Words by Stunt, pics by Pete & Butty
Crew: Butty, Dunc, Mr I, Slim, Stunt
Route: Rainbow Bridge, Endon House, Lidgetts Lane, lower back of Kerridge & back entry into Rainow, WTW, right hand side ascent to Hoolihey Lane, Dead Mans hill, Blaze Hill, Upper Rainow, Oakenbank Lane, Poachers
Conditions: Wet, Rivers & Gloop, stopped raining later then cold
Stats: Off (stunt)
Notes:
Plenty of excuses on a night where mental fortitude required to get riding.
Butty hatches a novel Lamaload circumnavigation plan (might include hike a bike he says!)
A heck of a lot of surface water everywhere, sometimes good – clearing muck off rocky tracks, sometimes bad when on grass!
Kerridge slipperier than a slippery thing – you know its bad when you are actively looking for wet rocks and roots for better grip 🙂
Cheeky up and down from the WTW road abandoned when we A – Butty missed the up, and B – we realised what he was planning to take us down!
Helpful signpost told us that tonight we were going the other way (although Slim stopped to briefly do it this way) 🙂
Waterproof boots tested by ankle deep slop at most gates and stiles, and we cheerily reflected on just how grumpy certain TNR’s would have been with this gratuitously wet, slippy and pushy ride.
Butty shared his Brandy Port mix to raise spirits (rather good!)
Time check at Hoolihey lane meant return leg around the resevoir would be too ambitious, so alternative road exit to Blaze Hill and rapid descent via back tracks and Oakenbank.
Clearing skies showed some nice views of the plains.
Dunc’s nervousness re Oakenbank at speed somehow transferred into Stunt who managed a wheel in rut oscillation that got out of control and ended in a “Dab” (and need for a knee repair to waterproof trousers)
Arrived at poachers to be welcomed onto the hallowed (and extremely heavy) lockage of the Nancies.
A veritable burst of diversity in the ales from Barnsley Gold, to Beartown Black, to the more exotic Chimay Red and Mexican Brown!
All that cold wet weather must have depleted the calories as puddings were consumed as well!
Dunc plays the AoE card when settling the bill for badboy second shorts
All available clothing donned for ride home – which this week included the extra hazard of a large group of other poachers clientele wandering across the road mostly dressed in black!
Spring soon??
The Archives Section :
Here we step back in time to find a photo from Pete’s archive which relates to this week’s ride.
Here we have Stunt on a Cheeky Sunday outing back in October 2009 when we stopped at the “weird post” at the outer fringes of the Lamaload Zone