Day 7 - Frodsham to Conder Green, 70 miles

Day 7 took us through the Manchester-Liverpool conurbation, probably the least awe inspiring section of our trip, but fascinating nevertheless. Kathy and I left the group first thing to meet a friend at a coffee stop in Warrington. 

Tom giving the morning handover - the route ahead, brew and lunch stops

 Sorting out the route, checking tyres.

Trevor is sensibly paying attention to the details of the day. Usually, I'm not listening and then unsure of the potential calamities and brew stops! 

Colin, also appropriately attentive!

"Please can today be smoother..."

David, one of our guides, had the relatively straight forward task of bringing the bags to the hotel yesterday - usually a straight forward 'bag drop'. However, he didn't get to us until really late as a consequence of yesterday's cycle accident and then a major traffic jam (accident on M56 diverted all traffic through alternative roads around Runcorn/Frodsham).

Rob, our third guide and also a  'round the world' cyclist - Tempting...

We were never to catch up the group that day as we traversed endless busy trunk roads passing near Wigan, through Blackburn and close to Bolton. We eventually climbed high onto some glorious moorland cycling towards Lancaster and our destination at Conder Green.

We met with Max at a Warrington Coffee Shop. Max lives in Preston and was heading to Liverpool so we met just 10 miles north of our hotel. Lovely to catch up with this old friend from our 20s.

At last, a fine cup of coffee.

Max was my best man 25 years ago. We rarely get a chance to meet up. His life in Lancashire has diversified since I knew him. He now owns a pet venus fly trap called Circe who happily demolishes any insect that comes her way.

This is actually entering Blackburn - a bit further down the road

Important facts about Warrington:

• Home of George Formby and Pete Poslethwaite.
• The first IKEA in the UK was opened in Warrington in 1987

On our trip, as we passed through villages, some would display scarecrow-style figures.

The theme in Ribchester produced some whacky musical figures.

Name the stars

We missed the first brew stop. This was to be expected given our long stop in Warrington. However, even by the lunchtime pub stop we were still too late to catch the group.






















The Black Dog pub initially told us that there was no food. In fact, our group had kindly saved the veggie option and we settled down to a somewhat bland but a much thanked for pasta dish (we’d run out of snacks and we weren’t going to make the 2nd brew stop). 

The barman, wanting to be helpful, topped up my glucose/electrolyte whizzy 'Torq' drink with water but thought it wise to wash out all that funny powder at the bottom. 

By this time, our guides were frantically texting us to check we were able to survive the remaining journey. We were stranded on the moors, no snacks, no special ‘fuel drink’, no inhabitants for hundreds of miles. 





We were alone with a few scraggy sheep, facing the barren northern steppes. I was having a sense of humour failure. Things were very bleak indeed.

Fortunately, we met all our guides who formed a search party and we were rejoined to the bosom of our cycling group in Conder Green, near Lancaster.




Apologies, if I slipped into melodramatic fantasy. The sheep were not scraggy but were rather well looked after.

View from bedroom

Our Hotel, The Mill, was excellent. Really lovely area overlooking fine meadows and close to flowing water. 

Food was also excellent - chestnut, mushroom and asparagus cottage pie topped with roasted hazelnuts.

 Frodsham to Conder Green

Statistics
Distance - 70 miles
Time - 5:47
Climb - 935m
Average speed - 12.6mph
Max speed - 33.7mph
Road kill - three pigeons, one pheasant (male), three squirrels, one grey hen, one mouse
High point - fabulous accommodation
Low point - missing both brew stops (they're a real comfort - always get offered a cup of tea on arriving)