Century No2 of my 1,000 miles 10 day cycling challenge…

I was in “the mood” this morning, spirits high as my No1 cycling Buddy was back in the saddle after a short layoff.Our ride had us crisscrossing the East Lancs down to Haydock and the weather looked dreadful ahead with black skies and the evidence of heavy rain coming from the leaden clouds in Merseyside! Thankfully we turned up into Rainford Bypass and started heading North and away from the rain. We had a brief stop for a puncture Danny suffered from, but made good pace to Formby then up the coast (into a headwind).to our chosen Breakfast stop! My 2nd successive weekly visit to the excellent King’s Tea Rooms in Southport, where we arrived just as they opened (that puncture happened for a very good reason Danny Collins).

Sausage & Egg Barms, Lattes & fizzy drinks were soon devoured and once more into a headwind that stuck with us for the whole ride home! Danny had another two visits from the puncture fairy and we suspect a bad batch of Continental Tubes to have been the problem (never seen such deformed shaped tubes)We had a problem with our intended route from A59 North of Rufford… Lock Lane heading across towards Bretherton was closed, so we doubled back to Croston Rd, but missed a big loop around Wymott & Ulnes Walton Lane, so on return to Salford we were still 10 miles short of our Century, so we headed down to The Heights & doubled back home from there!

The weather was cool and very cloudy before Southport, but on way home the sun shone and it was hot!! A great ride, as always with Danny (despite his hat-trick of punctures – football is back ). I will suffer tomorrow having averaged over 17mph today – I’m an old man!!

Day 3 is going to be a slow one with lots of photos as Craig Jobson loves to see my photography from the rides