H is for High Legh, Hairpin Turns and "Hit The Wall"

A dry, slightly cloudy morning greeted various groups of riders this morning, with some in Bala nursing sore legs after yesterday's century/35 hill beasting by Darren and Emma, and those who stayed at home split into two gatherings, with Garry offering an A/B pancake flat ride at aggression intensity while Simon put on the early doors ride to High Legh, and the Red House Farm Cafe. As well as many B group regulars this ride would feature Mr Domination on his size 58 Sagan Tarmac, yours truly who would find that lesser portions and more blood flow really do go together a treat (bad news for foodie lovers and those who wanted to relegate me to the C group for being too slow) and Charlotte who is making a serious pitch for the inaugural Comeback Rider of the Year Award on her Cervelo S5 (oh look there's one in my soon-to-be-local bike shop, let's find that suitcase with the £50 notes in it yes please Matt I'll take the one off the floor with the Zipps). Simon did wait until 8:10 then led the group out of town alongside Kevan, beginning with the loop round the cricket club.

G IS FOR GOLBORNE, GRAVEL AND GET ME SOME GOJI'S, NOT EMOJI'S

We began with a swift dispatch of the ridiculously scarred Alty's Lane, which right now doesn't look fit to even host the Ormskirk 10k in late September never mind 15 riders early on a Sunday morning. We continued over tarmac and gravel down Catherine's Lane towards Bickerstaffe with only the slight downhill towards the T-junction really getting our legs moving to speeds over 20mph; on the way over this morning I couldn't even get my own average over the 20mph mark and was seriously regretting that yoghurt at the end of breakfast time. Quite a talking point once we got to the cafe, but more on that in Chapter 47. For now we continued onto the Bickerstaffe TT course, where Charlotte would surely play a starring role if I can somehow enforce a "no wheels deeper than 50mm" rule for the "no aero gear" TT on 17 September, given she actually has a more snazzy handlebar and set of nails than even the HMCC QOM specialist aboard her Canyon. It wasn't long before we reached the roundabout and turned right onto the dual carriageway, which as you know I always approve of. However, we would stick to the cycle track today and stayed there to the south end of the D10/1 course, then turned left through Rainford. Here, we managed to get lost, not for the last time on the day, down a road near "Charlotte Towers" where apparently all the fitness equipment and goji berries within a 5 mile radius is to be found, though the walkway had us going slower than, well, walking pace and we only got going upon reaching "The Wall" reserved for the flattest part of the St Helens Tri hill beast session run route. I thought we'd be going up Shaley Brow and immediately my stomach started screwing itself up as I looked around for the red razors/nails but Charlotte wasn't too bothered that we weren't going uphill; indeed she seemed rather happier that I was giving her the good news about the superfood options at the cafe we were going to. See, forewarned is forearmed, whether you work the biceps or not (just ask Kevan). After turning left at the Red Cat pub we plunged down the descent and set off after two Specialized riders in the distance as we approached Billinge. The first one was rounded up pretty quickly but the second blew the doors off his mate and even tried to pedal alongside Charlotte for a while, but even more silly that that was the fact that neither of them were wearing helmets; come on guys use your brains (unless you don't have them in the first place then I suppose it doesn't make any difference). We got stopped at the lights a the top of the hill where Charlotte commented "that's the first time I've ever got up without being dropped". More than that, she'd stayed on Kevan's wheel while others dropped away and I needed to slot in alongside her to bridge the chasm that had appeared in the pack. Watch out Emma, Charlotte's coming to get you........Anyway it was right at the lights then down the hill into Golborne, where we got the first trouble-free run since Noah launched the Ark, and shortly afterwards, while stopped at a large junction, I spotted St Helens Tri teammate Adele Fisher, out for a ride on her Cannondale CAAD8. As yet she's got no plans to bid for Rob McLeod's chainey sprint weapon but watch out if she does, as she'd probably need a longer stem putting on straight away (Kevan I remember the "YOU ARE A COMPACT" FB comments from the other week). This got us out of Lane Head and our next target was Culcheth, one of those villages where you can't help but be interested in what the property prices are even if you've just had an offer accepted in the Big O (first Sunday after I move in, you're welcome, but no YOLO'ING on a tight road with two deep potholes unless you're a jackass). Also of note was just how tough the road surface was, with mud and gravel strewn all over the place, and it was the first time I can remember that such a spell of rotten road surface didn't send me to the back. I couldn't help but also notice the Philadelphia Eagles rip-off logo on the playing fields of Culcheth Eagles Rugby League Club; couldn't they have called themselves the Chargers and done the lightning bolt a bit differently? Anyway, we now faced the long, exposed road over the long, steady bridge to Glazebrook, and then the toll bridge, but it was here that the first of many misdirection moments would start to really slow the pace. Hope you've got enough time for the next chapter........

