Circumnavigating the Wirral!

The Second Club ride couldn't have been more different to the Dads day ride. The plan was to do an easy paced full loop of the Wirral, taking in all the boundaries, including the North, East and West Coasts! All this and no more than 15 miles from home at any one point.
Using the Facebook Group and Twitter to arrange the attendance I was happy to see 7 others waiting at the 12th Man on a damp Sunday morning at 07.00.
We headed off to Birkenhead to meet Ken, and I was even more surprised to see two other riders waiting with him. 11 out at 7.30 was not a bad turn out for our second Palefish CC club ride. What was nice was seeing some new faces, in the group. We have ridden with Nick, Pete, Steve Alan and Nick with Vita, but it was really good to see them out with Palefish CC, Cheers for joining us today guys.


We looped round from the town centre out to the Seacombe ferry terminal and then along the Coast Path to New Brighton, where we started to notice an unwelcome guest to the ride, the WIND!!!
As we turned onto the North coast path we realised that today's ride wasn't going to be the easy spin we had been expecting. When I got home I checked out the wind speeds, and apparently, at times we were riding headlong into 35kph wind, coupled with Pete's (now knows as sandy) short cut through the Sand drifts it is no surprise that our average speed for this section of the ride was quite pedestrian.

Once back on the Main roads we upped the pace towards West Kirby and over Caldy to the only real climb of the day up to Heswall. At the top of the climb, Paul and Nick peeled off to attend to family duties, and the remaining 9 of us followed the well ridden path to Eureka via Lower Heswall, Parkgate, Neston, Puddington and Burton.

At the cafe I realised that the Camera Ade had lent me to record the ride hadn't worked! Whilst drinking my coffee I worked it out so the second half of the ride was captured, and I have attempted to create something worth watching!!! (ignore the date, I'm going to sort that next!!)

We saw a couple of the Vita Race team lads today, Ian popped into the cafe on his was out on, what to most is an epic 110 miles, but to Ian is a normal Sunday ride, and we saw Alex on the Chester High Road.


The next stage of the route was to cross back over the the East coast. We  rode through Capenhurst, Great Sutton and Little sutton, then headed towards Eastham. The only major incident of the day took place as a stick at the side of the road decided to jump out and throw itself into Alan's pedals. A bit of a scare, but luckily no fall or damage. 


On the way back towards Birkenhead Alan and Nick left us, and once we had dropped Ken off at the station, we headed straight back to Greasby over Bidston Hill.


Brownie pionts all round as we managed to get back before Lunch and the sun came out to welcome us back too!!

Other Club news this week.


On Wednesday, Tim and Paul N headed over the water to take part in a Rapha ride. To celebrate the longest day of the year, the Rapha H-van was refuelling riders on the Summer Solstice ride. The ride departed from Bold Street Coffee in Liverpool, before heading out to its northernmost point, Parbold Hill, where the H-van supplied the coffee and cakes required to get the riders back home.

A little something to help the tired legs?

It certainly helped Paul.

Thanks Tim for the Pics.


We will be out on Tuesday and Thursday night this week, 7.30 at the 12th Man in Greasby, and then we are off to Blackburn for an Onix Twitter ride next Sunday. If it is anything like the last one it will be great. Why not join us?


Don't forget to check out our Facebook Group page (just click on the link) and join it to be included in invites for future rides.