Back when I first started riding us newbies learnt routes through club runs or pouring over Landranger maps looking for interesting hills or new roads that linked the places you already knew together. There were no Garmins, Google maps or any other technological ‘improvements’ beginning with the letter ‘g’, you were guided by your mental maps, maps that never got wet, never ran out of power and never seemed to be wrong.
Today was a precious Sunday lie in. A lie in as I was riding with Pablo and we’d decided that 11am would be a suitably civilised start time. The route was meant to be up to Horwich for the circuit over Belmont with a stop at the Rivington tea rooms. As we climbed from Hindley to Aspull, Winter Hill was shrouded in fog, visibility wasn’t great and the temperatures were dropping. We took the decision to ride round Anglezarke instead, a route I’d planned for next week’s club run, so the ideal time to test it out.
I’d rushed out without my trusty Landranger and without the route programmed into the Garmin. How hard could it be, round the big watery thing, turn right, turn, right, turn right, tea and cake. We were soon riding into the outskirts of Chorley, way off track. Pablo’s Garmin had decided to dump its data the night before so the mapping was as good as useless. We retraced our steps crossing Anglezarke reservoir and heading north towards White Coppice. As we climbed the fog got thicker and the temperatures dropped, again off track. Back tracking once more we found the climb back over the fells to Sheephouse Lane and the packed but welcome tea rooms.
Whilst we’d not found the route we’d intended we’d had a great ride, ticking off some stiff and foggy climbs in the process. It was only later that checking the oracle that is Google Street View that I realised the course originally plotted used farmers tracks, not that the map base even hinted at that – lucky for next week’s riders that we did the recce.
Fed, caked and watered we rode back at a brisk pace down through Horwich, Blackrod and Hindley, 45 hilly miles in the bag and a lesson learnt that perhaps a folded Landranger is still the most reliable mapping there is.
Cake of the day: Fruit scone, jam and butter / near perfect
Bread of the day: Irish soda bread / getting better with every bake (picture above, recipe below)
Irish Soda Bread
Sift 350g of wholemeal and plain flour (mix to your preference, mine 300g wholemeal, 50g plain)
Add 1 teaspoon of salt
Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of bi-carbonate of soda
Stir in 300ml of Buttermilk to make a dough
Kneed the dough lightly for no more than a few minutes and lightly flour
Lightly grease a cake tin or loaf tin
Place dough in the tin and score the top with a knife
But in the over at 210 degrees for 30 minutes covered with another cake or loaf tin (to make and oven in the oven)
Cook for a further 15 minutes with the ‘lid’ removed
Once cooked, tap the base, if it sound hollow, you’re done
Turn out onto a wire rack to cool
