Disley

I finally managed the ride out to Disley. I was a little unsure if I was going to make it or not.

All of the main roads are clear but the un-gritted side roads are just sheets of ice.

I had to get off and walk up bits of the main bridleway in Lyme park. It was just too icy to ride up. I was feeling a bit bad about this until I came across two MTBers sitting in the middle of this path. Apparently they'd tried to ride down but had both fallen off. For some strange reason they didn't want their photograph taken so here's just the path.

When I got to Disley I realised that I was very near Whaley Bridge. Inspired by an Altura Patterson training ride I was reading about the other week I set off to concur Long hill and the Cat and Fiddle. Thank heavens for sat-nav. If tt wasn't for the satnav on my phone I don't think I would of ever found the way from Disley to Whaley Bridge without going along the A6 duel carideway (Can bikes even go along there?)

Long hill is very aptly named. It began to feel like it was never going to end. The mud off-road tyres really started to drag. So much so that I stopped to try and put a bit more air into them and make life a little easier.

I've ridden up the cat and Fiddle loads of times, even time trialled it a few times but I don't think I've ever ridden up it from Buxton. It's steeper than you'd think this way; and having to ride in the slush/snow at the side of the road only seemed to make things harder. Even getting back down into Macclesfield seemed like hard work.


As I was rolling into Leek (now very cold) when I realised that today's ride was going to be 60miles. I was only a mile to my house and I needed 62miles. I ended up deliberately taking the long way home and doing an extra lap of the block just so that my Garmin would tick over to 62 miles, the magic 100km.