Hampshire Riding

Or ask very nicely if one of us is going past.... 😉

Now we're talking. 🙂

Ditto! If it coincides with one of my trips I'm happy to give you a lift

Jambalaya, I travel from Bedhampton to Lordswood for the Thurs eve rides, if you fancy it one eve & I'm going I'd be happy to pick you up on my way past, I tend to leave Bedhampton at 5:45/6ish and am back home for half 9/10.
Got a van so can easily fit another person and bike in.

QE was amazing today. Get up there whilst it's still dry.

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^^^ oooooh lovely 😀

Anybody know how the Hangars in NE Hants are riding at the moment? Guessing thick, ankle-deep mudpits in the shade but I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised!

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.

Oh, and why do so many new roadies insist on wearing all black? Virtually invisible on some of the lanes around here! FWIW, I had a red top and a light on both my helmet and bike. With the low sun, it's pretty hard to be seen!

Off to QE tomorrow afternoon 🙂

@mattbee thanks for kind offer, I'll stay in touch.

@timthumb - if you want to mail me you're welcome, I spent some time exploring tracks around Manor Farm country park on Thursday some quite nice scenic xc ridding mix of woods and open ground. With the hambke/warsash ferry link (note it doesn't run all the time and last one in winter is 4pm I recall) you can do quite a nice loop around 2 hours. Or 1 hour spins in Manor Farm from Burseldon, a bit of portage over a few (cough) styles or similar down to Hamble and back via Netley side, it's a mix of trail, track and road.

There are some great trails up this side of the Hamble, take the path right over the M27 past Bursledon Brickwprks and into the lower section of the River path then pop out at the top of the hill and roll down to the tennis courts, turn right into the woods that take you out at the Pub then turn right on to Botley road and turn left into Botley Woods then just play around in there. I'm around this weekend but road riding in the Downs.

Is it worth me making the effort to find botley woods bikebouy or is it similar to bere forest? Also is there anywhere to park the car close by in case I have a free hour suddenly appear one evening.

QE yesterday, couple of laps of the red loop one of which saw me get a little too close to a tree trunk with my face for my liking. Think I was about an inch from disaster, made me rather aware of my mortality for a while. Found myself slipping a lot on the first twisty downhill section and today decided to invest in a new front tyre, got myself a purgatory control to try.

Today has been searching for headset bearings without any luck and then a strip down, degrease, wash, polish, and helitape of the bike as I can't ride it until the headset is sorted. Looks very shiny now 🙂

Well done for getting out! How were the conditions at QEP?

Have a giggle: was out this week on the cx (sorry!) and stopped beside a grassy bank to eat an energy bar. A 4x4 stopped, wound down the window and asked if I was OK. Replied that I'd just been eating and they said they thought that perhaps I'd taken a tumble!

How amazing was that?? 😀

Botley Woods is a good place to hack around, you have a large fire trail that runs through the middle of it which I use to link laps of the footpath/singletrack up and over the hill in the middle. You do have to explore the singletrack to get to know the place but there are trails that run up and over the hill and following down to the railway line then it cuts back through the ferns back up the hill. I use the Woods as part of a few loops ( including Manor Park Farm ) and then linking back down the old railway line running into Wickham then cross the brook and back up through Knowle Woods then back home via the myriad of footpath/bridle ways heading back to Warsash. If you want to park head over to the Wickham road that runs north out of Tichfield Mill past the Garden ctrs and follow the road up and over the hill and near Hampshire Clay Shoot, just there on the left is a small layby that gets used for dog walkers or you can park at the bottom of the hill at the entrance to the Electric Sub Station, failing that park over Whiteley near Tescos and enter the woods from there.
You can have a lot of fun hacking, once you get to know it well you will find all sorts of singletrack that we use, look for tell tail tyre tracks....
Have fun.

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 '[url= http://app.strava.com/activities/121438470 ]epic[/url]' 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'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:

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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)