I'VE "HIT THE WALL" MANY TIMES ON AN HMCC RIDE BUT NEVER IN THAT SENSE OF THE WORD

As we approached the toll bridge Steve Kernigan asked the leaders if they wanted a break at all, but Simon and Kevan are so strong at the long-haul these days that neither were feeling the need to hand over. Instead, they led us past our good mate on the toll booth who was busy attending to motorbikes coming the other way and turned a blind eye to the opportunity to make £1.80 out of us. So we continued up the incline and over the bridge until plunging down into Warburton, which in turn skirts the perimeter of the Trafford region. Here, Simon's Garmin started to get a few attacks of the old GPS fade as it took us under a greasy, slippery railway bridge that it turned out we didn't need to go under, and just to top things off, John Hesketh lost control at the darkest point of the underpass and somehow ended up running into the wall! It was a most bizarre accident and it was the sort of thing you would expect the likes of me and Kev Murphy to do, but it made for quite a long stop as his bar tape and bloodied hand/knee was tended to, others took the opportunity for a piss stop (which ironically had only been called for while waiting at the traffic lights prior to the fateful bridge) and I shamelessly dug inside the squirrel snatcher for an SIS Go Bar. Quite something for me to have the arrogance to eat given that Stefan skipped breakfast prior to getting passed by Alex up Shaley Brow this morning, but as I pointed out to Kevan I was mindful of what happened to Daniel Sturridge during the Slovakia game the other night and that maybe it wasn't the best idea to string out consumption of porridge, toast, yoghurt and a BP-bought flapjack over more than 40 miles. And you wonder how on earth I'm inching closer to his 94kg muscle-man target....... On the restart I was desperate to do some miles on the front with the tailwind still pushing us to the cafe to set off alongside Paul who was keen to keep a lid on the pace, before Kevan pulled alongside me once more and the muscling began; big gears, no cadence required, and 20mph+ all the time. It's how I do all my solo training sessions anyway, but probably guessed that. We only got kicked off the front by a missed turn for Station Lane which necessitated a U-turn and Paul getting completely spooked by the fact that I got a clean turn done in the middle of the road; I think I'd have come worse off than his Propel somehow if push came to crunch. Simon suggested at this point that he and Steve Kernigan should take over to guide us to the cafe, and as it turned out this was the right call as only three miles later we arrived at our destination having covered 45 miles from home and avoided any more wrong turns, for now at least.

PERFECT EATERS AND SPECIALIZED/CERVELO RIDERS ONLY, ALL OTHERS WILL BE REMOVED (UNLESS YOU CAN'T UNLOCK YOUR BIKE)

We parked our bikes inside the complex where they've erected special slots just for us two-wheelers and then rushed in to get a table and place an order. The table arrangement left me, Kevan and Charlotte at the head table near the door and this produce an interesting array of nutrition choices. Kevan stuck to a toasted teacake which I don't think has that much protein in, while I chose..........the full English? No, not now given I'm under strict instructions not to block off blood flow by stuffing myself with food, so instead I took advantage of the cafe's generous egg quota and went for three hashtag PROTEINSTRONG poached eggs on two slices of brown toast. But on this occasion, I was outdone by Charlotte, who decided to order some superfood granola with apple, accompanied by a pint-sized bottle of soya milk. Now I'm the first to admit I've tried this and found it to digest rather quicker than regular milk (says he who also ordered the Hot Chocolate Royale, I'm sure that was my entire allocation of sugar for the day boxed off in one) but in addition, Charlotte ordered a pot of scrambled egg for some protein power! Not quite as much as on my plate, but a close second and a very imaginative meal choice, which deserved to be posted on her blog. You can guess who's already done that while watching the second half of the France-Ireland game............When we went to pay I headed into the deli and grabbed a chocolate brownie to put in the squirrel snatcher but to Charlotte's amusement it was served to me in a red cardboard BOX similar to a McD's Happy Meal and I did go looking through the box under the giant-sized cake to find the free toy, but sadly that would have cut too much into the cafe's profit margins. Other topics of discussion included Edge Hill Sport memberships and spin classes, which Charlotte leads from time to time, and our next big purchases, such as Charlotte's next pair of glasses and my future TT frame. A P3 with manual gears or the Focus with Di2? Decisions, decisions, and don't get me started on copying Luke Jackson's contortionist tendencies either, I'd crash a size 51. A quick piss stop led me to vault the "no climbing" fence over the terrace into the car park, much to the delight of Yet Another Over-60 "I voted LEAVE" customer who doesn't know the difference between climbing and high-jumping, and then to unlock the bikes. This was simple enough for me, but Chris Cooke stole the ROTR award away from John Hesketh as he couldn't remember the code to get his bike! This meant Kevan was to the rescue and with brute force obviously garnered from plenty of powerlifting he snapped the b****r in two and saved Chris from needing to call the resident bike thief out to cable-cut his lock on his brand new bike. Now it was off to Dunham Massey, via, well, here there and everywhere!

