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Went out riding early this morning (well it was for me on a Sunday) and did my normal loop down by the river and out past the airport and returning back along the river. But this time as I went through into Hurn Forest I did my normal run through the tree and then instead of continuing up the gravel track I headed back towards the car park and then up in to the tree on the other side of the path and out along the fence and then returning to the main gravel path near the top of the first section gravel track. This little extra loop added 1.8 miles to the ride which gave me a 22.8 mile ride this morning and I felt quite good when I got back. I was a little concerned that heading back into the wind but I did not struggle any more than I normally do.

My only trouble on the ride was the gps, it refused to track the route I was doing, on a ride like today’s where I know the route I use it to record the distance just encase, like today I added a little extra loop into the ride. I am not sure what the problem is but I will have to investigate.

I think I have had a fairly good week this week diet wise, don’t think it is as good as last weeks but with two good rides and the possibility of going out riding again tomorrow morning before work thing are looking good. In fact they are already looking very good as I managed to fit in to two pairs of shorts today, one pair I have not worn for 2 maybe 3 years because they were to small (or should that be I was to large??) and the other pair were brand new never worn I bought them some 3 years ago and they have never fitted me. I have a wardrobe full of clothes I have bought and have never fitted, so I might end up with a whole new wardrobe this year albeit about three years behind current fashion……….

One reason for my early morning trip was so I could get back in time to watch the Formula One. I used to watch it religiously but over the years my interest has waned, it just became boring. I thought maybe this year with more teams and no re fuelling during the race it would be more interesting. But to be honest I feel the jury is still out on that one, will have to see how it goes over the next couple of races.

So in yesterday blog I complained at how bad I was going up those hills. So for my Sunday morning ride I decided to to go over to the local heath as it has a couple of hills and I felt I could do with the practice. I left home at 7:30am blue sky, sun was out but jeez it was cold, had to stop down just the road and pull the polar buff over my ears.

There was one good thing for riding when it is this cold, all the mud is frozen and some parts of this route are very muddy. As I had hoped the first sections was frozen mud, in other places the surrounding area has been trampled to death so I could get round most of nasty spots. I was not long before I was at gate 15 (or is it 16??) and the run up to the rubbish tip road. Now this is no big hill but being a fatty on two wheel it feels bigger than it is and I normally reach the top wheezing, puffing and gasping for air. But today……….I won’t say I flew up it but I rode up it with out much of a problem. There were a couple of other minor hills and I went up those without to much of a problem as well, now I’m puzzled.

I had fun negotiating a decent covered in ice and just for the added fun something had driven along the path recently and left deep ruts (to be honest this was not the only track I found this on, apparently they have been erecting fencing all across the heath so they can keep cattle on the heath to mange the vegetation, picture of cattle here) this decent leads down to a puddle of lake proportion.

The route across the heath (at least the one I ride) is normally quite short so I decided to lengthen the route, the plan was to leave the heath, ride through an wooded area close by and then rejoin the heath further round on what would be my normal route. As I headed back toward gate 15 (or 16), I turned right through the trees and came out on the track that runs up to the Pit Road. Just after the climb I turned left onto a track I have never ridden before, it was pretty much like most of the tracks on the heath, sand, gravel, clay and mud and sometimes all four types at the same time. The GPS was showing I was heading towards the main road which was roughly the direction I was going. It joined the bridle path that runs from the Crematorium, I had ridden the bottom of this in the past, a track with two lines of paving slabs (for vehicles to access a water station or something) that ends in a steep decent with a large iron gate (6″ x 6″ box section construction) across the track which leads on to the road.

A quick mile up the road and I was into Delve Woods, not an area I have been before but I followed the GPS route through the trees and then lost my directions. I eventually emerged about half way along the road I had just ridden up rather than at the starting point where I entered the woods, oh well. I headed back up Gravel Hill and then turned right into Magna Road. A mile and a bit down the road I turned off Magna Road and back along a track toward the heath again. This starts off as a nice wide track and then narrow down to fairly narrow track with a 6ft wire fence one side and a 4ft barb wire fence on the other side with trees spilling out into the path. A good 3/4 of the way down this path I came across a fallen tree blocking the path. Having made the effort to do this extra section I was not keen on turning around and going back so I climb over the fallen tree (which was propped up by the fence) complete with bike before continuing on down the path.

I now rejoined the normal route I take across the heath, the earlier decent down the iced covered track was now just water and mud as the hill faces the sun and with the sun high in the sky it was making short work of the ice.

Only done 26 miles riding this weekend, I really want to be pushing 40 miles but I just read a post from a couple of months ago where I had ridden less miles than I normally do and had had a good weight loss on the Monday weight in, well I won’t argue I could do with a good loss after the past few weeks so here hoping.

Before I leave you all, here is a very useful web site (sorry if you use it already). For those that want to plot a route for a GPS but don’t want to fork out the cost of commercial products like Memory Map, here is a free version with a very useful addition Where’s the path, click on the “OS and Google Mapping side by side”. What you actually have is an OS based 1:25000 map on the left and a corresponding Google map of the same area on the right. You can plot a route on the left screen and then export\download it for using on your GPS or you can import a route into the program from your GPS providing it supports .gpx file format (most do), have a play it is very good piece of software.

With the UK obsession with the weather you would of thought that the met office & co would be able to forecast the weather with some degree of accuracy. There certainly no need to to discuss their failing concerning our BBQ summer and mild winter…………NOT!

Friday’s forecast for us was rain, what we got, cloud, blue sky’s and sunshine. Today’s forecast, heavy rain shower in the morning clearing into the afternoon to give sunshine with occasional shower and light winds. Actual, damp grey cloudy morning leading to occasional sunshine, light rain shower (about 5 minutes) and winds between 18mph to 24mph.

They spend millions on satellites and we are no closer to forecasting it correctly than the guy with a rock and pampas grass in his garden. He looks out of his bedroom window first thing in the morning and concludes if the rock is wet, it is raining, if the pampas grass is swaying it is windy, if there is a shadow of the rock or pampas grass it is sunny………..you get the picture.

My interest in the weather today was based on the fact that it was supposed to be a good day today and a lousy day tomorrow. We almost did not ride today because the weather looked so miserable when we got up. But as we were being told that Sunday was likely to be a day of heavy rain and strong winds then I wanted to make the most of riding Saturday. Thankfully for us (the wife and thee) the forecasted rain this morning never turned up, the wind put in an un-welcome appearance and boy was it warm (when out of the wind). The only rain we saw was at 14:15 this afternoon as we were about to drive off from the New Forest.

The ride its self was not to bad a lot of standing water, must remember to keep my mouth shut when going down hill at speed, track water does not taste nice. We decided to do a shorten Linwood Loop in the New Forest. We started at the bottom of the South Oakley Inclosure (east of Burley), ride up to the Canadian War Memorial, then out towards the A31 going under the dual carriageway and then turning off towards Broomy Lodge and the Broomy Inclosure, then on to Linwood and the Red Shoot pub. We stopped at the pub for a nice sandwich and a drink, no it was coke in fact…….. and very nice it was to.
It was here that we had a problem, the battery in the GPS expired and the map of the route was in the car. I had only done this route once but fortunately remembered the directions to get us up onto Bratley Plain than back to the road under the A31 and back toward the War Memorial. Normally from here we would carry on past the War Memorial down toward the deer sanctuary and back to the car park where we started. But the short loop mean we go back down the track we came up on through the South Oakley Inclosure to the car park for a little under 17 miles with a few large hills (well they are to us).

Thankfully there was no problems with either bike this ride. If there is a chance I will ride tomorrow if not I will spend the day giving the bike a good clean.

Went for our normal Saturday bike ride this morning, should of realised thing were not going to be straight forward, first I had left it to the wife to decide where we were going and up until 45 minutes before we were due to leave there had been no decision. So I took it upon myself to decide for her, we were going to Wareham forest but we were going to park at a different location which was basically in the middle of the loop we did the previous week. So I had to do a bit of route juggling as starting where we parked only gave us 8 miles, so I added a 3 mile loop, well at least I tried to. The GPS mapping software was not playing ball this morning. It has the facility to delete part of an existing route and then add another section of a route to it, do you think mine wanted to play this morning……….. not a cat in hells chance. I deleted the entire route three times instead deleting the section I wanted to delete. Then when I added another route to give a nice long ride rather than delete the section I wanted it deleted everything even the route saved on the hard disk. So by the time I left home I was a bear with a sore head!!

If I thought my GPS problem were over no chance, I set the route up on the GPS and clicked follow, this was OK for about the first 1000mtrs, I found that I could not scroll the screen, did not matter what I did the screen would not scroll and then I lost the follow option. Switch the GPS off, turn back on reload route, select follow and we are of again. This was not to be the last of the GPS problems.

But now I had a squeak, not from the GPS but from my front disc brake. Now this was doubly annoying as I thought I had sorted this problem out on Wednesday night, a quick adjustment and then a quick whiz round the block to check (and test the rear brakes as I changed the pads), not a sound everything seemed OK. Not now, after about another half mile I had had enough of the hamster wheel impersonations, jumped off the bike and set to work adjusting the calliper again. Thankfully this time it worked without a problem, we could now ride without my front wheel impersonating a hamster wheel.

We had now gone about a mile and a half when the wife shouts at me that her rear end does not feel right, at this point I declined the urge to comment as the problem was clearly visible………….a flat tyre. So once again we pulled over and I replaced the tube. After a short interval we are on our way again.

As I had put some new pads on the rear in the week I was making the most of any downhill section to shoot off downhill at speed and then whack the brakes on to heat the pads up, the wife asks me if I am having problems fortunately the answer was no. We finished the remainder of the loop with out a problem.

Th next 5 or so miles almost go with out a problem. I find that my water bottle is contaminated, the water tastes bloody awful, so I end up sharing the wife’s water bottle. By now we are at the far end of our route where I decide that we are going to have a little excursion off into the undergrowth as I have spotted what looks like a nice dirt track. It is now that the GPS come back to annoy me. As I had been following a route I had not noticed it had not been laying a track (as the route already on the map would hide my track) but this little excursion into the undergrowth revealed that the GPS was not tracking my route. Now this is annoying for two reason, one by having a track I have a good note of the total distance we travelled and secondly I will not have a record of this route to use in the future. By now I was beginning to give up the will to live. The dirt I found was not to bad, we were unable to follow the map exactly as the track shown on the map went into a mud pool but our little excursion brought us out half way along the route we would of been on had we followed our route and where the map showed the track would of rejoined the route.

The remainder of the ride back to the car was rather uneventful (compared to the earlier parts). As our ride had been a bit short I decided that I would check out another little dirt track that I had spotted earlier on the little loop. So I left the wife at the car and headed back up the trial, I soon found the entrance into the trees that I was looking for, I was soon to regret finding this little track. This little track through the tree (imagine a pine tree plantations with the tree all neatly planted in lines) was like dodgems with the trees and up hill with the narrow track winding it way between the trees with only a couple of inches to spare and what was worse, I was stuck in high gear. There was no straight section of track I just could not get any speed to change down on the front chain ring. I came to a mud pool where I got off the bike and pushed my way through as there was no way I could ride through it, I carried on pushing up the hill on the other side, I reached the top of the hill wheezing like an unfit 50 year old (mmm, I fit that description). I am almost certain that this route should be ridden from the top where I was to the bottom where I started, there was no way I was going to try I now. I wanted a drink but only had my contaminated bottle with me. I set off down the track, it was only after about half a mile that I checked the GPS and found I was heading in the wrong direction. So a quick about turn and I kept an eye on the GPS to ensure I was going in the right direction almost to the point where I missed the corner and nearly went in to a ditch, the sooner I get back to the car the better I was going to be. I soon found the main road and made my way on to the tarmac and headed the short three quarters of a mile ride back to the car.

We loaded the bikes onto the car and headed for home, both bikes needed a good chain clean so that’s was my next job as soon as we got in. The wife hosed the bikes off while I got the cleaning kit and bike stand ready. As I am cleaning the bikes my stomach is aching, but I ignore it and carry on cleaning the bikes, then putting all the kit away while I let the bikes drip dry. I head inside for a clean up of myself some clean cloths……………………….AND THE LOO!! I spend the next hour trying to eat dinner and ignore my somersaulting stomach. Thankfully as I only had a couple of mouth full of water the iffy stomach disappeared as quickly as it arrived. It was at this point that I notice it is pouring with rain and both bikes are sat out side drying, well at least that was the intention, so I then have to sit in the rain oil-ling the chain

I guess the only good thing that came out of the ride today was the fact that I did not break anything on the bike, apart from that I think I might forget this Saturdays ride!!

Seem as though I have said yes to doing a charity bike ride for the British Heart Foundation. I am doing the Dorset Bike Ride, as I have only just started this riding lark and the ride is on April 25th (so not much time to practice) I am only doing the 25 mile ride, my current longest ride is only 21.4 miles so need a little bit more distance practice. So as ever with these things I am going to be annoying you all for sponsorship for the event, I have a “JustGiving” page set-up so you can do all your donating online, go to my JustGiving page. Please donate as much or as little as you like, but please donate.

Unusually the wife decided to come for a ride this morning, she normally only does one ride over the weekend and she rode with me yesterday. So we decided to try somewhere new, well there was me scratching my head exactly where, the terrain and the distance late last night, the wife comes up with these idea but then leaves it to me to fill in the blanks. Anyway eventually settled on Wareham Forest after I found a route on-line and then modified it slightly.

I had intended an early-ish morning start, but we awoke a little bleary eyed after the daughter who was (supposed to be) staying at a friends overnight, but after (the friend) had an asthma attack and a visit to A&E, woke me at 3:00am this morning to let me know she was home and not staying at her friends, so kind of her!!

After a breakfast of scrambled egg on toast we soon on our way towards Wareham, we soon found a lay-by to park-in and were soon kitted up and pedalling of in to the distance. After several false starts trying to find the correct bridleway (the imported gps route did not overlay exactly on my gps map) we were travelling along bridleway and woodland paths I never even knew existed. We had to cut one section of the ride out as it showed up as marsh land on the map and looking down the trail it was certainly living up to its name. It was also starting to spot with rain so we decided to head back a different way and pick up the path we came in on. By the time we had returned to the car the sun was shining brightly overhead, sods law. We had notched up 14 miles, there was only one hill the wife could not master and to be fair it had me wheezing a bit, well a lot at the top. We both agreed that we will work out a new route around the forest which will include a new parking\starting spot.

It is weigh in night tomorrow night, I feel good about this past week, which is no measure of anything but I hope the 34.9 miles from this weekends riding add up to a good loss (Tim crosses his fingers)

Please sponsor me on the Bristish Heart Foundation Dorset Bike Ride