This Cuerden Valley 2019 Stockport Community Cycling Club was the latest of a regular in the club cycling calendar. You can view previous outings, including my infamous crash and burn ride, here: 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018.

Many of the club rides have large numbers. So sometimes it makes a nice change when there are smaller numbers. Today, was just such an occasion. There were only nine of us, and just two leaders, Sarah and myself.

Leaving Kem Mill Lane car park at Clayton-Le-Woods, we set off down NCN Route 55, Cuerden Valley Park Cycle Route.

This essentially follows the valley created by the River Lostock.

A little further along we crossed Town Brow.

Then continued through Cuerden Valley Park.

Still following NCN Route 55, we left Cuerden Valley at Bamber Bridge.

After crossing the first of a number of busy roads, we ducked low to get through a small tunnel near to Bamber Bridge football club.

Then we made our way along a path alongside Lostock Hall.

Our route took us through Preston Junction local nature reserve as we made our way towards Preston.

After crossing over the River Ribble we dropped into Avenham Park for Our coffee stop.

We have stopped at the cafe a number of times now and usually there are sparse gluten-free picking for Sarah. However, we were delighted to see that they are now offering a variety of gluten-free options. Excellent.

Following the coffee break, we joined NCN Route 622, The Guild Wheel.

This took us along the River Ribble for awhile.

We then left NCN Route 622 and made our way towards Walton-Le-Dale. We had originally planned to cycle only one route since there was just Sarah and I present as ride leaders. However, we decided to split into two and Mark J took over back leader duties.

Sarah led Mick J on the less hilly version. However, the ‘no hills’ route which we had uploaded (given to us a few years back), had a few flaws in it – not least in taking Sarah and Mick down un-cyclable paths

The rest of us headed off towards Brindle. We turned up Gregson Lane. At first it was a gentle climb …

After crossing the railway line, however, the gradient became more pronounced.

Eventually, we reached the junction with Stony Bank.

There was then a short downhill to Brindle, followed by another climb up to Top O ‘Th’ Lane as we followed Local Network route 91.

Thankfully, it was now all downhill back to the start!

In the meantime, Sarah and Mick had to find their own route back to the start!

This had been another enjoyable cycle ride. We had cycled nearly 15 miles and challenged ourselves with a few hill climbs. You can view the Cuerden Valley 2019 route below: