D E T A I L S WHERE: /North border START/FINISH: Farndon Club DISTANCE: 50 miles PICTURES: Dan Joyce and John Ferguson TWO MILLS CHALLENGE | GREAT RIDES

Great rides

Dan with HERE COMES finisher’s medal THE SUN On the fi rst day of summertime, Dan Joyce rode the Two Mills (Wirral) Early Season Challenge Ride, one of two events that kicked off this year’s series

he sky was blue above the along with a puzzling sign – something Do it yourself Welsh border. Birds sang. about a dog show. Organiser Janet T Groups of cyclists passed Gregory explained: ‘We arrived at 8.30am CHALLENGE me and my camera with waves, a whirr to find the area we normally park a hundred- RIDING of gears, and a susurration of tyres plus cars in coned off, with a course set up The Two Mills (Wirral) Early on tarmac. On the first day of British for a dog agility show that was also happening Season Challenge Ride takes Summertime, after an interminable that morning. A large number of participants place each spring. There are winter, it felt like spring had finally was expected – four legged and four still plenty of other Challenge arrived. It was perfect for an wheeled! That required a re-adjustment Rides to enjoy this year: early-season reliability ride, which of our plans.’ 10 JUNE: Ayrshire 110km is what the Two Mills (Wirral) The car park marshals were kept 17 JUNE: Bob Clift Memorial Challenge Ride originated as – and busy but I didn’t see any dogs barking Cheshire Cycleway Rides 2018 still is. Riders could scarcely believe at cyclists or any other signs of conflict. 24 JUNE: Windmill Rides, their good fortune and kept thanking the Having run the event since 2007, Janet Essex 8 JULY: Lake District organisers for arranging such nice weather. is used to keeping the show (bike not dog) Challenge The start and finish were at Farndon, on the road. It’s been cancelled just once, 15 JULY: 25th Devon Delight ten miles south of Chester. I cycled there, snowed off in 2013. In 2015 the hall itself 19 AUGUST: Tour of the Hills, saddlebag packed as a precaution with winter was accidentally double-booked: Janet and Surrey overshoes and a Gore-Tex jacket. We’d just her team arrived to find time triallists with 26 AUGUST: Wild Wales Challenge endured the Pest from the West and before aero bikes and pointy hats warming up on 14 OCTOBER: Gridiron 100, that the Beast from the East. Yet there was rollers. Then, as this year, both events went Hants sunshine as I rode out of Chester along the ahead without a hitch. 28 OCTOBER: Emitremmus Shropshire Union Canal. With ducks and The Two Mills (Wirral) Early Season Desrever, Herts the occasional dog walker for company, the Challenge Ride is emphatically not a race. For more details, visit bit.ly/ towpath was serene but too roughly surfaced Electronic timing with a swipe card is used cycle-challenge2018 for 25mm tyres. (‘And that’s the good bit,’ because the 50-mile event (but not the 50km I was later told by Sue Booth of the Chester one) is still a reliability ride: you choose Fabulous Ladies.) whether you want to attempt it in four or five Arriving at Farndon Community Club, the hours. The clock doesn’t stop for lunch or, in carpark was packed with bikes and cyclists, my case, standing at the verge with a camera.

