is the Ribble Viaduct that carries the main line railway.

 

 

Across the bridge, we descended to join the 'Wheel' in a clockwise direction, which is recommended due to the nature of the hills (such as they are) and means you avoid any steep ascents and can enjoy some steep, if brief, descents.

 

The Preston Guild Wheel route was created in 2012 and is a well signposted 21 mile, mainly off-road, circuit around Preston. It has 'spokes' that lead to the City centre, and connecting routes with Lancaster, Chorley (via the Cuerden valley), Blackpool and Southport. During the ride I came to realise that Preston has a network of cycle paths of which it can be proud.

 

Once on the 'Wheel' we passed Miller Park, where there's an impressive municipal building and there were hordes of keep fit fanatics practising all manner of group exercises.

 

 

Littered along the route are numerous industrial relics such as the one shown below.

 

 

Before leaving the River Ribble and its cool headwind, we passed Albert Edward Dock, which has a large lock to protect it from the tidal movements of the river that are encountered beyond this point.

 

 

A millennium project restored the canal link between the Ribble and the Lancaster Canal. Here, on this link, a fisherman was trying to entice to his hook fish that were feeding in the lock.

 

 

We watched him from our elevenses bench.

 

 

Soon we passed over the Lancaster Canal.

 

 

As mentioned above, the route is well signposted.

 

 

After a while the M55 motorway was crossed and the northern point of the ride was reached at Broughton. By now we had enjoyed a further break for lunch.

 

Broughton Pinfold is an ancient enclosure for impounding stray livestock until claimed by their owners.

 

 

Here's a random shot of some new housing. It sort of illustrates the completed nature of many fenced in building sites that we passed during the ride. Preston is growing in size.

 

 

Before returning to paths beside the River Ribble, we passed through the Nature Reserve at Brockholes. A splendid place where we could have spent more time. I had a long wait at one point (never did find out why!).

 

 

There are plenty of hostelries en-route, but not this one.

 

 

A magnificent avenue of trees led through Avenham Park, where toilets and other facilities were very much open for business.

 

 

We soon found confirmation about the non-viability of the Old Tram Bridge as a route until (if) it's restored.

 

 

Back at the Ribble bridge, we returned directly to the Cuerden Valley, passing sculptures on the way.

 

Before parting, Robert kindly took the picture featured at the head of this posting, before he and Lyn pedalled on down the valley to their free car park, and I went up the steep hill behind us, back to my £4 car park. I need to visit the bank to get more car parking cash!

Here's the route I took, in total about 50 km with just 250 metres ascent. It took a very leisurely four and a half hours.
 

 

Many thanks to Robert and Lyn for inviting me to meet up for this excellent outing.