Post: This is the most dramatic post you will ever read about Charles Chadwick, Esq. His trusty bike of several years has come to the end of its life. Mind you, he has been hankering for a new lightweight bike for all the years we have been reading about him, and we all know how much better a lightweight is for speed and distance. But money, the one aspect of the capitalist society which greases all the wheels, has always been elusive in Charlie’s life, and this time is no different.
He never tells us by what measure he was able to take delivery of a new bike, but he did, and next week you can ‘read all about it’ ! I suspect a tense parental meeting took place at his home at 496 Bridgeman Street, Bolton, when no doubt his many shortcomings would be spelt out and an improvement sought. I can imagine it all, because it happened to me.
I got a heavy 28″ wheel roadster for passing my scholarship, and quickly realised that I would much rather have dropped handlebars and something better than a Sturmey Archer to get about with. Then the problem of parents and money reared their heads, and I was talked into buying a second hand ‘racer’, a Dayton Roadmaster, for £9 on hire purchase over 18 months I think. So yes, Charlie, I know where you’re coming from ! So next week we will read of the excitement he feels when he gets astride his new steed. But he had to twiddle his thumbs for 5 weeks before delivery, whilst we can leapfrog over the same intervening period.
Sunday, March 22 Delamere Forest
During one of those rare cleanings that my old bike gets now and again, yesterday, I made the discovery that the frame was broken. It had gone at a dent in the chain stays, chain side, and owing to a mudguard clip being over the spot, it had remained hidden for goodness knows how long – I don’t! It was a crack, not really a break, but when I pulled the wheel out, I could spring it open. I was not surprised at that – only surprised at the knocking about and neglect it has stood before going sooner. Nevertheless, it would have to carry me just once more, for I had to meet Tom on the following day at Mrs Wade’s, 32 miles distant, and it was now too late to let him know, so I resolved to go through with it.
I made a rather late start – 9am, and joined the oft trod route via Atherton and Butts Bridge to Glazebury, across Chat Moss to Glazebrook, and so to Warburton Bridge. Uphill now, from Heatley, to Broomedge, where I came along that never wearisome route via High Legh and the narrow, twisty byways to old world Great Budworth. Passing quietly down the village street, I crossed the main road and climbed to above Budworth Mere. Then Comberbach and the open stretch to Little Leigh. With a fine view of the Weaver Valley before me, I slipped down steeply to Acton Bridge, climbing up on the other side just as steeply, and in a few minutes reached Mrs Wade’s. Tom had not arrived yet, so I had a stroll around the garden where the first signs of a late Spring were breaking forth. Then, as Tom arrived, lunch was ordered, and in we went to the cosy sitting room. A tandem pair from Rochdale (I knew them well) and a Mancunian made good company over lunch, and over an hour was whiled away in this fashion until we thought it time to move and broke up.
Tom and I took the footpath to Cuddington, and after a maze of bylanes, pretty and otherwise, we emerged at Norley. Then a potter to Hatchmere, and the beautiful switchback route to Mouldsworth conveyed us through the best of Delamere Forest. A cinder path made a short cut to Manley, then gaining the uplands, we climbed past the Manchester Corporation Open Air Sanatorium to a fine viewpoint from where the whole of the Mersey Estuary, the Dee Estuary, the Wirral and the heights of Clwyd lay before us. We stayed here quite a while before dropping swiftly down (regardless of the cracked frame) through well wooded country and between Frodsham and Helsby headlands to the petrol-riven highway, the Warrington-Chester road.
We had no desire to traverse it at that time of day, but we had to, because the district we wanted to get into was only accessible by traversing the main road unless we went back to Acton Bridge. The River Weaver, which is navigable for small steam boats, cuts off one section of Cheshire from another, and there are only three ways to cross it up to Northwich. It is used mainly for the huge works at Northwich (Alkali interests), and makes an easy passage for the salt and chemicals to the Manchester Ship Canal – and Runcorn, Widnes and the other Mersey ports. Therefore, having no choice, we had to keep to the main road for two miles through Frodsham and across the bridge at Sutton Weaver. On top of the hill beyond, we joined the lanes once more, through a rather dull agricultural district to Stretton, and across the Warrington-Tarporley road to Appleton. We now began to cast about for a tea place, not because we were very hungry, but because it was teatime.
We had struck an unlucky day evidently, for on reaching Poplar Farm between High Legh and Lymm, we found the place flooded out – with a cycling club there before us, and having memories of a past tea there when the place was full, we did not feel inclined to repeat the ordeal, so off we trundled through a maze of lanes to Thelwall Brook, where we remembered a ‘teas’ notice in a cottage window. The notice was there alright, but the occupants were out. Then we decided to try the Pickering Arms, an old fashioned place at Thelwall, half a mile away. A little girl answered the knocker, and told us that no one was in, the fire was out, and other innkeeper stories. Whilst we stood outside debating our next move, we saw the curtain lift and an elderly woman’s face peep through the window! Tom gave her the hint that he had seen her. Of course we could have forced them to provide us a meal, but would rather not go if we were not welcome. On a beam across the exterior of the building are the words: ‘In the year 923 King Edward the Elder, founded a cyty here and called it Thelwall’.
Here is an instance, not of a decayed city, but of one that has disappeared, and the only traces of its former greatness are the words on the beam of the Pickering Arms, the truth of which has been verified. It is interesting to note that in 1923 the people of the district celebrated the 1,000th anniversary of the foundation of the ‘cyty’.
I was feeling hungry now, but Tom was not, and as Lymm had nothing to offer us, and the place at Rush Green was unsatisfactory, he decided when we reached Heatley, that he would carry on home. Meanwhile, I tried the Inn there, and Tom left me. I was successful just as Tom found another and came back to tell me. I found a cosy room and a good tea here. The return journey was made via Warburton, Glazebrook and Butts Bridge to Atherton and Bolton. Thus ended the last day on the old bike, and from then on dawned a new cycling era for me, the beginning of a time when I could class myself as one of the growing army of real cyclists, and when cycling efficiency – and the efficiency of little, low lightweights is quickly being reached. On the old bike, I have covered some decent mileages, 170 in a day, 212 in 25 hours, but on the new machine I find myself riding easier and farther, and with a minimum of effort. ‘Wayfarer’ is right when he tries to drive the case for the lightweight into the minds of all and sundry, and I, for one, shall henceforth ridicule the idea of 28” wheels, a 26” frame, and the numerous unnecessary gadgets of a roadster machine.
A lightweight is suitable for everybody. 78 miles