GROUPS OF CYCLISTS PASSED ME AND MY CAMERA WITH WAVES, A WHIRR OF GEARS, AND A SUSURRATION OF TYRES ON TARMAC

CYCLINGUK.ORG CYCLE 35 TWO MILLS CHALLENGE | GREAT RIDES

Fact file TWO MILLS EARLY SEASON CHALLENGE WHEN: Sunday 25 March. Next year’s event is on Sunday 14 April. Left: Sylvia WHERE: A figure of eight loop from Joyce busy at Farndon, south of Chester, on the the tea point Welsh border. Out to Higher Kinnerton Above: in the morning, then towards Overton Farndon Bridge, and through Bangor-on-Dee in the built in 1339 afternoon. DISTANCE: 50 miles (26 for loop one, 24 for loop two). A 50km route was SANDSTONE HILLS sits on, although not the castle itself. The also offered. As a four-hour rider, I was among the last to landscape felt nostalgically familiar because CONDITIONS: Blue skies and sunny set off. Since I needed to get photos of the I grew up not far from here. The softness of but cool enough for gloves. Mostly event, I ended up leapfrogging other cyclists the hills, the lushness of the greenery, and the on quiet, rolling roads through the rather than riding in one group throughout. Friesian cows in the tidy patchwork fields took Cheshire and North Wales countryside. Some potholes had opened up over the That was how I found myself alongside me back four decades. winter, but they were flagged in the John Wynne from Knutsford, talking about Remounting the bike, I cycled back to instructions. navigation. He’d got a new smartphone and Farndon with Mike from Chester, who said BIKE USED: Pinnacle Dolomite 3 with its screen kept dimming so he couldn’t see he lived near the zoo. ‘This must seem pretty 1×10 gearing (42/11-36). the route. I was using an old Garmin Edge 500 flat compared to where you come from,’ he MAPS/GUIDES: Route sheet and GPX with rudimentary route instructions: a straight said amiably, meaning North Yorkshire. What files provided. I mostly used the latter, line with a blob on it; the first dozen or so the countryside lacked in steep gradients, navigating with a Garmin Edge 500. characters of any way-point text (for example, however, it made up for with its dense network I’M GLAD I HAD… Carradice Super C ‘WARNING SUDD’); and a bleep if I went off of quiet lanes. It was no wonder there were so Audax saddlebag to accommodate my the route. many other cyclists about. DSLR camera. While it was frustrating to get turn alerts I told Mike I’d been sightseeing in Chester NEXT TIME I WOULD… Keep moving after I’d gone past them, the Edge 500 did the day before. ‘A lot of the old buildings and not worry about photos. Stopping get me round. Most of my temporary wrong in Chester aren’t Tudor but Victorian,’ Mike broke up the rhythm of my ride. turns occurred when I followed other cyclists, said. ‘The Victorians liked all that historical FURTHER INFO: www. assuming they were taking part in the stuff.’ Real or fake Tudor, it was still a nice ctcchesterandnwales.org.uk/ twomillsgroup.html and bit.ly/cycle- Challenge Ride when they weren’t. It was an city to explore. It’s just a shame it’s choked challenge2018 uncommonly nice day, and there were lots of with traffic, and that urban planners past had other cyclists about. decided it was a good idea, for example, to Crossing the , I caught up with build a brutalist multi-storey carpark next to NR. CHESTER another rider who was doing the Two Mills a Roman city wall. ride. The sky above us was crisscrossed with contrails. I pointed out a large aeroplane ROUTE MASTERED banking low in the near distance and Back at Farndon Community Club, I bumped wondered aloud where it was from; I couldn’t into Andy Blomfield, the treasurer of Two Mills. think of a nearby airport. ‘,’ he said. He was responsible for the route and had ‘They send Airbus wings to France from there tweaked it days before to avoid the worst of on Belugas.’ the winter potholes. He said they’d been using Near the top of Barracks Lane, on the the figure-of-eight route since 2014. Before outskirts of , I stopped for a while that they’d had one long loop, which required as there was a good view of riders cresting another hall for the lunch stop and more the rise, with the sandstone hills of the Mid volunteers to run it. Using Farndon for lunch Cheshire Ridge in the background. I could as well as the start and finish was logistically make out the rocky crag that Beeston Castle easier. It also meant that riders could easily © Komoot | Map data OpenStreetMap

