Words by Alex, Pics by Pete & Alex
Crew: El Pres, PTD, Slim, Bern, TJ, Troll, Stunt
Pub: Dunc, Adrian
Route: BL, Zig Zags, Charity Lane, Narnia, Witches Cottage, Fireroad to Smithy, Sutton Hall.
Conditions: Submerged trails, rain, windy higher up, cold.
Notes:
We all knew it was going to be nasty, 5 degrees, still raining after 8 plus hours as a weather system sat atop the pennines and span slowly.
Despite this, seven brave riders turned up for the ride in full wets.
A simple route of up to chazza, then narnia, hardingland, and then pub feels right.
At BL, the rain is not too bad, but the surface water has built up a lot.
Up Buxton road, and the road is running 2 inches deep for the first couple of feet from the kerb! Puddle city on the Zig, just wet and slippy on the Zag.
Going over the top at Windyways (clue in the name) we hit wind and heavier rain. Turning onto Tarmac Charity you can actually hear the water burbling like a real stream. It soon becomes every man for themselves to get to the Narnia gate and under the trees for some respite. Its very unpleasant!
At Narnia bench, stunt provides some hot sweet black coffee laced with Tia Maria, it goes down quickly, but can’t stave off the effects of waterlogged gloves, heavily soaked waterproof trousers, and seepage…
At Witches cottage we abandon the Hardingland option, award full “man points” for being out, and head downhill by the fastest route to find a pub with a fire!
Church House…no, Kings Head..Yes! El Pres even gets some folk to move to make room for us…but then we are scuppered by a jobsworth landlady who won’t let us have food by the fire! Sutton Hall it is, and although its very busy we are found a table by a roaring radiator in the back 🙂
A nice stockport ale is rather good, we need 3 portions of table chips to supplement the mains, and do our best to dry wet gear.
Dunc joins in flowery shirt later on, as does Adrian (minus Spaniel).
By home time, wet gloves are now “warm and wet”, it’s still raining, and its cold…was I the only one to have a hot drink when I got home??