Steph asked me to go on a bike ride cos she needs to do a bit of training for her charity ride down the length of Taiwan in November.

I agreed, even though I haven't been on my bike for more than half an hour since last August.

We decided to start from Fiddlers Ferry and follow the Trans Penine Trail east. but before we had left the car-park Steph had two punctures. We finally got going at about half past 10.

I used my whizzy new cycling app thingy on my iPhone. It records every mile of your journey via GPS and posts it live via Google Maps to Facebook.

It also relies on you to remember to pause and unpause the app every time you stop and start your journey. . . I forgot!

So we ended up doing a load of unrecorded miles which sort of defeated the object really. Our fifth mile turned out to be FIVE miles long and our 7th mile was about THREE MILES long. So we seem to have teleported about 8 miles of the journey.

The weather was changeable. (Well that's what the weather man said anyway, and for once, he got it right.) It was cloudy and a bit breezy then the sun made an appearance followed by wind and rain. . . . And that was pretty much the way it stayed all day.

We took a lunch break at The Star Inn in Lymm which consisted of Coors light and Monster Munch. This is a cosy little pub and was a welcome refuge from the pissing down rain.

After about 40 minutes we set off again, following the old railway cutting towards Altrincham. This is a nice flat path that is broken up by gates every mile or so. Steph hates these gates. They're the type that are made narrow at the top to keep motorbikes off the path, and with in minutes of leaving the pub she had popped the stays off her front guard (while trying to traverse the gate) The stays then tried to wrap themselves around the front wheel.

Talking of guards, I think i might invest in a set. After we had ridden another couple of miles through mud and puddles. I seemed to be covered in shite from head to toe. And it wasn't smelling too good either. Whereas Steph and her bike were still immaculately clean and her fleece was "PURE"*** white. I had a line of horse shit six inches wide running right up my back and over my head :( . We made it to Altrincham for half 1 in the afternoon. Which wasn't bad considering we had stopped at Morrisons (for water), The Star Inn for lunch and a little sit down somewhere along the trail. We hid in the woods when the rain started and then made our way back half an hour later. We were making quite good speed until Steph got another puncture. We repaired it and while it was drying I fixed the busted mudguard. We were about to set off again when we discovered that the tyre had gone flat again . . .Meh! We ended up stopped for an hour. . .

The rest didn't do us any good and we both were really saddle sore and had to ride the next mile standing up. We picked up the pace again and made really good time considering. . . Anyway I rode through more shit and ended up smelling like a wild stallion for the last 5 miles or so. We were happy to arrive back at The Ferry Tavern only five and a half hours after we set off. It seemed like days. The iPhone App had worked out our average speed to be about 4 miles an hour. But that didn't include the lost 8 miles or our 2 hours of stoppages. . . . Well that's our excuse anyway. We could have walked it really.

*** Always say "PURE" in a really broad scally Scouse accent, followed by "Lad" or "Mate".