Only Charlie’s second clubrun of the year, but when you have a new bike, you want others to enjoy it too.  This was a Saturday afternoon run to Woodplumpton on the edge of the Fylde district near Preston, and the old church there became a mine of information.  Regrettably the club run couldn’t produce another witch to bury to test out the theory explained below, but it certainly gave them food for thought.  This last of the Lancashire Witches, Meg Sheldon, certainly became of interest in death, as in life, and no doubt occupied their thoughts for the rest of the day.

Another early start in the Chadwick house, this time because Ma and Pa were taking a railway excursion to Fleetwood complete with picnic – simple pleasures in those days.  The coming day was to provide plenty of rain but Charlie highlights the nuggets of the days ride so that we can enjoy it too.  They finish the day sharing a room in Meriden with a certain ‘Tom Hughes’, a veteran cyclist from Wigan.

Ruthin was the target for their lunch, after all that mountaineering, specifically Mrs Parkinson’s in Clwyd Street, where, as Charlie puts it ‘The old gent’ recalled how Charlie and friends had taken this exact same route 12 months earlier, and the ‘gent’ actually remembered that it was Charlie’s birthday on that occasion, 20 July 1924 !

All this on the back of a day that started with a 3am breakfast by candlelight

Moel Famau lies close to the North Wales coast and rises almost 2000 ft, a clear landmark for miles.  As such it is a very obvious target for hikers and cyclists alike, when weather permits.  Which it often doesn’t !

But the descent was a lot more terrifying than the ascent.  Charlie himself states that it is not descent for the nervous person.  A path just two feet in width, boulderstrewn and sloping to the right along the very edge of a 150 ft drop.  Charlie says “The grass was slippery, the gradient easy but the heart thumps” as they bounced down the mountain.