It was Swanage Carnival this weekend and all week the plans has been to drop wife and son off in Swanage and then go for a ride round the Purbecks. Wifey and son were happy with this plan especially as the Red Arrows were displaying over Swanage bay at 11:30am. Well throw in the iffy weather (the Red Arrows should of flown at Cowes, Isle of Wight last not but the display was cancelled due to bad weather) and the fact that the Red Arrows were grounded earlier in the week with technical problems, the whole day has been a bit suspect all week and I really wanted to ride the Purbecks to put a couple of ghosts to bed.
Fortunately the Red Arrow were given the all clear to fly earlier in the week and the weather dawned nice and sunny in Bournemouth. So we loaded my bike and kit on the car and head for Corfe Castle. As we drove to Corfe Castle the dark clouds came in and it start to drizzle that horrible fine rain. The wife and son were catching a train from the excellent Swanage Railway to Swanage. I would start my ride from Corfe Castle and then pick them up in Swanage later. By the time we got to Corfe Castle the rain had stopped although it was still cloudy.
From my starting point up a small side road the riding is uphill from the first turn of the pedal and apart from one almost level section it is up hill for the next 2 miles. This is where the Purbecks scored it first goal, I was determine to clean Brenscombe hill and I tried and pushed myself but it ended in failure. In hind sight I think it was the lack of any warm up riding that was the main problem, starting the ride straight off up hill is not a good idea.
Unfortunately having pushed myself hard early on made the next few hills hard work, I cleared them but they were harder than they should of been. As with all things that go up, they have to come down again and I was soon taking the bone shaking ride down the other side of Brenscombe hill. At the bottom is the slow slog up the road toward the turning off for the path up Ballard Down. Now in my mind I had though that had I cleaned Brenscombe hill I should at least make it half up the track to the Obelisk on Ballard Down. Unfortunately less than 100mtrs does not get anywhere near half way. In fact I was gasping and stopping for a rest just pushing my bike to the Obelisk, Purbeck scores its second point.
Having rested for a few minutes at the Obelisk I set of on the next little stretch of hill up to the top of Ballard Down, thankfully I cleared this bit which seemed to restore some faith in my riding. Much of the ride from here to Studland is down hill and I made the most of it, at least to Old Harry Rocks anyway. The section from here to Studland was very busy with people coming up to Ballard Down to watch the Red Arrows. Ballard Down looks out across Swanage Bay and the town its self, I had considered stopping and watching the display but as I had an hour to wait for the display to start I decided to crack on with the ride. Last year we watched the Red Arrows from the other side of the Bay on Durlston Head which is a similarly sized hill and had an amazing view of the display from up high.
Soon I was riding across Godlingston Heath, there is one hill here I did not expect to get up, it is not a large hill but it is covered in loose gravel, sand and rocks and I had expected to be completely shot after the previous hills, well at least I was not too disappointed when I had to push the bike up the hill. From here I was heading for Franks Tank (which has now been renamed Thomas the Tank). There is a nice little section of mixed single track that runs along side the golf course which eventually drops you out onto Newton Heath. From here it is Forestry paths and a small section of road back into Corfe Castle. From the main road in Corfe Castle is a steep little hill back to the car and to my surprise I cleared it.
So that’s it, I am claiming the single point for clearing the second section of hill on Ballard Down, making it half way up Brenscombe Hill and the final little hill back to the car, all three were little morale victories and as it is my blog I am awarding myself a point!!
Well that is almost it, there one little matter I want to mention, it concerns a certain Land Rover Freelander driver, I will set the scene. I am riding toward the B3351 from the Banks Arm pub (no I did not pop in for a pint), the road is a narrow affair and at the point where this story happens bears to the right. Walking toward me on my side of the road is a pedestrian, so I move out towards the middle of the road to avoid running into him, that is until a Land Rover Freelander come whizzing round the corner, he gives no concern to me cycling around the pedestrian and force me to take evasive action nearly running the pedestrian over. As you can guess the driver never stopped and there was no indication that he had seen anything, he just carried on his way, the guy must have been blind………………….
