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How long does it take to, or when does it first, dry out?
Is there a fail safe way of finding the proper start of the South Downs way in Winchester?
I have time on my hands, a new singlespeed and an itch to do the South Downs way again but I want it to be a pleasant experience rather than the clag fest I know it can be.
SDW on a SS ... **** that.
[url= http://www.southdownsdouble.net ]south downs double[/url]
After this weather, it may never dry out
when it dries out depends, quite obviously, very much on what the long-term weather has been, it can still be glippy in places well into what might be called Summer, and can vary day-on-day within that
the start is generally the King Alfred statue in Winchester, well that's where the SDW Doubles etc are measured from
As Jo says, the sort-of official start is the statue. If you search Strava/RideWithGPS/Garmin/whatever you should find plenty of recorded tracks showing the way.
It's quite wet at the moment 🙂 Dries out pretty quickly in most parts (ie the higher bits), though. A week or two of clear skies and breezes and you'll see a marked improvement. Or a couple of days of sub-zero temperatures, of course…
Been riding sections of the SDW regularly over the winter - at this rate, it will probably be dry enough around May! The climb up Old Winchester Hill is impossible as the moment - ankle-deep mud but it was great fun 'surfing' down it the other week on my fatbike. No problem on SS, just have confidence in your climbing abilities, particularly if heading W-E as half the climbing is in the final third. I'm probably going to have another bash at the SDW double this year too.
Great link - thanks.
SDW SS is a lovely day out. ~12 hours iirc.
i would recommend taking chesil street & petersfield road to the foot bridge onto the SDW rather than the long, complicated and dangerous official route.
It's pretty filthy up there and in my opinion will keep hold of its wonderful green slippy chalk till we get 2-3 weeks of sun.
The SDW double site is a great source of info, as is http://www.bikedowns.co.uk/
it shows tap locations, info about route changes etc.
My little blog https://southdownswaydoubledouble.wordpress.com/ is not as detailed but may tempt you into riding it more than once...
I've also ridden it SS CX - my fastest traverse because I had no choice to crank it up the hills, but gawd my quads were wrecked the next day. If you go SS, go with some geared riders and benefit from the rest at the top of the hills.
I was up there over the top from CheeseFoot Head to QECP and it was a bit windy 😆
In the main it was drying out nicely, when I got to QECP it was slippy gloop. The bit from Meon Railway up Old Winny Hill was a joke made in CX heaven with shouldering the bike and studs it still took best part of 15mins slip sliding climbing. On the top over Butser Hil was fine, the long decent was hilarious with gusty winds and very soft field.
I've done it SS on my old Niner, blooming great but then I only did it twice on that and both times were during the summer. Great day out, nothing too hard and a couple of steep climbs you just get off and walk.. The rutted climb from the bottom of the trail near Duncton is always slippy and rutted as it's the main water run off from the tops and it's in a small gorge shaded by trees.. The other one is the long down hill near Clactonburry ring which is off camber full chat on slippy chalk and rutted small boulder gigglefest, especially if any kind of wetness.
As mentioned the start is King Alfred Statue in Winny, easy to find and SDW is signposted out of the Town..