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Whitchurch Off Road Trail

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Trying to beat off the general lethargy that has set in as I wait for my shoulder operation on Tuesday, I set off north an hour on Saturday for this ride around Whitchurch. I’m not sure why the recommended start point & therefore parking spot is a turnout on the side of a road – I’d be inclined to leave my car in one of the smaller villages on the ride. As I set off in the fair weather, my ride was very nearly thwarted early on as the bridge over the railway into Whitchurch is out for construction – eventually I found the temporary footbridge just to the east.

Out of the village I was soon on bridleways heading north & then over the A34 – quite a bit of this ride is too close to this busy road for my liking. There’s the odd route marker, but intelligent guessing while referring to the map has one picking the correct route around the edges of fields & through farmyards. The views started to open up a bit & early on there are a couple of cute little villages to roll through. I was becoming apparent that I was well over-dressed as the sky began to clear – but it’s a little too much hassle to remove leggings mid-ride & I only had the stifling winter gloves with me.

I shared this ride with the usual array of rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, hawks & various livestock. Shortly after I got on to Wayfarer’s Walk & found this strange building in the woods. It appears to be someone’s house now, with no clue as to why it was built. It’s on the Highclere Estate – if I had have been later in the year I could have popped down to Highclere Castle, the setting for Downton Abbey apparently. There was a nice, relatively, long downhill back down to the A34.

With a little detour to find the underpass, I was soon climbing back up on to the top of the downs over a big rabbit warren. This was hardly surprising as I made a small detour to go & look out over Watership Down – the setting of that delightful little book of the same name (Richard Adams still lives in Whitchurch).

I was lucky not to ride into a bunny living room, as I was reminded of man’s ability to generate electricity

Watership Down – it was much more exciting in the book

The short descent off Watership Down back to the loop I was supposed to be riding was the best bit of singletrack all day – which isn’t saying a lot, but it was good fun. I was soon on Caesar’s Way – which was predictable straight, before going through the last village, Litchfield, & back to the car. Litchfield disappointingly didn’t have a pub – I thought every village had a pub in this country – so it was some time before I got lunch. But that was mostly my fault as I enjoyed a pleasant drive home down little country lanes avoiding highways & motorways.  A nice day out exploring in the sun bringing temperatures in the mid to high teens.

Today my bike was cleaned & put into hibernation, before I headed out in more sun to the New Forest Wildlife Park.  This was mostly so I could get some some idea of what my housemate, Gary, is talking about when he comes home from work – he’s a keeper there.  And partly because they have a lot of otters there & after Yellowstone, I quite like otters (although Giant Otters, it turns out, make quite the obnoxious sound).  Amongst other things they have some Scottish Wildcat (slightly bigger than a domestic cat, which seems to think it’s a tiger), lynx (very hard to spot), a lot of owls (including a Morepork), some big wild boar (with rather cute boarlets) & five wolves.

Boarlets – like striped furry piglets, reminded me somewhat of baby warthogs (warthoglets?)

around home, bikes, MTB, UK

Last rides

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For my last weekend of riding for many months, winter finally decided to turn up – just a little bit. Saturday dawned beautiful & clear – Ady & I headed out for a similar loop of the Forest to the previous week’s. With an extra layer on in deference to the -5ºC, it was great to have the Forest dry for a change. With a slightly slower pace than last time, the best part of the riding (apart from being out on such a great morning) was riding across all the frozen puddles & either locking up the wheels to slide across or suddenly breaking through the ice.

Sunday’s news was of course dominated by the UK coming to a grinding halt in places with a few inches of snow. Pleasingly, it just rained a bit down this way & I set off up the M3 with Dan towards Winchester – meeting at Chris’s house in Otterbourne. As soon as we got off the motorway the snow starting showing up on the side of the road. We set off through a few inches using a variety of bridleways & side-streets to go around Winchester anti-clockwise through some rather posh patches. A few centimetres of snow is great fun as there is still mostly traction, but a just enough sliding around for the front wheel to make things interesting. Eventually we were off the roads & cutting through the countryside avoiding puddles & trying to keep our feet warm. It was noticeably warmer, but damper than Saturday’s ride.

There were some big wide tracks that provided plenty of amusement snaking around many puddles. Unfortunately by this stage, our feet were starting to get wet from the constant spray. In the end, our three different methods for keeping warm feet all failed well & truly – at the first decent food stop, there was much walking around on the road to try & warm our feet.

Through more fields, down bridleways & the occasional piece of singletrack we carried on. After a particularly wet, muddy & slow field crossing, during which we were delighted not to have the large-horned steers impale us, we hit the South Downs Way and headed back towards Winchester. It wasn’t long after that we stood around cursing our cold feet as Dan extracted a large thorn from his tyre & patched a tube. That was about the time I took this photo – apologies for lack of nice photos, stopping to satisfy my shutter-finger wasn’t a large priority.

Strangely, as the snow was mostly melting by now, we hit the deepest drift of the day in the middle of an open field. More fun sliding around, it was a pity that the spring that holds my brake pads apart somehow got bent in part & then started rubbing annoyingly on the rotor. There was no way I was changing that with so little distance to go until home – it took long enough to remove the calliper from the frame & cable-tie it to my seat. The 50 km were up with a lot less resistance for me (you never realise just how much your brakes are rubbing when you gradually get used to it). Back at Chris’s it was time to painfully remove socks, warm up & hose bikes, shoes, clothes & backpacks of much splatter.

So there you have, my last ride report for quite some time (“and there was much rejoicing”).

around home, bikes, GPS, history, MTB, UK

Hurst Castle

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After a week of gorgeous sunsets & sunrises on mild rides to & from work, winter finally decided to make a little bit of an appearance on Saturday with a few degrees of Jack still lurking when I set out for a little bit of ride west to check out Hurst Castle. A few miles down the road Beaulieu was looking pretty nice in the crispness.

I continued on back roads enjoying the peace & quiet, skirting around Lymington & many yachts propped up for the winter around the marina before riding the paths through the Lymington-Key Haven Nature Reserve.  It’s all very marshy and before rocksalt & transport was cheaper, it was a very profitable area for making salt. Now it’s quite the habitat for many species of birds & that curious breed – birdwatchers. I did my best not to hit any of them into the marsh as they stood on the path peering skyward.  After 25 km my goal was tantalisingly close across the water, but there were still a few miles of following the shore around through Key Haven & then along the two mile-long spit which was very shingly to the castle.

Hurst Castle is lying low next to the lighthouse

It was a bit of a slog along the shingle spit, but still a lot faster than walking

The Isle of Wight is only three-quarters of a mile across what is the end of the Solent

This Hurst Castle is rather underwhelming compared to the extravagance of the last Hearst Castle I went to.  The centre part of the castle dates back to Tudor times when Henry VIII built a string of castles stretching around the south-east of England to defend against invasion as he managed to antagonise the Catholic nations. They are all similarly designed – low-slung & circular. Being in such a good position to defend the Solent, the Victorians extended the castle a long way along the shore in both directions. It’s a little odd walking in & seeing just how long & narrow the castle is – definitely not your usual square keep. They put in numerous 38 ton guns, but a shot has never been fired in anger from the castle – that includes during its defensive duties through the two world wars.

At the end of the long spit on a reasonably chilly day, there weren’t a lot of other people around as I clattered around in my bike shoes.  There were plenty of nooks & crannies to explore around the Tudor central section.  I wasn’t exactly overdressed for the weather, so didn’t spend too much time reading the exhibits.  Instead I opted for eating my lunch watching the tide creep in – if I had have brought lashings of ginger beer I could have easily imagined I was about to discover a smuggler’s long forgotten treasure buried on Kirrin Island.

I avoided the circuitous route through the nature reserve on the return journey, but detoured back to Buckler’s Hard after Lymington. I took a few little walking paths trying to find an obelisk, the top of which I spied from some distance.  I tracked it down along Monument Lane, funnily enough, read the long tributes to a past MP & continued down the walking paths.  It was a little weird crossing a private airfield, but I was pleased to discover that the USAF used it for a while around D-Day to fly Thunderbolts on bomber-escort missions.  Find curious little bits of history like that is one of the great things about being following one’s nose in a country such as this.

Back through Beaulieu the sun was setting & as I climbed up to Hill Top I was surprised to pass a roadie struggling up the hill.  After forty miles, I was hardly fresh – this guy caught up to me on the flat, turns out he works in our head office & had ninety miles under his belt to explain my passing him.

Sunday was supposed to be a much shorter ride with Dan & Chris off-road in the Forest.  We looped around a bit & Chris showed us giant sequoias.  For the New Forest, these are big trees.  But after Yosemite & the NorCal coast last year, I was pleased just to be mildly interested.  Somehow we ended up way out west in a quaint village, Burley, with a good pub-stop to refuel on some big potato wedges.  Just as well the Forest is flat – the ride turned out longer than the previous day’s at 45 miles/72 km.  Beautiful day it was too, this place must be a zoo in the summer – there were so many people out on another frigid day.

around home, bikes, GPS, history, MTB, national park, UK, vehicles

Pedal & Steam Power

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Well thrilled at the prospect of a weekend at home & not having to drive hundreds of miles, I planned absolutely not-much. Of course, a couple of rides figured in that not-much – it having been a month since my last adventures off road & that shoulder op getting closer. Saturday’s was not at all ambitious – I headed to the diametrically opposite side of the Forest & followed some of the marked cycle trails (wide double track & some road, with plenty of walkers out). There were scruffy looking ponies in abundance as usual.

Just to prove that not all of the New Forest is beautiful, I think I stumbled on its secret ugly corner. It was bleak – low scrub, a dim day, sand, mud; I wonder why I didn’t see many people out there. But I was out on my bike pushing the cranks around & it was good. With twenty clicks under the wheels, it was a pleasant hour & a bit out stretching the legs.

The local MTB club (New Force) had a fortnightly ride on Sunday, northeast of Winchester. So I dragged myself out of bed & went & joined dozens of others. We split into three groups & ours proceeded on a long anticlockwise circuit along bridleways through rolling farmland. While it was dry overhead, there was plenty of moisture in the ground to deal with – the mud was draining & a good technical challenge, especially on any long descents. In fact a bit of road was sometimes welcome for the respite it provided. I’m not sold on these club rides, I thought mountain-bikers were generally friendly. Perhaps the English are just over people from all over the world – four hours & I hardly got a word out of anyone, I miss riding in North America. That’s beside the time when our group got split in two – who leads rides & doesn’t wait at big intersections?

Did see this good looking flag randomly down some country lane. Actually, I’d much prefer it were a silver fern on black

The day was salvaged by a big plate of cheesy chips (not quite poutine, but good enough), Somerset cider & then stumbling across a steam train near where I’d parked my car. I wandered up & down the platform a bit checking out the hissing engine & beautiful old carriages with the fascination one would expect of a history & engineering fiend. It occurred to me that I had no real reason to get home, so I paid my pounds & was issued with a quaint stiff cardboard ticket for the last return journey of the day. I had no idea where I was going, but that was just part of the fun.

We headed east under the setting sun across more green pastoral land, with plenty of cuttings to climb up a couple of hundred metres. The Mid Hampshire Railway, also known as the Watercress Line due to its predominant market-gardening commodity in the nineteenth century, has been restored since the ’70s & now runs the ten miles between Alresford (where I embarked) & Alton (which I’d never heard of) on many days of the year. They have a surprisingly large fleet of steam & some diesel engines & all sorts of old rolling stock stashed on various sidings along the line. With all the staff in period dress & the engine chugging in to the fast approaching evening, billowing smoke swirling down to cover the carriage windows it was all good fun – not to mention the first time I’ve been pulled by a proper steam engine in I-don’t-know-how-long.

It was easy to see all the signal control wires running alongside the rails

A pleasant end to the day – even if I was a little tired from the mud-riding & got told off by the guard for almost falling asleep on his train.