Ten of us met in the Café Tor at Helmshore for today’s foray along NCN6 to Ramsbottom. It is a pity we cannot go other way towards Rising Bridge at present, but the building of the cycle route is over ten years behind, and the temporary route is not very good.

NCN6 leaves the route of the old railway at Holme Vale, this is also known as Snig Hole, and here we had to fight our way up an old bridleway, once nicely paved with stone flags, now alas, they are lying skewwhiff and are quite slippy when wet, the top section is washed out completely, leaving a number of gravelly steps.

However, fight our way up we did, almost to Raven Shore, to meet up with Iron Lane, the rough track down to Irwell Vale. Here we called in to the Station to show those taking the rail option on our return where to alight from the train and to give them directions to our meeting point.

Arriving in Ramsbottom some of us took the option of riding through Nuttall Park and  around to the station, whilst others went directly to the Cultured Bean for lunch. We also ascertained the time of the train back to Irwell Vale for John and Jack who fancied the train ride.

The service in the café, which is usually good, was a little hit and miss today, but eventually we did all get served.After lunch, timed to suit the train, John and Jack headed off for the station after we had agreed a rendezvous for meeting up. We set off on our cycles to the bridge over the River Irwell midway to Irwell Vale and waited for the train to pass; it was ten minutes late. Luckily the weather forecast was wrong, it was now 1-15pm and the rain predicted for noon had not yet arrived, so the wait was not unpleasant.

Once the train had passed we headed up to and across the Lumb Viaduct for the rendezvous, and again as a full group we tackled the recently cleared and extended route to the top of Iron Lane. We now had just the descent to Snig Hole to re-join the old railway track-bed and soon we arrived safe and sound back at Helmshore; as a bonus we were dry too.  A pleasant ten miles in our wonderful countryside.

View the photos I took here on Flickr.

See you all at Witton Park next week, safe cycling, Brian.