E is for Eureka, Electricity and Explosions (but only in Colin's tyres?)

The first HMCC big day out of 2019 attracted 13 riders to the shop for the 8:30am start. It was actually the idea of a 14th, Ste Francis, to go over the water to Two Mills for possibly the last time as the place is in the process of changing hands and just as per the demise of Little Chef 12 months ago, no-one really knows what the new owners plan to do. With the skies rather grey overhead and the last two riders having just got their bikes out of the car, me and Dave Atkinson set off on the front, beginning with the loop around the cricket club.

GET CHINOOK'S CLIPBOARD OUT AND PUT FOUR BOOMS NEXT TO HIS NAME

It was quite a quick start as we made our way up Alty's Lane and I recognised someone running towards us as a member of the singing group I work with on Monday nights at Edge Hill. A right turn had us heading for the Dog and Gun before crossing the road for Parrs Lane, but a mystery mechanical had Darren pulling over pretty sharpish, maybe it was the disc brakes misbehaving on his Canyon Endurace, which at least is now an option for me given today's big find. No, not the release of the Arbonne apple fizz sticks, but instead the 3T stem and raised handlebar setup I fitted myself to the Chinook on Friday. I would have taken it out for a ride but then it started snowing and as such a two hour MTB ride was the best I could do. However, I was no longer tipping off the seat and falling into my legs and this really paid dividends as we flew towards Town Green Station and past the turnoff for Winifred Lane (hey guys you could have said you were going that way then I would have we an extra 30 minutes in bed..........) We turned left at the Miller and Carter and were on the carriageway briefly before turning right then left for Lydiate. I was really enjoying the new position and was reaping the benefits so well, it was as if I'd escaped the B group and returned to 2018 form overnight. Upon plunging down the descent of the bridge crossing we turned towards the Meadows "area" where Ste Francis was waiting at the traffic lights complete with S-Works Roubaix and 50mm deep carbon alloy wheels. He joined in at the back while me and Dave did just enough to avoid putting our feet down at a few traffic lights, until we reached the Cabbage Patch, one of many pubs targeted in a specific bombing campaign against a particular property empire oligarch. We turned right here and made our way down Gorsey Lane into Litherland from where it was a quick chase of the Arriva bus all the way up the hill with me simply waiting to get kicked off the front because A group pace is so fast these days. However, it was the first time in over six years since I've gone above my usual station and really found an extra boost on mental energy, so I was still in a good mood even when Lewis Hamilton shoved his Mercedes past us at one of the junctions where an extra lane temporarily appears. Then it was straight down to Great Homer Street, another favourite boom buying place of mine (Sainsbury's) and towards the Brain Charity where I was working yesterday before plunging down the hill past the soon-to-be-opened Steaks and Shakes (how I wish I'd had a tomato to fling at the window for a bit of vegan activism) and then it was Tunnel Time!

P IS FOR PROMENADE, PAUL ON A PROPEL AND PISS STOP

The first part of the tunnel reminded me of the LCL 2016 when I missed the start and had to sprint like a TT to catch the JP group on one of those rare occasions when JP wasn't JP'ING. I'll be doing exactly that next Sunday at the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead, but today we were heads down and struggling to make sense of the "steady" comments which amazingly were coming from one rider who usually insists that nothing is ever good enough. Certainly the lower total bike/rider weight of the Chinook Chassis was making a difference and this was especially pivotal on the final climb towards the toll booths but we weren't paying a penny today. No, we went round the loop and into the docks area as we made our way towards Woodside ferry terminal. This was an old favourite of ours before the "don't stop movin" option came up but today it would serve to slow my frenetic, fizz stick fuelled pace as we reached Seacombe, where local legend John Hammond frequently holds 12 hour night runs for charity. I'll never forget the boiling hot night in September 2017 when I was sent up the road as fast as possible to find someone with access to a stash of mineral water, only to need a piss in the pub and have that person plod past while I was in the upstairs toilet! Any excuse to go for a pint............Today's starring role would be played by a very well behaved Yorkshire terrier who was following its owner on a MTB while it toddled along oblivious to the HMCC train coming through. By now me and Dave had handed over the front after doing the first 17 miles out there (was that good enough 5star?) but we weren't in the slow lane for long as soon we reached the other end of the Hammond oval and rode through New Brighton past the old go-kart complex where I used to wipe the floor with everyone when I was as small as Shaqiri (and long before anyone mistook me for a rugby player at Birkenhead Park, 2:15pm first team home game this Saturday against Penrith, date in the diary please). We turned towards Wallasey and then Moreton, where everyone owns a Giant bike (not as nice as Paul's Propel though) but my computer sensor had fallen loose at the base of the fork and I was quite anxious to get it fixed without stopping. Luckily we were blocked at the Bike Shop crossroads and as such a quick pit stop didn't actually cost us any time. Shortly afterwards we turned into a housing estate and a little traffic free route down the back of the railway line which eventually brings you out at Hoylake, but during this passage of play some needed a piss stop and I took the opportunity to shovel down a banana, which Ste noted as me prepping for the YOLO later on. Yes indeed Ste, it's a long time since I actually enjoyed the Van Nicholas quite so much and yes, you've been warned, there's another new stem like the boom I snatched from Formby Cycles the other day going on the Tarmac soon (that's if I don't buy a Donald Trump Trek Emonda, yes John Collins?) It was quite some time before we retuned to any part of civilisation I actually recognised, not least because Emma was recounting the story of the time a Hurricane Katrina style wave nearly wiped out the HMCC train on this route along the sea wall (another loose reference to tonight's monster American Football games, good luck New Orleans and New England). Eventually we reached Hoylake and turned right past the Blue Anchor pub which is being refurbished, also Melrose Hall, the local community centre. We rode past the Hoylake Lights Wetherspoons and turned right through West Kirby into a sequence of roads even I don't know all that well, and clearly neither do the poor souls whose inner tubes were wiped out by potholes and were repairing their tyres en masse at the roadside.

