Cycling To Shrewsbury But Not Back

Moving moments: a gentle breeze brushes my face as my bike moves effortlessly along the back roads surrounded by the rolling farmlands of Shropshire. White cow parsley grows high along the verges and the sun beams down while the twittering of birds, and the rustling of leaves is all I hear …

I did get occasional moments such as this on the downward gradients when the cars and lorries were not trundling by. There seemed to be more traffic on some of these roads than last year or maybe my memories are hazy. But what I was really surprised about was how strong I felt, on this, the last leg of the day’s ride down to Shrewsbury.

By strong, I mean knackered, but with energy enough in reserves to know that I would make it to that beloved Premier Inn in the centre of the town. That confidence was certainly not there in the morning when I asked Anne to drop me off at the Harp Inn in Neston, to shave a few miles off the beginning. I’d barely cycled more than a handful of half-hour rides in preparation, but I had paid for my room ages ago, and was too tight to let it go to waste. It was a very different story to last year when I managed the full door-to-door experience, and cycled back again. It was the last big ride I’d been on, until now.

It was lovely to catch up with so many of the team. Many of them don’t run anymore so the cycling excursions are the only time I would see them. As the minutes ticked closer to 9.15, Ian’s designated time of departure, I kept looking around for Mary, my cycling buddy who’d kept me going on the way back last year. But she was nowhere to be found, and as we set off on the dot, I wondered if she’d pulled out. 

Our usual route to Wales though, was scuppered almost immediately after it had begun because the path was closed for some sort of maintenance. So, it was back into Neston and then up and over, to head to the boardwalk on Burton Marshes. This meant that we picked Mary up along the way, as she had arrived at just seventeen minutes past the hour to an empty meeting point. Ian is ruthless.

Already then, we were adding an extra mile or so on to the distance, which didn’t bode well. But the flat path alongside the river Dee didn’t give us any troublesome headwind and we made good progress. 

Because I don’t have a map gizmo for my bike, and because I didn’t bother to write down the route instructions, and because my sense of direction is spectacularly bad, I’m reliant on sticking with other people who know where they’re going. This meant, that as the string of cyclists spread out, I had to pick my man or woman to keep within eyesight. I should have stayed with Ian, who stuck to a generally manageable pace, but instead I seemed to be riding with different people at different times, which was nice, as we could occasionally chat. They need to have signs on their backs, however, to let me know that they have the correct route and know how to follow it, because Jill and I nearly added yet more to our journey when we tried following Carol and co. Luckily, we were called back and corrected before too much damage was done. Carol, meanwhile, was fast enough to go the extra mile and arrive at the first stop at much the same time as us.

As we came into Holt, after two hours of riding on, I was ready for a rest. The day was beginning to warm up and we sat outside en masse. A brightly coloured lycra clad bunch, except that I’d put on my loose running shorts, in a slightly rebellious moment that morning (I did have a bit of padding beneath them, don’t worry). My obligatory chocolate brownie and tea came in good time, but Carol’s coffee took an absolute age. Apparently, the manager of the coffee shop, which had had a name change since last year, didn’t warn the staff that we were arriving. It meant more time for me to rest before the middle leg to Ellesmere, so I was quite happy. 

I decided, during the second stint on the bike, that I would never be that much of a cyclist. I’m not sure why, but I find it a bit of a boring slog. Given that my running is so slow, and my chosen distances take forever, you’d think I’d be used to spending hours out there. Maybe with running I’m using my whole body, so it doesn’t feel as disconnected as I feel when I’m on the bike for a long while. Or maybe, I’m just not used to getting out there and my back was beginning to ache a bit. Or maybe, the biggest hilly bits of the trip were in this leg, with one especial road ahead of me rising up disturbingly like a ski slope. 

When I saw the sign for Ellesmere, I let out an audible whoop for joy because I was feeling that fatigue with the brownie having worn off halfway up the slope. It was beautiful, sitting by the water on a balmy day. Most of the crew were already there, having ordered food or pulled out sandwiches. Carol’s bad luck at Holt was passed on to me here because my original salmon and cream cheese on a bagel had to be changed to ‘smashed’ avocado and tomato. This turned out very un-smashed and too unripe to get a hammer into it, let alone a fork. I decided, in a rare moment of assertiveness, that I needed to send it back, and was given my money back without a quibble. It meant that my lunch was only half a pint of full fat Coke, but it seemed to do the job.

There was just under twenty miles to go, and when Ian suggested trying to find a coffee spot in Baschurch, just over halfway to Shrewsbury, I was happy to use that as an excuse for a final breather. There was no coffee but we battled with unleashed school kids for the ice cream in the local Spar. I’d been chatting to some of the guys on this leg but during mouthfuls of mint Magnum, I had to confess to one of them that I couldn’t remember all their names. I didn’t pull the perimenopause card out; I just looked a bit ditzy. ‘Tom’ duly reminded me, and then exclaimed that he had been my designated chaperone. Much as I could have done with one of those earlier in the day, I think he was just bigging himself up so that he’d get more airtime in my blog. 

Suddenly, there were less than nine miles to our end game and the Magnum had revived me enough for a final burst of effort. Like last year, Shrewsbury arrived with no warning at all, and it was just a small traverse through the traffic to our abode. As we rode up, Mary and Tracy were outside already with a beer and a gin and tonic, having ditched their bikes in their rooms earlier. I did the same and my beer tasted wonderful, but it was the first and last bit of alcohol that I could manage that night because I was properly bushed. 

Last year I had the stamina to ride all the way back, and I might have managed it today just about. But I have my running to resume and the train, despite being packed with well-dressed people on their way to Chester races, was a more restful way of returning home. 

I had long conversations with two bearded chaps during the day. They could both have given Father Christmas a night off, but the second one required a bit of padding. 

The first chap was a very genial caretaker of St Chad’s church in Shrewsbury. As my train wasn’t until mid-morning, I had the chance to mooch and was immediately drawn to the park along the river as a reprieve from the noisy traffic that seems to afflict the town at all hours of the day. The church sits at the top of the park. I found my way to the entrance via an overgrown graveyard, where I came across a stone slab with the name ‘EBENEZER SCROOGE’ etched in it.

The original habitant’s remains, the caretaker told me, were unknown, but during the filming of the 1984 version of the story, permission was given to carve the famous name on it. All the scenes had been apparently shot in Shrewsbury, with the heavens providing actual real snow for the occasion.

The church, meanwhile, was a rebuilding of the previous St Chad’s. The original had collapsed eight or nine days after the famous Thomas Telford had warned the church wardens to immediately evacuate the building due to faults in the spire. It wasn’t rebuilt in the original spot, but in an up-and-coming area on the other side of the town. Plus, due to the church committee accidently signing off the wrong architectural plans, it was built with a circular nave, rather than the traditional cruciform shape. It reminded me of the Catholic cathedral in Liverpool.

The second bearded old bloke showed me how to properly hook my bike wheel on to the rests on the new Wirral trains. He was somewhere between sixty-five and eighty, it was hard to tell. What I could tell was that he would have found my ski slope a mere bump. 

The final mile’s cycle back home from the station was a little bruising, especially as I was just in jeans, and now this evening, the ache in my legs and my shoulders is seeping to the surface, but it’s fine, as the bike can go back in the garage again. Until next time.