Went out for a ride yesterday, choose to ride in the New Forest, It was shorts and tee shirt weather again. I did a loop which included 3 large inclines, one close to the start and two about two thirds of the way round, one after the other. Well the first incline a long loose gravel climb required a pit stop half way up, I was feeling I had left my climbing legs at home. The section till the next hill went pretty much as normal although I did notice it did not matter which direction I was riding the wind was always in my face?

The good bit about the second climb is that it is on tarmac and starts gently (it also the longest). The bad bit was that this section was also the final run in area for a 10k fun run so dodging runners was on the cards. Ducking under the obligatory plastic tape across the road (bare in mind this is a public road still open to traffic) I continued towards the pub where the hill kicks upwards. Now I normally stop at the pub but with all the runners and families milling around I decided to head on upwards and take a rest at the top of the hill before I ride the short down hill bit before climbing back up again.

I arrived a gasping wreck again having beaten the hill with no stops for a rest. I took a 5 minute break, the next hill was gravel, it is also one of my nemesis, I don’t think I have cleaned it to date. Having rested and determined to get as much hill out the way I shot off down the short hill, I was soon pedalling up the hill and then soon into the granny ring, I just kept pedalling away till I reached the top, again a gasping wreck. Not bad two out of the three hills cleared (and I cleared the hill yesterday I had targeted on the heath as well), maybe my hill climbing is getting better.

I carried on across the open heathland of the New Forest headed under the A31 and set my sights on Burley. Now the problem here is I have done this ride at least a half a dozen times but I don’t think I have ever ridden the same route back to the car park twice. I always seem to find myself on a different path back to the car park. Unfortunately I found myself heading in completely the wrong direction and found myself needing to climb another large incline. Unfortunately a pit stop half way up put paid to my decent hill climb average for the weekend.

While I never set a time for the ride with the intention of racing around the ride to beat my fastest time to date, I did complete the ride in the time I had expected so I was happy with that.

Going to try and get an evening ride in this week, now the evening are getting brighter and we are having an early summer

Let start with the annoying bits, the new school term is about 4 weeks old, to date we have lost one football sock, lost one pair of trainers, ruined one pair of shoes and had one call to collect son from school (injury). I just hope things improve in the next 5 or something year while the son is at secondary school.

Works is becoming manic, the easy jobs become hard jobs and take twice as long to resolve, the hard jobs (the jobs that are actually hard) don’t get started because the easy jobs are taking to long.

Riding, well there have been a couple of rides, I had my hardest ride (ever) last weekend over the South Downs, did not help that I choose one of the hottest days of the year to do the ride and claimed yet another puncture. A couple of miles later I felt better as my ridding buddy also got a puncture. I had an attack of the cramps during the ride (again), I managed to keep the worst of it at bay but it stayed with me till the end of the ride. I reckon I drank over 5ltr of water and energy drink during the ride and ate one energy bar, two small pieces of flap-jack, two slices of malt loaf and an ice cream. The ice cream was my treat on the way down the hills, we passed a car park where the old ice cream van was doing a roaring trade.

I was planning on an easy ride on Sunday but I just had no energy by the time we had finished cutting the grass and washing the van. Made amends later in the week by going out for a ride in the evening, had to take my big light as it was dark enough for it.

This weekend I am not sure what riding will be done, will be keeping an an eye on the weather and decide on the day.

I found the route over the Purbeck hills on the Internet just after I started riding again so hung onto the link, so over the weekend I decided the time had come to try it. The route includes two very large hills. I started from the Banks Arms at Studland and then made my way upto old Harry Rock, from there it on and over Ballard Down. Now this was not to bad to start with as this is a gentle climb to 523ft over 3.3 miles with some of the ride along the cliff tops over looking Studland Bay, the English Channel and Swanage Bay and I can honestly say there was only one section I walked. The views are stunning from the cliff tops around Old Harry rock (especially on a sunny day) but the view only got better as I made my way inland, looking to my right I could see Poole harbour entrance and to me left I could look down on Swanage.

As the old saying goes what goes up must come down and come down pretty quick, you drop 220ft in less than half a mile most of that in a long run down to the road. A quarter of a mile later you are looking at the bottom of 9 Barrow hill and grey rock strewn path that disappears up the side of the hill. Now this is where the Purbeck Hills gained its point as I only made it about 150yds up the path before I decided to save myself and walk, I could not compete with a path that climbs over 400ft in under a mile. So after a long walk I was at the top Of Nine Barrow, the view were stunning especially when I got to the Corfe Castle end of the hill and was looking down on the village of Corfe Castle and the remains of the castle. This is where I made my first mistake, I missed the path down to Corfe Castle and decide to find my own route down the side of the hill, not a good idea. I made it, but would of been a better idea to go back and join the correct path.

Once in Corfe Castle the route became like many other routes, running along forest tracks on the Remstone estate before meeting up with the main road back to the Banks Arms. As I headed back to the Banks Arms I remembered a little path (more like a shaded tunnel) that I took the last time I rode in the Purbeck so I shot of down the path only to be confronted by a deer. I stopped some 20ft away from it and it seemed quite happy to stand there eating the greenery while I grabbed a couple of pictures. It only decided to leave when I decide to ride on.

So all in all I think today’s ride was a fair draw, I got the better of it on most of the first climb and the remainder of the ride but I was well and truly beat on the second climb (ok more like submission).

Having seen what the traffic was like in Corfe Castle I decided that once back at the Banks Arms, it was a case of load the bike onto the car and leave.

Finally to round of the bank holiday weekend, it was weight in night tonight and it was a pound and a half off (the same pound and a half I put on last week) so I can go to bed tonight contented and tired.

The bike visits Old Harry Rock

Old Harry Rock (Old Harry is actually hidden behind the other rocks)

Corfe Castle as seen from 9 Barrow hill

The un-shy Deer

Before I go any further I am going to have a little whinge, Moors Valley is a lovely country park, it has a large adventure play area for the kids, numerous trails to follow, a couple of ponds, but I do find the car park fees a complete rip off, at £7 for 4 hours it is not cheap (check the car park prices here). This is why I park in one of the many gated entrances around Ringwood Forest and then ride out from there.

Today my son was joining us for a ride and we were going to take him along a section of the single track cycle trail. He was well impressed to be riding along the old Ringwood railway line at the start but not to sure about having to push the bike up the large hill though. He is only nine and has only been on two wheels for about 6 months so he still and wobbly novice and he found a couple of the slopes a bit hard going but he was keen to succeed. We eventually got to the single tack section and I shot off at speed with our son following mum at a more sedate pace. I was a little concerned he may have found the track a little to tight for him but he thoroughly enjoyed it.

Coming through the trees, the light was bad through here

He also enjoyed going up to “The Look Out” which is a large roofed platform situated on the side of a hill looking over the forest, I think it was the fact that nobody else was there and he could cycle into the building.

View from Moors Valley Look Out

Once we had finished the single track sections the wife and son headed for the park while I headed off to do some more riding. I was keen to cross the road (B3081) into the other section of the forest. Where I enter the forest here it starts with a long drawn out climb of just under a mile that climbs quite hard in the last 300yds. After the previous days problems I wanted to prove to myself I can still climb and climb it I did………….still in the saddle. I was wheezing and panting a bit……….ok a lot then, at the top but I did make it to the top. I then followed my normal route half way and then decided to find a new route back (I normally follow the same route back). This worked out quite well as I rejoined the long hill about a third of the way up the hill which when I rode up the hill earlier I said that would be a good place to come back down.

Once back in the main park area I headed for the visitors centre to meet up with wife and son. After a quick bite to eat it was time to head back to the car. By now dear son was struggling and on one section I had to give him a helping push up a couple of section. I don’t know if anybody else has tried this but I placed on hand on my son back and pushed him along while trying to avoid his wobbles which forced wobbles from me, how we never ended up in a heap I don’t know. WE eventually got back to the big hill where the wife and son walked down the hill and took a couple of photo of me coming down the hill.

Son shot of me coming down the big hill

The day ended on success, it was weigh in night tonight and I lost 3lbs so that finished my day of nicely. bit disappointed that I never made my target I set in January but a lot of things have happened since then but at least my weight is going down if ever so slowly. I now have a short week to look forward to as I am heading up north for a long weekend.

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.