CYCLINGUK.ORG CYCLE 37 GREAT RIDES | TWO MILLS CHALLENGE

Above right: Janet Gregory signs on riders

Right: March snow just a

memory Left: John Ferguson. Other photos: Dan Joyce

WHAT THE COUNTRYSIDE LACKED IN ‘It’s a big ask for someone of my age and fitness. I’ll do the downhill ride first – 10 miles STEEP GRADIENTS, IT MADE UP FOR WITH to the sea – and see how I feel about it.’ At the finish, I handed over my timing chip (4 ITS DENSE NETWORK OF QUIET LANES hours 18 minutes) to Janet Gregory and picked up my certificate. Hearing my name called, I spotted Mike from Liverpool, whom I’d met in abandon halfway if the weather worsened, strong contingents from: local road club 2010 on a mountain biking holiday in Llanrwst, which it did in 2015. Marford and Gresford; Liverpool Century; and near Betws-y-Coed, run by CTC Cycling When I mentioned that this year’s event VC Melyd. There was a wide scattering of other Holidays (see bit.ly/cycle-llanrwstMTB). We seemed well attended, Andy replied that it clubs too, along with many unaffiliated riders. chatted about cycling holidays, tour leaders, was always a popular event for Two Mills – and the age profile of club cyclists. something Janet Gregory confirmed. ‘This BACK OVER THE BORDER There were other familiar faces at the finish: year we had 232 riders registered,’ she said, After lunch it was time to head out on the less Cycling UK Trustees Welna Bowden (who did ‘although there’s always a drop out on the hilly loop towards Overton. Riders seemed to the 50km ride) and Janet Atherton (who rode day, which brought us to 218 out on the be more thinly spread for this leg, but before 50 miles); and Mike Blomfield again, who told course. Our youngest was 15-year-old Isabelle long I found myself riding with Craig from me that they’d raised £150 in donations at Ferguson, who rode the 50km distance. Our Shotton, who said he was looking forward to the tea point for the Motor Neurone Disease oldest riders were 86 (male) and 72 (female), RideLondon this summer. He’d had navigation Association. (Chester and North Wales CTC both riding the full 50 miles. In terms of issues too, not through any deficiency in the member Mike Knox had just died, aged 66, gender balance, it was noticeably better than route sheet but because his GPS-owning riding after living with the disease for two years.) usual in that 40% of the riders were women. buddy, who was doing the navigation for both I also saw Sue Booth of the Chester ‘The event is our main source of funds,’ of them, had had to abandon the ride. Fabulous Ladies. Like me, she’d cycled here Janet added. ‘Last year, we used the surplus Near Bangor-on-Dee, while waiting with from Chester. When I said I wasn’t sure of to subsidise the cost of our newly-designed my camera at the roadside, I spotted a the best route back, she offered to guide me. club jerseys for members. We have also lone cyclist I recognised: it was John from Ever the ride leader, she enlivened the short donated to Eastham Centre Cycle Hub, which Knutsford again. ‘I don’t think there’s many trip with a commentary on the views and local is a Cycling UK group offering opportunities for behind me,’ he said. So I hopped on my bike landmarks. For example: ‘Those houses are local people with disabilities to cycle. And we and joined him to the finish. He told me he’d owned by the Duke of Westminster. Can you gave to the Cyclists’ Defence Fund, Sustrans, taken up cycling five years ago, aged 60, and see the W in the brickwork?’ Her warnings and local cycle campaign groups.’ was now a Cycling UK member. He was riding of ‘nasty hills’ became a running joke after The Two Mills Member Group jerseys that coast-to-coast in July, and before that was we reached the top of the first one without Janet referred to were much in evidence in planning to do some cycling on the island of me realising it. Sue threaded us through the the lunch hall as cyclists tucked into soup, Maui in Hawaii. He emailed me afterwards to backstreets of Chester to deposit me at the sandwiches, quiche, and cakes – a spread the say thanks for pacing him back to the finish. railway station. caterer apparently describes as ‘a standard ‘I’ll let you know if I manage the climb of ‘Are you coming back in June to do the Bob funeral tea’. Other riders’ jerseys revealed Haleakalã volcano in Maui in May,’ he wrote. Clift?’ she asked. ‘I’m organising that.’

38 CYCLE JUNE/JULY 2018