The weather for the past few days has been weird. For much of the time it has been low, thick, damp cloud, with frequent rain. But warm, with the odd period of sunshine with strong, warm winds. None of it has made it easy to segue from one Cardinal spin to another. For a couple of days I needed to be at home anyway, but an extra day’s delay hasn’t helped fit all the remaining rides into the decent cycling time that remains this year. I’ve been here before, in both of the past two years, and you start to worry about storms, especially in Scotland and the south west. It should be OK, but what if it’s not? Last year in Scotland, October brought terrible weather.
I was therefore relieved when the changeable forecast came true today and a rainy morning transformed into a fine, dry and at times sunny afternoon and early evening. I was able to get going again, with the prospect of enjoying it. And that remains my number one rule, under-pining all of my cycling, and always will. So it mattered.
And so, with just four out of sixteen cardinal trips from home left to complete this year, I found myself directed SSW in a straight line towards the East Devon coast, where I had several very happy family holidays as a child. I anticipate it taking me four days to get there. After that, I plan to return to Cornwall to complete the unfinished business I had to leave behind in my first SW Cardinal spin, when weather and time got the better of me with a day left still to ride. I promised I would return, so this is my chance.
A post-rain 1pm departure from home meant I would be limited in the reach of today’s ride. Nevertheless, I got through 64 miles of cycling and arrived as planned, just before the sun dipped below the horizon. The September days, inevitably, are getting shorter and I have previous experience of how challenging that can make things for the long distance adventure cyclist. I don’t plan to start cycling in the dark again. So the days may need to be managed down, or differently, as the year gets older.
But today, albeit without the help of the morning, was a successful start to my next straight line, and I ended it in Cannock, a town in a Staffordshire that has thus far eluded me in life. Like so many places in the UK, there was once coal mining around here (as commemorated in a town centre roundabout); but it all went some years ago. I know the name of Cannock for its Chase, an area of forest and open spaces to the south of the Trent Valley, and north of the Birmingham / West Midlands conurbation. Today I would cycle right across it at the end of my ride.
But first I had to get out of the area closer to home, where I more typically cycle the most and know all the roads. My way out following my SSW line took me directly to the pretty market town of Bakewell, which is an hour’s cycle away across the region known as the White Peak, because of its many pale dry stone walls, made of limestone. Bakewell is the biggest settlement inside the national park boundary (Hathersage is third) and it contains the kind of shops you might expect of a touristy place in the hills that gets many visitors. This includes an excellent whisky shop. Today I noticed that its Costa has morphed into an outdoor active lifestyle shop (with coffee), which was a surprise, because Costa seem to be taking over the world.
Bakewell, for all its tourists, is a proper market town and today was market day, with the square full of striped stalls. It sits on the lovely River Wye, one of my favourite small rivers. There is a long riverside walk and numerous ducks and other wildfowl to watch. Ducks really are a brilliant invention. They never fail to entertain.
I paused to admire Bakewell’s octagonal church tower and spire on the hill above the town centre, and then climbed out of town onto a quiet back lane that soon plunged downhill around hairpins to cross the even lovelier River Lathkill and then rose up again to enter Youlgreave (or Youlgrave, it can’t decide). This is a large and likeable village that sits up above the deep valley of the tiny River Bradford. It contains a wealth of old buildings and retains much of its original character. It doesn’t get too busy and isn’t on a main road, but is large enough to have some local services. I often stop here and did so today, because the Peak Feast bakery was open and I felt a bit peckish. It was a brief stop, just time to sit in the sun and complete a couple of Duo Lingo Spanish lessons while I drank a latte and consumed two large, home made pikelets with strawberry jam. A good move.
But I couldn’t afford long stops today. The next section had me cycling for about an hour along the bicycle friendly Tissington Trail, the old railway from Buxton to Ashbourne, which avoids the unpleasantly busy A515. Heading south, I was able to enjoy a gradual, but almost continuous gradient downhill and made up vital pikelet minutes. I detoured just once, for a few minutes, to view the gorgeous estate village of Tissington, which has at its centre the ancient Tissington Hall, home for generations of the Fitzherbert family, and also a wedding venue our band has played in recent years. The village is unchanged over many years and has broad grass verges in front of all the quaint cottages and other buildings. There is the obligatory duck pond, well supplied with an animated duck population, and a large tea room, that on this occasion I reluctantly decided to pass.
Ashbourne is a handsome market town with lovely old buildings and a splendid cruciform church with a graceful spire. It’s clock said 4.30pm, so I didn’t linger. These are, in any case, all places I can easily reach any time from home. But now I was entering lanes I didn’t know and I emerged at Rocester, where I crossed the River Dove into Staffordshire, just as the workers at the enormous JCB factory were all leaving for home. It was a very long stream of cars for the next few miles until l crossed the A50 and escaped into the market place in Uttoxeter, where it all began when JC Bamford sold his first trailer at the market after the Second World War. Things have come a long way. The factory site is beautifully landscaped and there is another, quiet large, duck pond where you can park and enjoy the wildlife. They have some unusual varieties of duck there; but more unusual to me was the long, deep and definitely private ford that led across the pond to a house on the far bank. I couldn’t imagine an ordinary car making it over, but there were wet tyre tracks on the road nearby and an automatic gate was just closing across the water, so I had just missed seeing the answer to my mystery. Maybe a JCB?
Uttoxeter was unexpectedly likeable in the centre of town. There was a running horse theme about the place, and it has a racecourse on the edge of town. It is also the home town of British swimming phenomenon Adam Peaty. That’s three famous things for one small town with a silly name. Not bad.
For the next 10 miles to Rugeley, I was following B roads. Often that can mean a quiet cycling experience. Not here. The highlight was cycling across a long causeway that splits the extensive Blithfield Reservoir into two parts. It was a little choppy today in the breeze. Rugeley came and went with nothing more notable than a bridging of the small River Trent, a quiet little river up here in Staffordshire. There were once two very large power stations here, but I saw no sign of cooling towers or chimneys. I think it’s all gone.
What I could see instead was the hills of Cannock Chase rising up behind the town to the south, and I knew that all I had left to do was cross it – mostly uphill and slightly off road – in a very straight line. It turned out to be rather nice, in a foresty, heathy sort of way. There was a big Go Ape course at the visitor centre and the area was big enough to feel like you could get lost in it. It’s probably about eight miles at its widest. I reached the edge of the built up area leading down into Cannock after perhaps five miles of rolling forest scenery. Around here, that’s a big open space.
My hotel tonight, a Holiday Inn, looks like a space rocket and overlooks the M6 Toll. It ambitiously calls itself Birmingham North, which has a bit more marketing clout than Cannock, I suspect. My bike and I are up on the tenth floor. Dinner this evening was OK, even if the lobby bar was a little soulless. The young waiter apologised that neither my choice of drink (Guinness) nor the “chef’s favourite” Sri Lankan curry were available. And then, bizarrely, they were! Another unsolved mystery; but a happy outcome to round off a good day.