Soon we turned off the main road again, looping through the back roads near the marina, coming out at Hickory's steak hose, which used to be a favourite of mine but is another place I've blacklisted (did I tell you why?) and the next segment was up the Col de Telegraphe Road and the second half of the Heswall 5, a popular running route for those at the Runners Hub which I used to go to for easy miles (I still think those miles plus huge running shoes gave me the shin splints, no such problems with Skechers, check the review on my blog). Before reaching the Otto Lounge, we turned right and went the back road way through Parkgate and Neston, which were both quite busy today. In fact it was Neston where I caught the JP group on the LCL 2016 and ultimately paid for it with two cases of severe meat and dairy fuelled hypoglycemia as per what Ariana Grande used to suffer from before she went vegan (CHINIANA'D - ran out of energy, forgot to brake, rammed the bike in front at the feed station. Well it nearly happened). The run down through the village at the seaside was, as usual, quite relaxing, I particularly like the view where on the left you have a hotel and on the right there is nothing but sea and sky. However, the KM on my computer was now hitting 60 and I wondered when din dinz time would be. We snaked through yet more expensive housing areas including Gayton Lane AKA Murphy's Corner but to everyone's surprise I didn't emulate him and as such was in fine form for the last few miles before the fuel stop.

CHINOOK'S GONE VEGAN, NO SEXIST PICS IN THE LOO AND A HALF PRICE SALE - WHAT A DIFFERENCE THREE YEARS MAKE

We reached the crossroads with me still uttering the occasional one liner about motivation like I was pitching for a level 2 fitness course (I do like dropping cryptic clues every now and then) but upon turning for the A540 it was only a short sprint to the line for the foot race to park the bikes up, lock them and get inside to be fed. It was toast and more toast all round as some went for bacon and others chose sausages. For me it was beanz and mushroomz on toast plus San Pellegrino Limonata accompanied by an Eccles cake and what a fine, easily digestible lunch it was too. Conversation topics included Chris Little's adventures in New Zealand, why we should ditch cows milk and the various items on sale in the shop. Eureka Cycles used to be a triathlon emporium in Mollington Grange but in recent years it's become compacted into the cafe and as such there were booms galore including number boards for your triathlon bike, some very classy looking alloy cages and the piece de resistance, Mavic R-Sys wheels with tubular carbon spokes. I suggested to Alex that he buy them and simply leave his Cosmic Elites at the cafe (JP will give him £50 for them) but given we were the two shaped most like racing snakes (as alluded to by Stephen Nelson who seems astonished at how I've seemingly shrunk so much in 12 months, obviously Birkenhead Park rugby club haven't noticed) I doubt we'd have made particularly good use of them in an era where aero savings are the order of the day. I nipped to the loo to find that there were a couple of murals of past bike races on the walls, obviously the old "displays" weren't politically correct, though after seeing the cringeworthy IronGirl advert the other day for a ladies 5k fun run on IMUK weekend I think that for once it's political correctness done right. With everyone fed and watered we set off once again, beginning with the road to Willaston.

