It was great to see Dom Whiting return to Manchester in October 2025, for a rather last minute surprise Drum & Bass ride. He had asked his followers on Facebook a week before to vote for either Liverpool or Manchester and Manchester won!

It’s a few years since Dom was in Manchester, not since 2022 I believe, which I wasn’t able to get to. So it’s not since 2021 that I’ve been on one of the Drum & Bass rides, which I wrote about previously.

With a storm over the weekend and showers just before the start, we were lucky to not see any serious rain. As Dom said, his DJ equipment isn’t protected against the rain, so it could have ended abruptly if the rain returned.

With the Tory Party conference in Manchester and heightened tensions following the awful attack on a synagogue in the city this week, not to mention ongoing protests, I was expecting a heavy police presence, which there certainly were.

Despite the weather, it was a great turnout and a fantastic ride. From Castlefield Arena, the route took us out of Manchester and into trafford, towards my neck of the woods, before returning along Stretford Road, then back through Deansgate Interchange.

We then went up Whitworth Street, past Piccadilly Station on Fairfield Street, before riding along Great Ancoats Street. We then continued along the ring road through Salford, then onto Liverpool Road, to finish back at Castlefield Arena.