Charlie’s bad leg must have recovered because this is an easy ride – or was meant to be.  Blackrod’s Steep Hills come in for criticism (David Miller take note) and the potholed road to Blackrod – complete with duck ponds – is where our hero falls off and smashes his headlamp.  Remember this lamp, because he in later years upgraded to   ‘a two Bob Lucas’ – a move from carbide power to battery.

In later years this same potholed and duck ponded road was subsequently renamed the A6 to form part of the main road from London to Carlisle and Glasgow !

We don’t know what was wrong with Charlie’s foot, but it sounds like something that modern antibiotics would have quickly sorted.  Chasing flies with a bad leg would not have helped either.  We have absolutely no idea why they were searching for a camping site – camping was something Charlie eschewed until his late 20’s, and about which there are many more anecdotes.

I should like to take this opportunity to remind readers that until Charlie reached the age of about 20 or a little beyond, his parents put an absolute block on his setting out if it was raining.  Can you imagine parents trying to achieve that level of control today ?

Well it seems to have stayed dry for the rest of the day – but Arley Mere remains undiscovered for now, although other Mere’s were observed.  But the mere fact of being in the Cheshire lanes was recompense enough, surely.

This route has some very pretty scenery for an evening’s run, with a bit of everything, country lanes, lakes, quite steep hills and a very fast finish.  What Charlie does not tell us about covering five and a half miles in 15 minutes, is that apart from a 200 yard uphill slope it is all downhill, furthermore, unlike today, there were no traffic lights passing through Bolton.

I suppose we should let him off though, he had a heavy ‘delivery boy’ type bike with no gears and straight handlebars which he made do with until the Spring of 1925 – Bless.

Result:     IDLENESS 1   GOOD INTENTIONS 0

At least Charlie gets to take a long walk whilst his companion reads what I imagine was a ‘penny dreadful’.  Charlie has a bad habit of not naming his occasional companions, but we seem to hear quite often about his friend reading such books, so we must assume it to be the same cyclist.