The first Saturday of January was the SCCC Irlam Ride 2020. We all met up at Sale Water Park – 35 people turned up! However Andy was not one of them, opting to stay in bed instead. I was the back leader for the day.

We set off through Sale Water Park.

We were making our way to the Bridgewater canal.

Reaching the Bridgewater canal (also known as the Bridgewater Way), we turned left heading towards Trafford.

We passed Stretford Marina as we continued along the Bridgewater Way.

We had a temporary stop along the way to enable a puncture to be repaired

With the punture suitable repaired, we continued along the Bridgewater Way, passing the Trafford Centre.

At Trafford Road bridge we continued on heading for Beyond (the Chill Factor).

Having reached Beyond, we followed the road which runs under the M60 Barton Bridge.

We then followed the cycle path past the City Airport (also referred to as Barton Airport) and the City Helipad.

We then turned left onto  Barton Moss Road and headed onto Irlam Moss

As we headed across the Moss, there were quite a strong headwind, making hard cycling!

We arrived at Irlam Station ready for refreshments!

After a lovely lunch at the cafe at Irlam Station (well worth a visit), it was time to complete our ride

We had to cross over the Manchester Ship canal and then headed towards Moorside.

As the next section of the road took us onto the roads, we split up into two groups. We paused briefly to leave a gap after the first group had left, before setting off ourselves.

We cycled through Moss Park

Leaving Moss Park we turned left and headed through Stretford, crossing Chester Road and making our way back to Sale Water Park.

Arriving back at the starting point, we were surprised to find that the first group had not arrived – they had taken a different route to us!

It had been a great ride on a cool but dry day and we had cycled just over 20 miles. You can see our SCCC Irlam Ride 2020 route below: