route

Route: Laureen’s Ride

Andrew Ross

08 Feb 2026 — 5 min read

I’ve seen signs for this route over the last few years but never investigated it further. Today I attempted to ride the full Laureen’s Ride.

There’s surprising little detail on the route - it was created by, Laureen Roberts, whilst recovering from a broken leg. It was originally a gentle horse riders' route has now also become popular with cyclists and walkers.

Start / Finish

I started just outside Swan Green (W3W ///built.crass.kilowatt or https://maps.apple/p/9uKUnzIvT3jkj2) as this was the closest point to home but you could start at any point as there is plenty of roadside parking.

As the route passes through Wilmslow town centre this is the best location if you wish to park in an official carpark.

Route

The route heads along quiet lanes through the Cheshire countryside. Leaving the road you head through a wood block on an old track.

You come out on the main road near Barclay’s Technology Centre (Radbroke) and continue along the road before turning up along a long farm road. This changes into a track at a crossroads where you continue along before it becomes a path along the edge of a field covered in thick mud!

Continue following the path through a farm yard and onto another driveway leading up to some large houses. Here you take a sharp left and traverse the house gardens along another wet and muddy grassy track. This then heads uphill past another farm - the mud was so thick here I had to push my bike - up the hill before joining roads again.

Getting ready for more mud around the edge of the houses.

Once back on the road you zigzag along the lanes heading towards Manchester Airport. Here you get your first closeup of the end of the runway. More lanes take you towards the edge of Wilmslow.

At this point there is an optional loop (approximately 7miles) which takes you up through Lindow Moss and along the edge of the airport - great views of the planes landing and taking off though the fence here.

Along the Manchester Airport runway fence.

This, along with the route passing though Quarry Bank Mill, makes the loop worth the extra effort. There is also a National Trust cafe at the mill which is well worth stopping at. The Quarry Bank Mill area also presents the only real steep climbs, albeit short ones, on the whole route.

Back on the main route you continue along roads into the centre of Wilmslow. Here I stopped, locked my bike up and nipped into Starbucks for a drink (you are well over half-way) and a cake.

Back on the route you continue along the roads through Wilmslow before branching off along more muddy and very wet grassy tracks - joining the road again just outside Chorley.

Noah’s Ark Lane (I assume there was a lot of flooding along this road in the past?) takes you down towards Great Warford before looping around to Little Warford. The route then goes down the side of the David Lewis Centre. The David Lewis centre is a charity that provides residential, day opportunities, medical and therapeutic support for people with learning disabilities, epilepsy and autism. This track was again very wet and muddy!

This eventually brings you out in Chelford where lanes and tracks take you through Over Peover and back to where you started.

I passed this really interesting looking building (a converted water tower) - you can find out more about it here: https://www.so-counties.co.uk/property-of-the-week-six-storey-water-tower-conversion-high-legh/

The route is reasonably well signposted with the purple Laureen’s ride signs but there are

Numerous junctions where there are multiple ‘horse’ signs or just no sign at all. I was glad to have a .gpx of the route and recommend that you also do.

Laureen’s ride went right here but i only knew from my gpx file

It was an enjoyable ride but I’d highly recommend waiting for a few dry days in a row. The mud, churned up by all the horses, makes it a slow and challenging ride!

There are also plenty of horse riders on the route so take care on bends and when passing. Always a good idea to read this guide from British Cycling: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/knowledge/article/izn20150106-Horses-on-the-road-0

What I like about the route is the number of shorter rides that could be made. There are numerous points where the route could easily be made into smaller loops.