Day 10 – Final Ride of My 1,000 mile Challenge!

Today I completed the final day of my challenge…

Another stupid O’Clock Alarm which I was, again, wide-awake beforehand😂😂

Sun and Blue Skies greeted me, tho it was rather chilly when I wheeled by trusty steed out of garage! So, porridge was so hot it burnt roof of my mouth & I “donned” arm warmers!!

Today I was riding with someone I’ve only ever briefly met either at our beloved Football Club & in passing on the Manchester 100 – Warren Gavin is a life-long friend of one of my colleagues at Royal Mail.

We arranged to meet in “CowYedCity” … That’s what my Dad always refers to Westhoughton as!! The route & planned Cafe Stop was curtesy of our very own Robbie Harcourt (thanks pal for a cracking route & was best breakfast of all ten rides 👍👍) which had us meandering along some fantastic lanes in Cheshire!

The weather, and in particular, the wind direction played a blinder today as early on the wind was reasonably light, but a perfect direction for the ride home, giving us a huge boost with tailwinds for last 30-40 miles!

The excellent Snowdrop Cafe at Grasslands Nursery, Lower Peover was perfect & we got waiter service to the outdoor benches – I even got a side salad and crisps with my Sausage & Egg Breakfast Barm 👍👍!! Another excellent place for future Early Bird riders to visit.

We had only 1 slight problem with progress, which happened on Pedley House Lane, Ollerton just after our breakfast stop!

“Road Closed” signs often don’t deter me & without any diversion signs in place we gave it a go – sadly when we arrived at the point where the “works” were going on, the “workers” were all congregated together on “a break?” They were in no mood to allow us to walk by what was very early in their “job” 😢 As, although it looked like they may be about to dig road surface up – it was easy to see that we could have been let thru as the opposite side was literally 30 metres away and the road surface was completely unmarked!! Warren politely asked if it would be permissible to walk thru with bikes, but they weren’t having it 😂😂 So we did a short diversion and just kept turning left!!

Now I have a huge gripe here – not with the workmen (they’re just following orders), but I spend over £400 on navigating technology that is incapable of putting me back on route to the nearest place – it always routes you to where you left the course, so guess what – We came face to face with the same workmen again 15 mins later (don’t they get long tea breaks? 🤣😲).

Anyway we very quickly doubled back (bet they had a huge laugh at our expense) and the Garmin then revealed the route to Faulkner’s Lane and we continued through Mobberley then past another favourite cycling watering hole “Barnshaw Smithy” before we left Robbie’s excellent route and headed back towards Warby Bridge and headed nice & easy towards Glazebrook with that wonderful tailwind!

Warren & I went our seperate ways just after crossing the canal at Leigh & we’d both just managed to pass the 100 mile mark about there!

A cracking end to my challenge, which was to ride a 100 mile ride everyday for 10 days!!

I did 5 of them solo & the others I had one Buddy ride with me!

A huge thanks to Steve Mosley & Warren Gavin who got me thru a ride each and a massive thanks to my No 1 buddy Danny Collins who has done three days and done well over 300 miles himself in 7 days – an achievement in itself 👍👏👏

I’ve cycled 1,041miles in 10 days – now for a few days rest!! 🍺🚴🏻‍♂️🥇

In order to have a lasting memory of my achievement I had an artist produces painting of my last day pose after completing the challenge. It now sits on the wall in our living room!!

I’ve received some interest from an online publication called Lancashire Times who are going to run a feature on my challenge over the next month, using my blogs and some of my photos!!