Baschurch

Sunday 25th October, British summertime ends but instead of having an extra hour in bed I meet Phil at the C.O. at 8am to make most use of the light. It's warm and dry but the wind is 20mph from the SW - which is the direction in which we're heading. Chirk, here we come! Both of us have Garmins and Phil has loaded the route from the Smiler blog; he's a quick learner. So we take it in turns on the front but it's hard going, we're not going to make last week's average speed. We make the cafe in Chirk by just after 10am having averaged 15.5mph. Breakfast baps and tea at the pit stop and then it's off through Weston Rhyn to get the wind on our right shoulders; whew, a bit of relief. We take to the lanes to round Gobowen and head past Queens Head to search out the mistake of the day - we hit the A5 for a couple of miles. It is worse than a fairground ride and we sigh with relief when the Ruyton-XI-Towns turnoff appears. With the wind on our backs we're touching 30mph for spells on the flat and by Myddle we've hit 50 miles - coincidentally half the planned distance.
Then after Preston Brockhurst the gremlins strike. Phil's on the front " I've lost the route, Ray." "Well, I haven't got it, let's retrace and see where you dropped it." A missed left turn. Then near Hopton we pass a left, " I came out of that left with Harry the Bike on a Shrewsbury ride." " I've lost the route again, Ray." It was the left. Then at Marchamley, " Phil, we go left then first right." Then " PPHHIIIIILLLL." And I wait at the right for a few minutes 'til he returns. He takes the lead again, " I've lost it again, Ray." This time it's a fork and I take permanent lead - is he just tired - but we can't afford the light.
We're making good progress again, take on a sandwich and drink at Prees, through Calverhall and into well known territory at Royals Green. Phil's out of juice - the Bhurtpore pub sees him OK before the last pit stop at Wrenbury. A variable cross wind sees us back to Chester where we opt for the Guilden Sutton route in order to sample the Millenium Greenway extension.
Back home it's 109 miles at 15.9mph average and 5000ft of climbing. And we're back on schedule and smiling as it's 4:10pm.
View the route at:-

www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?id=24159