FEEL ELECTRIC BABY, FEEL DEFLATED BABY (BOOM TIMES TWO COLIN CLARK EDITION)

We turned east straight out of the cafe with everyone feeling a little sluggish and made our way back towards Ellesmere Port, but rather than go through the lung cancer capital of the North West we only went as far as Willaston, which is almost joined to the Big Smoke but is actually a charming village with pubs and quaint shops aplenty. There were a few close calls with traffic on such a narrow road, but they were coming the other way and it was a bit of a no-win situation - also known as the Huddersfield Town job, or being Theresa May. It wasn't long before we reached the Clatterbridge roundabout which was quite startling given the Wirral is a place full of roads turning back on themselves, and as such I was quite enjoying a chat with Mike about his fat tyres on his Cannondale and his triathlon aspirations (also known as a Coach Chinook induction) as we crossed M53 J4 for Prenton. This is usually a simple affair, but today Colin Clark kept up his recent form by getting a rear puncture. While he took 13 minutes 36.56 seconds to change the tube and I failed to get the serial number of his Continental GP GT 25mm tyre the others started to lose a bit of body heat and it was quite a relief to see the backmarkers bring him back to the group. They hadn't quite got round to banning him (or any of those who turned up without mudguards, that was quite a conversation topic) by the time we got going again,towards Tranmere Rovers FC, but we had to stop again. Guess what? Colin had lost his front tyre too! Now I do have a stash of tyres from a bankruptcy sale last winter (free fizz stick with every tyre for a limited time) but don't tell that to the girl in the Mini at the next set of lights, she was having her eardrums popped by Dua Lipa's "Electricity" (Capital FM FTW) while Stephen Nelson, who had given Colin guidance to Bebington train station, was somewhere in the Badlands of Birkenhead trying to find us. As such we stopped at the tunnel toll booths despite nearly going the wrong way at the road divider for the town centre and started trying to phone either of them. Alex got really cold at this point but we were more preoccupied with finding our missing comrades than going to the bizzie office for a kettle to warm his drinks bottle with and I noticed how my plain water bottle hadn't been touched. There was less than 20 miles to go so, much to 5star's approval, I reduced the weight of the bike by washing the chain stays and front mech with the water in the purple bottle leaving me with a full fizz stick fuelled bottle for the final run home. This we began with a ride through the tunnel with Paul Hargreaves leading the way. I've suffered on his wheel many times in the past as he's another from the John Faz school of "stop at nothing" but the group stayed together and we reached Scotty Road together. Together? Yes, Stephen Nelson had somehow time trialled all the way through the tunnel on his own and caught us up! He was suitably gassed from his effort and really I should have offered him my spare fizz stick but I'd "forgotten" it was in my back pocket and for now our final assignment was home through Kirkdale, Bootle and Maghull.

CANYONS AND CHINOOKS SYNCHRONIZED SKIDDING - YES THAT'S GOOD TEAMWORK

We chased a few vans through Kirkdale and passed Bank Hall station before turning right after Hugh Baird College and back to Hawthorne Road. This sequence was punctuated on more than one occasion by red lights but we just about escaped through one of them despite a big case of indecision from me and Darren about whether to stop or not. Somehow we both skidded the same way and avoided a collision. That's what you call epic teamwork especially when his Endurace has disc brakes and my 10 year old antique bike is past its best, but I certainly felt past my peak performance once we got onto Gorsey Lane and across Brooms Cross Road. Such struggles were masked by Emma's pedal not working properly but others were turning for home now and we only had around half a dozen by the time me and Darren took over on the front in the Meade estate in Maghull. After crossing the canal bridge I started to ramp it up thanks to all that vegan overindulgence at the cafe stop (now everyone knows to ban eating as a way of dropping me) and strangely a few started losing contact. A suitable distraction in the form of a lady runner was enough to slow me down and we made our way back to Winifred Lane but although I could have turned left for Noel Gate here I really wanted 80 miles so continued down the hill into Ormskirk to finish the ride properly. Once into M&S I raided the boom counter for a 40p tub of hummus which will go great with the designer vegan sausage sarnie I'm about to demolish and then I returned home up the hill, doing just enough of a loop to complete 80 miles upon arriving at my little bungalow. Thank you for such an amazing ride today, January and a season "high" of 80 miles, Project Sundowner 2019 is ON!

Now for the results, in association with the soon to be changed Eureka Cafe:

Distance: 128.75km
Time: 4:24:43
Average Speed: 29.18km
Dead Tyres: 2
Dogs: 1
Piss Stops: 1
Car Horns: 3
Money Spent Today: £7.50 at Eureka plus 40p at M&S

REJECT OF THE RIDE: Colin's Tyres
(Not least because they were apparently brand new)

Have a good ride next week, I can't be there as I'm JP'ING in Birkenhead. Think I'll settle for the rugby on Saturday and treating my dad to a Toby carvery for his birthday. Then I'll know what the vegan options are like and Matt will know to fit me into the montage for the club dinner, only two weeks to go peeps, get your tickets now!