It was a fine, though windy, Saturday morning as Stockport Community Cycling Club members met at Portland Basin, ready for the Crime Lake 2018 cycle ride.

We set off through Ashton-Under-Lyne.

Soon we joined NCN Route 626 at Hurst.

This is also known as the Ashton to Oldham Gateway. We followed this for the next few miles to Park Bridge.

As we were to discover, there were a lot of barriers to make our way through on this ride.

Here’s another …

The main climb of the day took us up Alt Lane. Both Neil and I had forgotten how sharp this climb was in places!

Sarah is smiling here, so she obviously thought it was easy … ???

John had already come to a cropper at the top of Alt Lane and the camera has missed catching that one. It was kind of him, therefore, to repeat the trick a little further along!

We cycled up Holts Lane.

Then turned into Leesbrook Nature Park.

At one point, this included a climb of a different sort …

We made our way through Glodwick.

We followed an offroad path through Oldham.

The path eventually brought us to the entrance of Alexandra Park. Unfortunately, Vic got held up due to a puncture and then a break mechanical. While Sarah’s gears stopped working at almost the same time – she managed to continue to the end of the ride with limited gearing.

The coffee stop was at the Boathouse Cafe in the park. This offered some fine fare at reasonable prices but was seriously let down by offering absolutely nothing that was gluten-free. It’s not difficult for heaven’s sake to provide at least pre-packaged cake as a token offering!

After the coffee break, we headed off in the direction of Hathershaw.

This included a fantastic few miles of downhill cycling.

This eventually brought us to Daisy Nook.

And, a little further along, Crime Lake itself. The name ‘crime’ has nothing sinister about it, it is thought to be taken from the local word meaning meadow. The park itself runs through the Medlock Valley, sections of which we had been following earlier in the day.

We followed the disused Hollinwood Branch Canal.

And of course, there were more barriers to squeeze through.

There was also a low bridge or two …

We also passed Ryecroft Hall.

A little further along there were some visitors to our shore who were clearly struggling to find a shore.

We found one, however, in the form of the Ashton Canal.

We followed this back to Portland Basin.

This had been a fifteen-mile ride up to Oldham that had included a bit of everything. And when its a fine day like this was, there is nothing better than getting out on the bike and exploring.

You can view our Crime Lake 2018 route below: