ET phone home: Join a Modernist cycle ride to Jodrell Bank

Architecture and astronomy fans: time to get on your bike! The Manchester Modernist Society Cycle Club (yep, it’s a real thing) invites you on a cosmic cycle ride through the Cheshire countryside to Jodrell Bank Observatory. The Society celebrates 20th century architecture and design in the North West and beyond via events, trips and publications and this is a great destination for them. The Observatory is home to the huge 1955 Lovell Telescope, one of only a few Grade 1 listed post-war structures, which looms over the surrounding landscape. A tourist attraction in its own right, the Jodrell Bank Visitor Centre provides hours of interactive, hands-on fun, including demonstration sound mirrors to put the science to the test, galactic artworks and space and astronomy-inspired gardens. Refresh with hearty local food and drink in the Modern Caterer’s Jodrell Bank Cafe before going back down to earth for the ride home. Stretch your legs, socialise and experience genuinely awe-inspiring architecture: the scale of the Telescope is out of the world, with the bowl alone having a surface area of 1.3 acres. NB: sightings of TV’s Prof Brian Cox, are not guaranteed.

Sun 8 Jul, “My God It’s Full of Stars!” cycle ride to Jodrell Bank. Leave from Withington Green (opposite the Christie Hospital), Wilmslow Road, M20 4BX. 10.30am, Cycle ride free/Admission to visitor centre £6.50, http://manchestermodernists.wordpress.com