WAIT 'TIL THEY SEE THESE AVERAGES, THEY'LL THINK THE C GROUP JUST GOT AWESOMELY MAHOOSIVE

The run to the "Dunham Massey" sign was pretty straightforward, but upon reaching the park we were greeted by people in fancy dress carrying various musical instruments, none of which appeared to be a piano. They were kept suitably entertained by our efforts to find the best way to High Legh, and even more so when we doubled back under the bridge and admitted defeat in our efforts to find a solution other than the stile. That's right, the version where you carry your bike over the steps and pedal very carefully over lots of gravel at not much more than 10mph, this coming after we'd crawled behind various pedestrians over mud and ("NOT THE") grass at half that speed. Quite how we got through this passage of play without someone coming off I have no idea, but more delays were just up the road as we needed to cross a tin bridge over a brown river where a "Residents Parking Only" sign is on every corner. Property for sale in Dunham Massey, you wonder? If nothing else, this got us out onto the road for High Legh Garden Centre, which gave us our bearings back for a few miles including the run past the Primary school, where I had one of those dreaded XX:01 experiences a couple of years ago at the High Legh 10k (not that I care nowadays given my PB is 38 bang on the nose, XX:00 is so much better than XX:01). After Mercedes Man near the local housing estate kindly chose not to run us over prior to the uphill run out of the village we made our way to Arley Hall and various other villages in deepest Cheshire, much to Charlotte's approval. The most quaint of these was undoubtedly Comberbach, where the locals were sitting outside the pub enjoying pints of ale and with the weather still quite warm, a few riders were commenting on how nice it would be to down a swift one. Surprisingly, that didn't include me; I think there's something about having Kevan and Charlotte on your ride that brings out that bit of extra focus not to end up as a little yellow dot on super rear facing ZOOM lens aboard his Tarmac, not that it stopped Lennie's chain from coming off under his similar brute force power. Of greater note was the frequent wrong turns we took, most notably at the bottom of one hill where riders started trying to turn around and brake at the same time. This nearly led me to go CHINOOKING little Dolan L'Etape Man who must have been mightily relieved that I didn't go over the top of him, and the irony in all this was that it happened at the very moment a "Welcome to Warrington" sign appeared on a sign, the very town Simon had been trying to avoid during his 27 detours and U-Turns. We still just about managed to avoid it for the most part, as the next stretch of road had us ascending from a standing start, very painful for those of us who forget regularly how to change to an easier gear, but hey, that's what Optimum Nutrition Whey Protein is for upon finishing your workout. As it turned out we were on a reverse of the "lake route" whereby you see a potential open-water swim venue and, on occasion, a brightly-coloured runner who of course just had to appear in time to block us at the bridge. We avoided him and then turned towards the river bridge near the Cheshire Lines, which naturally meant we overshot the turn-off for the "dead end" road we needed. A quick bit of kerb-crawling got us in the right direction and from here it was a nasty cobbled run through a back street, which led us under the railway line and the uphill version of the gravel run. This spooked me and Charlotte no end, not just because we don't like loose road surfaces but also because the bike cleaning job would take us until Monday morning. Thankfully we all survived to the end and came out at the industrial estate where Simon suggested keeping it tight and disciplined through Warrington itself, so of course this meant it turned into a game of Kevan vs whoever was his next victim. Charlotte did a remarkable job of beasting the headwind alongside him for as long as she did, and from then on it was a committee including Simon and Paul who kept the Sagan frame honest until me and Charlotte got control on the westerly run through Cronton, where I discussed the virtues of Alpro dessert pots amongst other things; yet another item going in my soon-to-be-crafted perfect kitchen of perfected foods. Let's be honest, would you choose to buy things that were bad for you? If not, Buy Best (but I'll keep the beers cold for the housewarming party on the Sunday afternoon of choice). We were only removed from the front row when the last of the "RIGHT; LEFT; RIGHT NO LEFT!!!) moments happened just prior to the hospital and indeed I could have ended up there if Jaguar Man hadn't taken a wide trajectory at the traffic lights upon seeing me. Either that or he was feeling sorry for me that I'm really too young to own a Jag. But not as sorry as the lady out for a run with her dog; I think I'll let the others present the "evidence" of where my eyes wandered to and use it to complement the fact; she's the right age for me and she's into the same sorts of things as me, though I'd rather challenge myself and run with a pet cat than walk/jog at easy pace with the dog. Having sufficiently spooked her we now had one thing in mind; speed into St Helens, razz it to Rainford and beast it to Bickerstaffe to beat the rainstorm. There was only one thing for it; put the hammer down!

