Manchester 500 Advanced Motorcyclists

The morning was mild when a few of us arrived at Sainsburys Salford around 9am. Leaving at 9 30 to meet with the others at Poynton we rode along the A6 to the Rising Sun Inn. From there with John in the lead we set off on a bit of a mystery tour. A little ways along the A6 then turn right in to the lanes. First thing we find is a manned level crossing, and guess what… we had to wait for a train! Before too long were we on our way again on roads little travelled, many known only to John and the occasional pack horse. Following along narrow winding lanes to Pott Shrigley. The road took us through some of the best of the Cheshire country side towards the Peak district. Through the villages of Rainow and Salterford. Passed the Lamalord Reservoir and on to the Cat and Fiddle just before the pub. Up the hill pass the Pub the immediate left of to another single track road down the hill then a sharp right and back up to cross back over the A537 and then over the A54 up in to the moor land. As we climbed ever higher the weather looked like it would close in on us and it was a little windy on this exposed road, but despite reaching the cloud base the visibility did not become a problem and we descended down to cross the A53 onto yet another single track road. At this point the group was split for a time as a van with a banger race car on a trailer managed to get between us as we crossed the A53. With no space to pass this vehicle we followed for a mile or so before John made a right turn up what could only be described as a farm track. Though the road had tarmac in many places there was grass growing up the middle. You won’t find any street level picture of this road on Google earth!. We continued along this road through several gates ( with the second man having to stop open the gate the wait for us all to pass before closing the gate again) Onwards we rode the views were spectacular and accompanied by the wonderful aroma of cow pats baking on hot bikes. The road was not very forgiving especially on sports tourers, this bought a new meaning to pushing your comfort zone ( Ouch!) We all made it safely through and a break was made at the Charles Cotton Pub Hartington for a drink and a p…. It had been the intention to have lunch here but we had made good progress ( I did recall that John had said this was a little bit of a pootle 40 MPH ish, some of it may be but when ever possible was much closer the the NSL) From here on we went along the back roads before eventually emerging onto the A515, where we turned left and headed to Buxton. It was quite a change to be on a good surface with sweeping bends, and we all made good progress along the road until the outskirts of Buxton were we broke up and went home our separate ways. On home for me to spend some time removing baked dung from my radiator

It was worth it a great if sometime challenging ride out and the weather stayed fine.
I did take some video but one camera was pointed to low and the other must have had something on the lens so the quality is not good but I will post this on the net and link it from the forum soon.