Breaking in Bod and Old Route, New Tricks

I've had a coldy thing all week and felt terrible, so cycling was well and truly off the menu. I can't go a whole weekend without being on a bike though so I suggested to Bod that we have a little low intensity spin.


Saturday

Mark (Bod) has never ridden a road bike so it was going to be interesting for him. After sticking some mtb spds' on my winter bike and re-assembling my summer bike we were ready to go.

It was a balmy 0c as we set off , heading towards Hale. The riding position is so different to Mountain Biking that I thought he may struggle but after a small period of adjustment and after channelling the inner cyclist he seemed to be happy enough. We ploughed on through the backroads upto the A538. Although it's a main road, it's slightly downhill and goes under the two runways at the airport. Withing 30 minutes we were on the outskirts of Wilmslow. It was a nice gentle pace but Bod was sweating profusely (to anyone that knows him, this is normal).

We skirted round Wilmslow and headed back towards home. A nice ride at a gentle pace. 22.16 miles covered and I think Bod may be looking to add another bike to his (already burgeoning) collection.

Sunday

After the success of Saturday, Bod suggested that we head up to Rivington and ride out to Healey Nab. It's a minature trail centre complete with graded signposts and groomed trails. Groomed in a good way not in a Paul Gadd way!

After unloading the bikes and the statutory amount of faffing we set off. It was a short route at 10 miles but satisfiing; as we both ride round the Pike pretty frequently but have never been out to 'the nab'.

We made short work of the couple of miles out to Healey Nab. I felt quite strong on the uphills and was further encouraged as Bod was on his 'big bike' so was having to work a little harder than usual.

We dropped into the woods and were soon riding little drops, tight switchbacks and errr bermy berms. As we got to the bottom of the red section there was a little rock chute which, to my shame, I bottled. Mark stopped too, as I'd stopped.

Now, I'm aware that it doesn't look particularly steep but from the top it looks quite nasty, with a little drop off to the left.

Mark got back on his bike and rode it straight away. I had three abortive attempt before deciding that today wasn't the day. I blame being ill during the week. We carried on and it led to a nice climb out of the woods back to the bridleway. A couple of road climbs and some rocky bridleways and we were back at the car. sausage rolls and pie at Tesco and we were on our way back to civilisation.