Day off today, so I finished work yesterday and immediately hatched a plot on the way home to get out for a proper long ride. My regular loop these days is what I used to call a ‘long ride’, my old regular loop now seems tiny and has long since been discarded in favour of more climbing and hurt. Everything moves on and evolves.

Due to my day off work I decided it was possible to ride into the early hours of the morning without causing anyone too much grief – in other words, I didn’t have to sit at a desk and stay awake the day after. So I left the house around 8:30pm and rode towards Bolton and then to Winter Hill. Past the naked couple in their car with the interior light on (each to their own) and up the tarmac road to the summit of the hill, past the mast. It was eerie up there, clouds were swirling around the mast, illuminated by the red lights. Down the San Marino track and then along the road towards Edgerton. Soon I was offroad again on the Witton Weaver’s way, past the Strawbury Duck and then climbing towards the Maggot farm and Holcome Moor.

Resisting the tempation to take the quick route home at Ramsbottom (it was approaching midnight by now), I carried on towards Edenfield via Irwell Vale – eventually arriving at Rooley Moor and looking forward to the final 15 miles back home, much of it downhill.

I got back home around 2am, earlier than I expected but happy to have established in my mind the new ‘big loop’; one day this might become the ‘regular’.