OH LOOK, SAGAN HAS VANISHED, I'LL KEEP THE TROPHIES "IN THE FAMILY"

The only Hors Cat Climb of the day was just after the motorway bridge before Knowsley Village and in keeping with modern traditions, I hammered the first part of the climb fearful of humiliation, but Kevan scooted past before the summit. At least it meant Specialized got a 1-2, but it certainly felt like a lot of effort at this stage just to hold off the likes of Charlotte and John Hill, who lived up to his surname and then some on this little rise. Soon we were enjoying a brief sojourn onto the A580 cycle track before turning right at the roundabout and the shortcut to Rainford Island, where Simon suggested using the cycle track. Unarguable common sense, it nonetheless meant having to dodge oncoming riders, workmen tending to a broken-down vehicle and a bit of gravel and overgrown grass, while Charlotte went for it on the road and speeded past the pack before turning right for Rainford. I thought about doing the same and going to Pimbo for the afternoon race but the drizzle was coming down harder now and I was almost regretting not bringing the Team Chinook car so I could have handed out cakes to our E/1/2/3 riders. Instead, I joined Lennie and a couple of other riders in a bit of through and off on the last segment of the TT course, giving Lennie his first experiences of my one-liners such as "THIS IS WHERE YOU EARN IT" and "GUTS PAIN GLORY". By the time we reached the S-Bend before the Aughton sign only three remained, so I took over and decided to go for it a long way out. With Kevan having presumably turned off for Pimbo or to do 30mph into the wind all the way home I got lucky that the opposition had vanished and, you guessed it, we had an UPSET SPECIAL (and clean sweep for Team Specialized). We regrouped just after the Dog and Gun and Simon took us on a tour of various Aughton residences, which should at least direct me to a future house purchase 20 years down the line if I make the improvement I want to my intended choice of 2016 and sell it later for over £200k. Steve and Simon turned off before me and Paul, and after waving Paul on his way I stopped to cape up, eat the "Happy Meal Box" brownie picked up at the cafe and then time-trialled at a fairly sedate 20mph into the wind all the way home. At least this meant I had enough in the tank to YOLO to 24mph at the Formby Cycles bridge despite my legs almost wanting to snap from the pressure build-up and after one last dash down Altcar Road I could swing into my drive having done a second consecutive century. Let's go for three in a row on next week's big one in L1!

Now for the results, in association with Charlotte's new friend, the Cervelo S5:

Distance: 161.76km/101.1 miles

Time: 5:29:54

Average Speed: 29.42kmh/18.39mph

Hors Cat Climbs: 1

Chains Off: 1

Crashes: 1 under the bridge

Eggs Eaten at the Specialized/Cervelo Table: 4

Piss Stops: 3, 2 of which were out on the road

Runners: 2, both of which were very different distractions

Money Spent Today: £8.95 on plenty of protein plus a "Happy Meal Box" brownie

REJECT OF THE RIDE: Chris Cooke's Lock

(Not only because he forgot the number but also because Kevan managed to break it in seconds. Matt I think you might have a sale out of him this week)

See a few of you in Liverpool next week for the LCL 100-miler. I wonder if JP will be on hand to do the 5-mile family challenge 20 times in an attempt to set the underwater WR? Best borrow Charlotte's bike and wheels, then..........