Mary Townley-ish....the bivvy that wasn't...
The plan was an overnight Mary Townley loop, missing out the most pointless, gate ridden sections, also varying the route to take account of my after work start from Hardcastle Crags. I reckoned somewhere around Crag Quarry/Top of Leach would provide a reasonable bivvy spot, then wander back via Watergrove, Bottomley and an alternative finish over Stoodley Pike before heading down for a late breakfast/early lunch; the forecast was good too, what could go wrong?
5.30 saw me cruising past Walshaw. Widdop res. was a bit wild, with white horses sending spray over the dam wall - where did that come from? The wind died and when I crossed the Burnley Road it was a beautiful late summer evening. The following push up to Deerplay confirmed to me that anti clockwise is not the best way to tackle the loop - my previous Mary Townleys have been clockwise and only really have one hike-a-bike section, the steep switchbacks up from Bottomley to Reddyshore Scout.
Now the next bit of the loop is to my mind the most annoying section. The route struggles to find continuity down past Water and Lumb to Waterfoot, and I chose to swoop down the road instead, bringing me to the foot of Cowpe Road with plenty of time to tackle the second grind (OK, push) of the evening, up to Crag Quarry. By the time I reached the level section through the quarries it had darkened considerably, and as I watched, a lovely blood red sunset became a threatening sky. Hmm. My choice of a no tent or tarp bag only bivvy AND an exposed moorland started to raise doubts, which only grew....
Next time I stopped and looked round, looking for a flat dry spot just by Top of Leach, the sky threatened heavy rain, and a rumble of thunder (only one, but enough) made my mind up and I accelerated off in the direction of Rooley Moor as a few large raindrops landed. In about fifteen minutes I was down at Knacks Lane thoroughly rattled (physically) and the rain had come to nothing. In darkness, aided by my not too powerful headtorch I searched for a spot. I discounted a reservoir valve station which would've provided one sided shelter; a ruined brick barn with too much glass underfoot; and finally Heally Dell (showed promise but a bloke appeared with an enormous barking rottweiler wandering in the dark.....noooo).
At quarter to ten I was on Whitworth Road, ruing the lack of proper MTB lights which I really needed to head on to Watergrove, the next likely spot, and the "sod this" voice started up in my head. This has happened to me before, most notably on the summit of Glyder Fach, where a sudden eerie mist gave me the wobbles and my hill top bivvy ended up as a sleep in the back of my estate car in the A5 layby. On this occasion, an urban fringe bivvy wasn't really appealing...
So - I flew down Whitworth Road to Rochdale, then along to Littleborough, and after taking the canal path to Summit, thought about a lockside sleep (briefly) then hit the road again, rolling home at five to 11.
All in all, disappointing but failure - no. A good ride, if a bit roady for my liking, and with proper lights, or better bivvy spot planning I'd have i'd have rolled home this morning for that late breakfast...
).
. Trying for the Weds at mo.
) after a truly horrible week. I did a fairly regular circuit for me out to and around Loch Katrine in the Trossachs. Apart from a lot of standing water and some high rivers there wasn't much evidence of the deluge from yesterday. That is until I was riding the water board access road round Loch Katrine. The first sign of trouble was a road closed sign. Soon after I came across a bridge surrounded by a washed out burn and lots of debris on the road. The iron railings of the bridge were bent out of shape and the previously narrow burn had scoured out a load of huge rocks and lobbed them downstream. Further along the road was totally gone for about 20m. I managed to pick my way round it and then came across this: 
...with half my lunch