It has been a little while since Sarah and I have joined a Stockport Community Cycling Club ride, what with cycle tours and attending weddings and the like. It was good therefore to be able to rejoin our friends on the Longdendale Trail ride, a perennial favourite (see here, here and here for previous versions).

We met at the Hadfield end of the Longdendale Trail. There was also a charity ride for a local nursery taking place. Bruce thought he might be in with a chance of winning the top prize.

The Trail form part of NCN Route 62.

The Trail runs alongside a series of reservoirs.

The fun on this ride centred around the lunch stop. The cafe we were due to stop at has recently changed to accepting only group bookings. Andy S, our ride leader today, had negotiated they open for us, albeit with a reduced menu. Imagine his surprise when he rang ahead to inform them of our numbers and they asked for a list of our orders. Not easy, when we hadn’t seen the menu!

We continued on and crossed the B6105.

The largest of the reservoirs is Woodhead Reservoir.

Eventually, we reached the Woodhead Tunnels and the end of the Longdendale Trail.

The Longdendale Trail was originally a railway route that went through the tunnels, indeed, there was a station here. The original ones being to the left of this photo. Sadly, today the smaller tunnels serve only as route for electricity cables.

Next, we retraced our steps.

And when we reached the B6105, this time we turned off and climbed the hill up to The Old House Cafe.

The views from the veranda are fantastic. And the breakfast rolls are great, so it is a shame that the cafe is no longer open to the general public. Sadly, it seems recent road closures have resulted in the cafe no longer being viable for this type of offering. Oh well.

After lunch, we dropped back down the hill.

We crossed over to the other side of the reservoirs.

This was the more technical section of the route.

Finally, we crossed back to the southern side of the reservoirs at the lower end of Bottoms Reservoir.

There was a final climb back into Hadfield.

The sunny weather had helped make for a fine Saturday club ride. We had covered nearly 16 miles.

You can view our Longdendale Trail 2017 route below: