Travel Reference
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the ones he was wearing. I don't want you to think he had whipped off his shorts in front
of us there and then.
'Trust me, I think my kids would be delighted to see the back of these. Go on, try them
on.'
'I think I'll have to try them on later. I'm… errr… going commando at the moment.'
'You haven't got any pants, either?'
'Well, we've got one pair each, but mine are airing at the moment.'
'Pah, you two are something else,' he snorted.
Frodshamwasparadisecomparedtowhatwewerefacedwithnext.Shortlyafterleaving
thetown,wejoinedthehorrendousRuncorntoWidnesroadwhichisbasicallyamotorway
that it is legal to cycle along. More vehicles passed us over the next few miles than the en-
tire rest of our journey combined. I didn't count them all, so I can't be sure of this fact, but
I think it is extremely likely.
There was a hard shoulder which should have made things safer, but this was littered
with car fragments and broken glass. We thought we were over the worst of it, but then we
sawtheintimidatingsightofRuncornBridge.Thebridgeisofficiallycalled
'The Silver Ju-
bilee Bridge'
in an attempt to make it sound picturesque and quaint. It's not. It's absolutely
terrifying.
The bridge itself would look quite attractive, if they moved to a different part of the
world, painted it a different colour and closed it to everyone but cyclists. It is, however,
pale green, situated in the middle of a sprawling mass of industry and used by over 80,000
motorists a day.
The bridge was opened in 1961 to cross the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship
Canal. It is the only route across, although swimming did seem preferable. We arrived at
thebridgeatthepeakofrushhourandpulledovertothesideoftheroadtoplanourattack.
The northbound side of the road, which we were on, had an extremely narrow strip of
pavement, no more than a foot wide, which seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever. The
Falcon would have been sleek and narrow enough to glide along this, but had Ben attemp-
tedtocyclealongitonTheHorse,hishandlebarswouldhavetakenuphalfofthelefthand
lane, too.
Our route book mentioned a 'pedestrian walkway' on the opposite side of the bridge,
which was just visible. It was a tantalisingly wide pavement protected from the road by a
metal crash barrier. The only problem being that between us and it were four lanes of re-
lentless traffic.
RememberthecomputergameFrogger?Well,attemptingtocrossthisstretchofroad,at
rush hour, with our bikes would have been harder than the final level of Frogger. And we
didn't have the luxury of having three lives. There was no choice but to stay on the side of
the road that we were on, and just go for it.
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