Am heading down to Swanage with some mates later in the year for a bit of a MTB pootle and fancy ending at the Square and Compass for a pasty and pint before freewheeling down the hill back to Swanage.

Most routes I have seen tend to go the other way, starting at Worth Matravers end, going round Swires Head, past Corfe through Rempstone Forest etc… I realise I could just do a route backwards but do the hills make it less attractive going the “wrong way”, if so does anybody have any good gps traces of a route we could do. 30ish miles is good

Cheers

* Rusty Trowel to the Forum *

Forum Rides have started from Sandbanks Ferry …

proceeds to reminisce about ‘the good old days’. 🙁

actually most of the hills are good both ways! have a search on this forum for a post titled “isle of purbeck” and “isle of purbeck route recommendations”they have put pdf’s on the which are good routes (there are a few tweeks i would make. Swanage is a good starting point as its alway downhill when you finish 🙂

just do the route back to front

Email or call me. Sod it invite me along and I will show you the sneaky trails.

let me know when your going would like to tag along.charlie showed us the sights last year! great fun!

charlie may call you up sooner than later! hows the going! ( good soft muddy)?

Fine boozer!

There is a route guide on this site for the Purbecks.
The Square & Compass is a fine pub btw… it was named by a great, great, great uncle back in the 1800’s 🙂

I have a very happy memory of riding over the purbecks with my dad, reaching the Square and Compass just as their pasty delivery arrived – must be about 18 years ago now. Happy memories 🙂

Mmmm square and compass. Source of several serious holiday hangovers, but great nights of drinking (and a Bikemonger encounter too)

Hi – drop me an email and i can send you a really good route (its long at 35 miles) but a superb route.

Jim, that’s awesome!

The going is muddy in places, but you just have to pick the right route. Worn put racing Ralph’s are somewhat involving this season… We will be fine.

What date are you looking at. I have a “five days cycling to Belgium, with a solid headwind, one speed” wrist injury going in for an operation next week. Followed by a super fast recovery, some gaffer tape, and back out on the trails ASAP thing going on.

But I insist it will all be sorted by my 40th birthday ride and party.

Yeah cool eh?
One side of my family are from there but have been driven out by the 2nd home brigade over the years… its something like 2/3 of the houses in Worth Matravers are 2nd (holiday) homes…

Jim, a part of my family have many places named after them. It’s rather scary, yet awesome too! Even in London, my local curry house is on a street with the name, for example!

The second home thing is a big local problem. BUT I have been meeting the local council to help get high speeded broadband in, for my own business needs… But it also means that second home owners will be able to spend less time within the m25, and more time living in and working from their “toys” as our mayor calls them.

It’s a lovely place and you can’t blame anyone for wanting a peaceful purbeck retreat.

The square and compass is a crazy place, I meet bankers, guys from my old corporate world, London cycle couriers, smugglers, musicians, Germans, bat rehomers, artists… And arseholes 🙂 It’s a real mix… Park a bike outside, grab a pasty and one of Charlie’s home made ciders and wait, give it 15 mins and you will have a gang of cyclists chatting away, no one previously knowing each other… Best pub in the world.

the take away bottles of cider/scrumpy are evil evil inventions! 😀

a number of climbing weekends have been more of a ….one day climbing and one day sleeping off a hangover as a result.

I’d rather stop for a cream tea than at a pub thanks… and if i did want to stop at a pub, it’d probably be the Scott Arms as the view is better.

We can stop for cream tea, at the square, and the Scott arms with its postcard view. Bikes are nothing more than a conveyance between food and drink establishments.

Mashie you have mail,

Charlie, plenty of time we are coming down in July but just starting to organise our families etc, will drop you a line later.

Cheers for all the responses

Geoff

The best rides always involve a bacon sandwich at middle beach and performance pasty at the square and compass !

Geoff – emailed you a tcx of the route, its a good one. Nothing technical, but some great trails and very scenic. The coast line is amazing.

Let me know how you get on.