Wednesday 30 July 2008

The three Towers

When I've been reading blogs of other riders based near here I often here a mention of the three towers ride. Now I've been to each of the three towers but never in one ride so I decided today would be a good day to try. I don't know if there is an 'official' route as such but my aim was just to visit each of the three towers. I also decided that since I was leaving at 11am, I wanted to be back by 6pm having covered 70km (that is about the pace the linking stage time limits are set at fo transwales. The first tower was at the top of the pike, now I probably ride up here once a week, so it wasn't very exciting, I just rode over my normal way. At this point it was raining, misty and very very windy. From there I headed past pigon tower (maybe it should be the four towers ride?) along Belmont old road and then along the cheeky path to Belmont, then it was off along the Witton Way towards Darwen Tower, via the woods at Tockholes.
This is the tower I've been to least, only three times, last time I headed straight up the path with the water bars, this time I took the longer and not as steep path to the right. This path is more of a technical challenge although it isn't as steep and an enjoyable to reach the tower, by this point I took my waterproof off but it was actually getting windier, nice! So I headed back across the moors to pick up the soon to be Bridleway across to the A666. Then it was past the strawbury duck and over the bridleway across the firing range.
After crawling up the steep climb to Peel Tower I decided to continue following the path, after a nice downhill I headed home with a bit of road and some nice singletrack near me.


44.9miles @ 8.3mph
Av HR 138bpm
1620m climbed
Total time 6hrs 5mins

7 comments:

  1. I've never done the 3 towers. In fact, the closest I've been to Peel Tower is riding past it on my road bike. Really should do it some day.

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  2. It was a good ride, but I need to find a way home from Ramsbottom that isn't all road, time to get the maps out I think.

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  3. What about riding through that field you made me ride through that time? Doesn't that go from near your house to Ramsbottom area?

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  4. 11am, if I'm not in the house by 9 the sun starts turning onto roast mode. Great looking ride though.

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  5. I've not managed to find a route with 100% offroad yet but if you've got memory map I can send you a couple of MMO files you could work from.

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  6. Not got memory map, but can you save them as a .gpx file? Then I can just put them on google maps and work it out.

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