After spending nights in sheds, garages, hotel meeting rooms and even outside Daisy got to spend last night in our hotel room with us!
Back on the Trans Pennine Trail again and then route 6 took us across the tram ways and open parkland into the busy centre of Manchester. It was a mixture of old industrial buildings and new modern looking skyscrapers.
To stay on the route and stay safe we decided to use the traffic light crossing points rather than mingle with the traffic at the junctions. As we came out of the city but still on busy roads an odd engine noise grew louder from behind us and we were overtaken by a very large high speed quad bike which rode over the speed bumps without slowing down!
Thankfully we were soon onto the Radcliffe to Clifton railway path which was a delight to be on.
We crossed a bridge with the River Irwell far far below us and then joined the Kirklees Trail out of Bury.
From Bury we rode to Ramsbottom which was 26 miles into today’s ride and up to this point the climbs had been undemanding. We knew we had nearly 2000ft to climb today and most of these were still ahead of us and so the climb up from Ramsbottom was tough! We were rewarded when reaching the top with spectacular views over the Rossendale Valley, the Pennines and Manchester in the distance behind us.
We rode through Accrington and along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal towpath.
After leaving the towpath we had a very long steep climb ahead of us and with 40 miles in our legs at this stage it was really hard and we had to dig very deep! As we climbed we could see Blackburn in the valley behind us. A very fast descent down the other side into the Ribble Valley and to Whalley our B&B for the night.
Total distance today 46 miles
Total Hillclimbs today 1942ft
