A healthy number of Stockport Community Cycling Club members met at Torkington Park for Alec’s ‘Macclesfield Lumps’ ride. Sarah and I had been on a two hour run as part of our Conwy Half-Marathon training the previous day and were still feeling the miles in our legs. The talk of hills and lumps suggested we were going to struggle.

The route began by heading out to Bollington.

From Middlewood we climbed up through Higher Poynton and on to Pott Shrigley.

We cycled on to Bollington where we had a bit of a wait following the first puncture of the day.

  

Next we continued climbing as we made our way up to Kerridge.

  

From Kerridge we continued our way round the edge of Macclesfield heading towards Langley.

From Langley we cycled through Sutton.

And then on through Gawsworth.

  

Lunch was taken at the Flora Tea Rooms in Henbury. A well known watering hole for cyclists the food is always well presented. Sadly there we must have overwhelmed them with our numbers since the service was rather slow, especially if you ordered a baked potato. Some of our group gave up waiting when others had finished their meal and they were still waiting to be served. They ended up changing their order instead. Lesson of the day – don’t order baked potato at Flora Tea Rooms unless you are prepared for a long wait! It was our only real quibble – if we had been informed of the likely wait before ordering other options would have been chosen at the start.

After lunch we headed for home first through Chelford.

Then on through Mottram St Andrew.

  

Finally we cycled through the edges of Wilmslow.

And back through Hazel Grove to the start.

This was the first ride I can remember Alec leading and it was a cracker. This proved to be a challenging 33 miles, but one that everyone who came along thoroughly enjoyed and we have just got to hope that it isn’t too long before Alec comes up with Macclesfield Lumps 2! As for Sarah and I, we survived the challenge too and our legs thankfully didn’t let us down.

You can view the Macclesfield Lumps route below: