24th August 2006 - Bouth, Oxen Park, Rusland

9 riders met at the White Hart, Bouth all ready to go...except someone forget their SPD's, never mind just ride carefully! Head off north (turning left out of the pub car park) and take the left fork at High Longmire to get to Oxen Park, a quick right and left (basically straight over) and continue along the lane until Bandrake head and take a lane to the right up a hill. This lane gets to a farm at Abbot Park and then goes off-road, take a right turn at Three Foot Oak and enjoy the downhill to the road at High Ickenthwaite, Ian, Jamie and Harry won that one.
Turn left along Corker Lane head down to the next junction and turn left at Force Forge, there is a bridleway on the left and take this little testing climb up and over, forming a shortcut to the road, then turn right and head back to Force Mills, Dave had lost his waterbottle and so had to go back over the bridleway and turn left to meet us at Force Mills (no luck finding the bottle!) At the junction turn south and take a bridleway on the left (virtually at the road junction) this takes you over Thwaite Moss to another enjoyable downhill where we meet 3 guys, 2 on Quad-bikes and one on a Honda 50, after we came down they headed up the rocks at speed!
Turn right and right again at the lane then at the road turn left for a few hundred metres, then take a lane on the right for a little road climb, where Phil enjoyed his singlespeed!!! this then gets you back at High Ickenthwaite to take the first bridleway on the left, where Ed (the camera man) went ahead to set up (we'll wait to see the pic's?) after the photo shoot there was a split in the group with Ian taking Neil, Dave and Ed on a detour, which went south west to take the Lord Ling bridleway route back to Oxen Park and then the road to Colton, turn left to the church and continue through the woods to come out west of Bouth. Meanwhile I headed on the track to meet up with the others and inform them of Ian's rough plans, so we headed back on track and lane to Oxen Park and then road back to the pub in time for chips...in fact Ian's crew also made in back for chips, so far play to the pub (even at £2.25 per portion).
All in all a very good route and Phil singlespeed even had a smile on his face, next week it's Cartmel racecourse ride at 6.15pm, but on Tuesday at Blackpool Prom' it's "Ride the Lights" in support of the Tour of Britain.