Saturday’s weather forecast was not great. Just as we set off  to cycle to the start, the heavens opened! The SCCC Macclesfield Circular ride started at Riverside Park. We had thought with the weather being bad, that not many people would turn up, but we were wrong! They just kept arriving!

We waited for a short  while as we had heard that Martin had got a puncture on his way to the start. It turned out that he was having problems fixing it and would come and meet up for lunch. We set out without him.

We got on the Middlewood Way heading towards Macclesfield and soon found Martin, who was still trying to fix his puncture!

We waited a while as it looked like he was nearly done. Unfortunately it went down again, so we had to leave him to it. John stayed with Martin to help him – they planned to meet up with us later.

We passed some interesting pictures of place in Macclesfield along the way.

Our route took us through the edges of Macclesfield.

We headed out of Macclesfield and went past Sutton Hall and headed out into the country lanes.

We skirted the edge of Gawsworth.

At around halfway, we stopped at Flora Tearooms at Henbury for some lunch. It was good to be able to dry off. This was where we met up with John and Martin.

Having almost taken over the place, it was time to continue our journey. This time John and Martin came with us.

We cycled up Pepper Street, which is only short but a rather steep climb.  We set off towards Birtles.

We cycled on to Prestbury, and then through the centre of Prestbury.

Having been through Prestbury, we then made our way back towards the Riverside Park in Macclesfield, where we started from.

We got back on the Middlewood Way for the final stretch.

The Zig Zag took us up to the bridge over the Silk Road with another zig zag on the other side to take us back down again.

We turned off the Middlewood Way near the end and then retraced our route back to the start that we had done initially.

Arriving back at the Riverside Park, we had all enjoyed our days ride, despite the rain at times. We had cycled 17 miles.  Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the ride. It was a new route for us – it was all lanes we had used before, just put together. Andy had been the front leader for the day and I had been the back leader.

You can see our route below: