With the promise of a whole day of no rain, it made sense to use the money to drive over the Swanage & deliver my front wheel to the bike shop rather than post it. Of course, this gave the opportunity to ride more hills than there are at home. Scrabbling all the Swanage trails I could find together on my GPS, I was hoping I could get about 80 km done in six hours.

It was sunny, chilly in the northerly, proper muddy and all good fun. The cake & pasty stops in Corfe Castle were as good as always. Strangely on the Coast Path I bumped in to a couple of riders coming the opposite direction – I recognised them as I rode past, I rode most of my first MTB Marathon with them in Shropshire last summer. Fifteen minutes of catching up ensued before I did another loop & ended up back at the bikeshop for much talk about bikes (what else?).