After last weekend’s Stockport Community Cycling Club weekend in Scarborough today it was back to the bread and butter of the normal weekend rides and today the destination was Sale Water Park.

Perhaps it was the good weather, perhaps it was because it was a local meeting point, perhaps an inspiring destination. Whatever it was, once again there was a good turnout of members as we met on the plaza behind the Woolpack pub.

We set off down the Trans Pennine Trail path (NCN Route 62) along the River Mersey. This was an enjoyable revisit of the Stockport section of the TPT cycle tour that Sarah and I had completed last week. Indeed there would be plenty of “revisits” on this ride.

We would also be tested a couple of times on this route with obstacles. Stockport Council provided the first early on …

We followed the river through Heaton Mersey and Burnage.

Coming off NCN Route 62 we continued along the river through Didsbury.

We picked up NCN Route 62 again, and after a wait whilst Sarah repaired a puncture we crossed over the river at Ford Lane.

Then we wiggled our way through Northenden.

There was another crossing of the river at Chorlton …

And another …at Sale.

Arriving in Sale we followed a path around the water park. This provided another obstacle course where a section of the path was in the process of being upgraded.

Then we briefly returned along the outward route to Jackson’s Boat. It’s got a large outside garden but I suspect they were a little overwhelmed by our numbers as they ran out of tea cups! The food was well presented. The only downside was that there was hardly anything suitable for a gluten-free vegetarian, and so Sarah struggled was only able to choose the soup.

After the break we continued along the River Mersey for a short while.

We cycled back under the M60.

And over Princess Parkway.

After more criss-crossing we began following a route we had used when training for our first End-to-End.

This took us through the back roads of Withington and Didsbury.

And Burnage.

And finally back through Heaton Moor.

This had been an enjoyable 18 mile route along the River Mersey. Thanks to Bruce for leading us.

You can view our Sale Water Park route below:

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