That all sounds so close to me bikebouy! I ride out past the clay shoot place and o to the railway as part of my normal out and back. I guess I just need to find all the links to open up a whole new area to ride.

QECP pretty good . Did 3 back to back laps of the red on sat afto. All sub 45 mins which im pleased about as my off road mojo had been lacking. Some parts are still a slippy chalk surface but they are minimal. Roots are grippy , as is all of the ‘built’ sections.
Was fairly busy with riders enjoying the park. Blue trail will be open in the coming months too.

44miles on the road today , including the climb out of Harting up to the SDW which was nice.

First ‘epic‘ of the year on Sunday… 42 miles taking in QE, some of the SDW, and Kingley Vale. What glorious weather – and fantastic dry conditions pretty much everywhere. We stopped for brunch in QE, had beer and ice-cream in Buriton, and a cream-tea and cake at Compton tea-rooms. It feels like summer already!

Forgot to mention, had a nice chat to a couple of girls on road bikes sitting in the sun outside what was Stokes (And now another bit of Thyme and Tides) in Stockbridge on Saturday morning. Awesome use of pink bar tape!

What on earth were they doing with the bar tape that was so awesome cfh? My mind is boggling 😳

They appeared to be eating some rather nice looking cake! 🙂

Bar tape was, as you can imagine, on the bars!

Ahhhhh I see! Coming from a running background there is other use for tape and I did wonder…….

Riding around north of Andover is good to a little soft in places. Fallen trees in the Charlton/Penton area a real pain to the extent I came back through town on cycle paths. I don’t know how the trails to south near the Test.

Well, the roads around the upper reaches of the Test are a mess. Seems the floods and frost has ruined them. Nice couple of hours earlier, though. Looking like the waters are subsiding as well.

Currently playing ‘spot the Di2 purchaser’ – they are all carrying their bikes through Upton 🙂

Going to be a week or three before it’s just puddles rather than river, it’s passable but what you can’t see is the issue.

The trails are drying out rather better – bit of sun and the first thirst of spring for the plants seems to be working its magic.

Bike is in the LBS for fixing and I am promised it back for Saturday so hopefully more riding this weekend

Awesome use of pink bar tape!

😯

Is anyone nightriding Wed/Thu this week? I’m thinking of popping my nightriding cherry this week and wondered if anyone else might be about?

There’s always a mob at Lordswood on Thursday eve, pretty sure the Kingley Vale Mtb lot usually ride QECP or Kingley Vale on a Wed eve too…

I’ll be up QECP wed night. meet at 6:45 main carpark, anyone welcome.

and I will probably be riding KV on Thursday evening, though I am not 100% sure yet

I’ll be up QECP wed night. meet at 6:45 main carpark, anyone welcome.

I will do a lap of the red first Superfli then meet you (Like last week)

I’ll try and get there earlier, will let you know

Great weekends riding in the Downs at the weekend, 3 solid days of hard roadie’ing bouncing over the Hills over my way. Some lanes are still a running waterfest (Dundridge, Lower Upham, Owlesbury) but ridable with a couple of hub deep patches. The tarmac on the single lanes has certainly taken a beating with some massive pot holes which I suspect will still be there in October so watch out.
I’ve not ventured into the singletrack yet, just after Xmas in the gales was the last time I hacked the woods, but from what I’ve seen from the roads it looks like for the most part it’s drying up nicely.

Beer’s on Sat eve with roadie mates at The Hampshire Bowman was utterly Ace, glad to be back home amongst normal people… 😀

Ahhhhh the Hampshire bowman! Great beer I try to attend their beer festival each year

Longstock:

Lovely pic

Well QECP got soggy and slippy rather quickly didn’t it!

Really? Was bone dry where we were building.

Mainly the first half of the red trail, lots of puddles and bike and clothes were filthy by the end. In contrast last weekend it was completely dry.

Well it did rain overnight quite heavily so was to be expected hat it was going to wet out quickly.
The ground can only dry so fast and with the last couple of months the groundwater levels are still very high so there’s no where for it to go.

Well, out on the cx again and got pelted by hailstones followed by thunder followed by rain. Bloomin’ Gore Windstopper gloves decided not to keep my hands warm, my feet got a soaking from a road under water so then started to feel chilly.

On the positive side, car drivers were extremely courteous so perhaps they felt sorry for me. 🙂

Gawd knows when I’ll ride off road again. 😐

😆 CG, were you out in that massive hailstorm !

Must’ve hurt a bit 😯

I must have slept through the heavy rain as my wife said the same. Woke up to blue sky’s and thought everything was as per last weekend. Still a fun ride though and the children washed the bike for 50p each.

Yes I was scaredy, my face was sore with hailstones pinging off. 🙁

To be fair, I didn’t have a problem with the weather until my gloves made my hands cold. MTFU stuff really. 😀

If it helps, I was out in the NF at about 8am and the conditions were very difficult then too – what with all that bright sunshine 8)

Wish I could have been out today. 2hrs on a freezing cold rugby pitch watching the boy in a freezing wind with a hangover 🙂

scaredy – that was obviously the time to go! Hope you remembered your sunnies. 🙂

john – bet your son was chuffed to bits that you were supporting him. 🙂 They grow up very quickly so don’t wish the time away!

C-G – If you do decide to visit the Southampton Bike Park we have metal roofed shelters to avoid the hail and the ‘new’ View at the entrance does good coffee, cakes as well as beers and wines…

Wouldn’t miss this time in his life for the world CG, he is such fun at the moment and the 2 hrs stood in a field every Sunday is actually quite nice. The dangerous thing is that I have the rugby bug and keep thinking I would like to get into it again. In reality I have a feeling it would hurt, a lot!

Had one of those rides this morning at QE mechanical’s galore and that wind at bit of chill in it Brrrrr. Also coming in to the switchbacks some kind sole had decided to put a branch in the middle of the first berm, as I moved it a shifty looking old couple was walking away they must have heard me say “that was a long way for that Yew branch to have blown”

Let’s hope your suspicions were not correct 🙂

I have had two near misses with living creatures at the top of the final decent on my last two visits. Last week it was a deer charging across in front of me and then this week two people stood in the middle of the trail just before the first berm. Felt a bit bad as I didn’t see them in time and whizzed by with a vague shout of hi, stopped when I could to see if they were ok and all looked fine. Still wondering now if they might have needed help, apologies for my ignorance at the time if you are reading this.

I didn’t ride today.

But I did spend the whole day with Little Miss CFH. Which was awesome!

Quick road ride tomorrow as I have a day off.

I was doing a MIAS course this weekend (so we can take schoolkids mountain biking)… Saturday at QE, which was OK after the rain, and today up at Farley Mount near Winchester… it’s first time I’ve been to Farley Mount… some fun riding, but it seems hard to fine a good route that doesn’t keep hitting roads. A great view from the top, though.

Any Farley Mount intelligence/advice greatly appreciated as it makes a convenient-ish stop over on drive to my parents in Kings Sombourne. Will happily reciprocate with some Surrey Hills info, email profile,

I believe there ‘may be’ some cheeky stuff in Farley Mount. Bear in mind that’s it’s chalk! There was talk some time ago of building official trails and am sure there’s folk on here that can explain what’s happened or not happened.

In the past I’ve taken the byway from Farley Mount that leads to Berrydown Farm and from there I’ve gone past the rather remote Farley Church. Fast descent through Parnholt Wood that will take you to KS.

Another option is to use the byway through the wood in a N direction, L then R towards Folly Farm. You can make a loop through the woods behind Crawley.

Haven’t used these tracks for a couple of years so can’t comment on conditions.