Saturday was the SCCC Abney Park Afternoon Ride. The ride started from the footbridge near the Pyramid, where 11 of us met up.

Andy was the ride leader and Andy S was the back leader. As I was the only other leader there, I was the the corner person for the afternoon.

We set off along the river, passing under the M60 motorway.

We then turned right ad followed the track running parallel to the  motorway.

We  turned off and went through the Mersey Vale Nature Park onto Craig Road.

We picked up the TPS (Trans Pennine Trail) for a while, towards Green Pastures.

We then made our way back to the river and then down towards Manchester Road.

We used the shared path along Manchester Road to Abney Park.

We cycled around Abney Park.

We arrived at the Abney Cafe where we stopped for a welcome drink. It was the first time I had been there, as in previous visits it had been closed.

Our ride then continued into Cheadle.

We made our way around the edges of Cheadle.

We cut through towards Life Leisure Cheadle and then turned onto Cheadle Road.

We turned off Cheadle Road and made our way onto Old Wool Road.

When we reached Queens Road, our previous route had been to go along the river but the patch is closed whilst it is being upgraded, so we followed the road through the local housing estate.

We crossed over the river, as that section of the path was open, and made our way towards Adswood Park.

Turning off Councillor Lane, we cycled through Adswood Park and then headed down towards Cheadle Heath.

We picked up a new cycle path at Gorsey Bank, which lead up to a bridge over the river.

We crossed the river at Gorsey Bank and made our way towards Kings Reach Business Park.

We cycled through Kings Reach Business Park, past the Pyramid and back to where we had started.

Just after we had finished the ride, Graham cycled up. We all laughed as he has a reputation for turn up late but after we had finished was so much later then even he manages to achieve! He did say that he was not there for the ride but was on his way to Decathlon – we weren’t sure whether that was true of not 😉

Despite being cold, it had been a great day to be out cycling. You can see our route below: