I dug up the post they'd written of their ride and set about creating a route. We don't live too far from the Leeds-Liverpool canal, I use part of it for my commute, but rather than do it in its entirety I worked out a "short cut" to avoid the out and back to Liverpool. The previous rider had ridden his loop clockwise but we figured we'd ride anti-clockwise. The overview was: pick up the LL canal at Salterforth and follow it westwards as far as Wigan. From here the Bridgewater canal would take us to pick up the TPT in the Cheadle area. We'd then follow that east until after Penistone when NCN 67 would hook us back northwards to Leeds. A short city centre transfer and we'd be back on the LL canal and head home. Quite an urban ride: Wigan, Leigh, Manchester, Barnsley, Wakefield, Leeds, if you aren't careful you begin to sound like Eddie Waring (Younger readers may need to look him up).
For day one most of the climbing was getting to the canal - there was a ruddy great hill in the way! After that it was a case of follow your nose, literally in some parts - the canal isn't exactly Ring of Bright Water. To say the route wanders a bit is an understatement, it's positively serpentine. Mostly though the going is good if at times depressing. The canals are the motorway network of yesteryear and as you pass through the towns you are reminded of industries past, decay is everywhere.
We pass a group fishing. They've quite a catch: a couple of bikes, a shopping trolley, some hub caps. I'm surprised they survived this long in the water.
A large series of fancy cut metal sheets announces the mid-point of the canal but I don't realise until I twig that the milestones indicate it's further to Leeds than Liverpool. Shortly after there's a cafe by the canal side so we stop for a snack.
The next landmark is Wigan and the longest flight of locks on the canal, they take their time though as there's a bit of a gap between each. At the foot of the flight it's time to leave the Leeds-Liverpool and head along the Bridgewater Canal, it's nowhere near Bridgewater but is named after a duke who commissioned it. This will get us into Manchester.
In Stretford we intersect with the TPT but overshoot it. No matter there's a BW marked that leads back to the correct route. It's a bit overgrown and by the end I look as if I've had a session with Joyce McKinney (middle aged readers may wish to prevent younger readers from looking her up!). Hike-a-bike in the urban sprawl of Manchester, who'd have thought it! Still the blackberries were ripe.
We wander along by the side of the River Mersey with little idea of where we really are until the Kingsway pyramid appears to one side. A bit of dodging around through Stockport gets us back into a more rural setting. We are now looking for a: something to eat and b: somewhere to buy grub for our bivy. The first comes in the form of a Chinese chippy in Haughton Green. The food was pretty awful to be honest, nice chap but needs to learn how to cook fish and chips. It's dark and we are near Hadfield by the time we pass an open shop.
We bivy on the old railway leading to the Woodhead tunnels. Getting the pegs into the ground is hard work and takes a bit of care. It's still very warm. Little breeze and fortunately no midges.
We wake early (about 0500) and with a quick sandwich we pack up. The weeks of fine weather mean that everything is bone dry, no condensation on either tarp or bivy bag. The first few km are easy along the old railway, just the various stiles to deter motor bikes to negotiate. By the time we get to the tunnels it's started to drizzle.
The climb up from the tunnels is by far the hardest part of the whole ride, in climbing terms it's like an E3 pitch in the middle of a VDiff. Still it's soon over and done with and we whizz across the top and down the other side to join the old rail line again. An hour or so along this and we head east across wheat fields to begin to head north.
We are on NCN 67 here and it passes from sink estates to arable fields to disused collieries in the space of a few moments. We start to follow an old canal, the water is vivid green, you'd have to be more than desperate to go anywhere near it.
We are getting hungry and there's a pub/eatery on the route but it wasn't exactly brilliant, the bright menu with photos of burgers for the hard of hearing should have been a clue.
We are now on the approach to Leeds until we get to a set of stairs. On a cycle route!
Finally we drop out of the semi-rural, semi industrial landscape into the centre of Leeds. I know roughly how to get between the end of NCN 67 and the start of the Leeds-Liverpool but it's a bit of on-the-fly guesswork. A pint in the bar beneath the railway station and we are ready for the final leg.
It's slow going in the heat and it's early evening when we hit the foot of the climb up to home. Time for a curry
A total of 317km with a rather measly 2100 metres of climbing. Although we'd "missed out" the section of the Leeds-Liverpool around Skipton we went further south-east from Penistone than the route I'd based it on so the distances are about the same.
For us it was something different, we normally shy away from urbania, but a lot of the route turned out to be very rural and often when it actually wasn't there was enough vegetation surrounding the canal or cycle route that it felt so. Often you are close to motorways or arterial roads and you realise just how noisy modern life is, there's a "corridor" of about a mile or two either side of the motorway where the drone of traffic is very intrusive.
Quite a stiff two day ride but over three it would be quite steady. There's virtually no technical riding so would be suitable for either someone wanting a less exacting ride or someone who was just getting into off-road touring.
Not sure if it's called Mary or is even a virgin 
