Cycling is an activity that I only recently rediscovered. Mainly because I didn’t own a bicycle. Which is, in itself, a major obstacle to cycling. Now things are different. An old Cannondale frame with additions from a couple of bikes that the neighbours were taking to the tip means…..freedom baby!

Taking inspiration from the internet and with a couple of weeks work lined up in Trafford Park, I decided to look at the possibilities of travelling from Tameside with zero cost and (Green alert!) zero carbon. A trial run along the Fallowfield Loop was in order.

The Fallowfield Loop runs along the course of an old railway line from Fairfield Station in Droylsden to Chorlton cum Hardy. Once the trains stopped running in 1988, the route lay derelict and overgrown until the late 1990s when action groups took the initiative to turn it into an eight mile urban, traffic free…