Right then. With a bit of fair (enough) weather, and the choice between staying in – again – and hitting the turbo, or heading out for something, I decided what the heck, let’s go out for a change. I knew the ground was wet. I knew there was ice under foot. What I didn’t quite realise was just how flooded some roads would be.
As I didn’t quite know what route to ride, and given that I’ve never done the full circuit before, I figured today would be as good a day as any to hit Preston’s The Guild Wheel.
Bad idea.
At least, bad idea on a road bike. I’d say it would be a bad idea to do this route on a road bike on a sunny / dry day. Today, it was – for several kilometres – an absolute bog. A very crowded bog, too, in parts.
Things started OK. Aside from one major problem: my camera.
As I trundled along some of Preston’s miles of canals I’ve never explored / seen before, I stopped to take a photo. One of what I hoped would be many photos of the trip, in order to make this blog post a bit more interesting than walls of text and a few stats.
Well, here we go:
Wow, Chris, that looks foggy.
Yeah, no.
It was a clear day.
The issue here is that I went for a walk the other day in the pouring rain. The rain soaked me through to the bone, and along with it, the water damaged my phone. So much so that the phone stopped playing sound. I managed to fix that with a hair dryer. After a factory reset :/
But wait. There’s more.
When I went out today I tried to take photos and found the lens is clogged with water. It looks like a pair of swimming goggles, fogged up and … bloopy.
Anyway, that sucks. But I figured OK, I have already broken one phone just before Christmas. Now I’ve broken the replacement even more than I realised? Well, that sucks. But I guess when I get home, I can always dry it with the hair dryer a bit more and hopefully it will be repaired. Stay tuned to find out how that went.
Onwards, I went.
Covering the journey through Cottam and down to Lea, then round some diversionary tracks through a farmers field (lovely), going through puddles of unknown depths at a snails pace so as not to filthy myself.
Well, I needn’t of bothered. Again, stayed tuned.
Down by the docks, and all through Avenum Park, the route was packed. But crossing London Road I set upon a route I had no idea about. And this is when things got … dodgy.
The Guild Wheel goes behind one of the rougher areas of Preston. I expected to be entering bandit country. Hooded yoots stealing my trainers, and what not. Alas, there were no yoots. Just families, and older couples walking dogs and children in equal numbers.
However, the ground became basically a trail. A puddle soaked, gravel strewn, filthy and wet affair that should have sounded the warning klaxons as to what lay ahead.
As I reached Brockholes Nature Reserve, things had taken a further turn for the worse. At this point it was basically off-roading. The perfect kind of conditions for me in my road-y gear, trying desperately not to unclip so as not to step in the thick muck, yet having to perilously navigate past families, dogs, and huge puddles.
I mean, you know it’s bad when you come across a pedestrian gate / flooded walk way, and have to get off and lift your bike over the farmers gate to avoid going through the water.
Anyway, up ahead I knew was a fairly steep section of … trail that I’ve walked up before. You can get a sense of this from the Garmin elevation profile below.
Suddenly 20%.
I’m all for this. Except it was very, very muddy. And gravely.
And chock full of kids, dogs, and even adults, all struggling to get up. Most people had the sense to get off and push.
So did I. However, I got impatient.
And so I clipped in. Half way up. And, holding a fence for balance, kicked off, and just as I was about 3/4’s of the way up, the kid in front of me decided to push his bike into my path, and lo-and-behold, over I went.
Fortunately, aside from my fragile ego, very little damage was taken. I managed to get all my kit absolutely filthy. My bike handlebars soaked in mud. And my wife’s gloves, borrowed for the ride, coated in a lovely shade of brown and green, as I tried my best to break my fall on the rickety wooden fence.
After that, I just thought sod it. Any puddle was fair game. I was suitably freezing, nice and wet, and muddy.
I decided to cut the route shorter than planned, but felt I’d done enough anyway. I’ve seen the rest of the route.
What sucks is when I got home, I decided to wash my bike as it was absolutely caked in filth. As was I. I put my loaner phone on the side to play some YouTube whilst I did my duty. Then as I finished up, still in my lycra, I picked up the phone, muscle-memoried it into my non-existent pocket, dropped it on to the floor, and smashed the screen.
A second smashed phone, a bike crash, and then once inside, cleaned and dressed, I drove my way to the bed shop several miles away only to get there and realise I’d forgotten my tier 3 covid mask. Absolute fail.
On the way home I spotted it’s a full moon. I’m not superstitious. Well, not much.
But I definitely blame everything on the full moon. Or maybe my own stupidity. One of the two.
