Great pics DV 😀 great ride and I took a chance on the rear tyre to get another two yesterday in and around Chawton Woods/ Bushey Leaze 🙄 My depleted stock of patches and tubes is even more so now and really must look for a new 26″ tyre of about 2.0/2.1″
Okay, Sunday 20th, I’m in 😀 Late morning sounds favourable, 11-ish? Happy to meet at chez Bartimaeus or car park, whichever is more convenient for others. As you can see, I am nothing but flexible 😉 Very much looking forward to it, is it the three of us so far? Presuming johnj won’t be able to make it?
As for length of ride, happy to attempt either and will willingly follow our guide for the day and what he feels most appropriate. Over to you Bartimaeus! 😀
Good thinking! If we were to start late morning, given a stop or two for re-fuelling, what’s the likely length of time please? Just so I can manage expectations 🙂
Sorry guys unless there is an act of god then the shopping trip will be going ahead and I will be single dad for the day. Enjoy the ride and let’s try and make it a regular thing, that is of course if you all get on 🙂
while we are on the subject of hampshire riding, I managed to lose my knog blinder somewhere between cheesefoot head and baybridge. MOst probably in the woods bit but if anyone comes across it could you let me know. All black and missing the mount (still on my bars!)…
reward for information leading to safe return of sadly missed illuminator
Steelsreal – I sometimes ride there, actually was headed there today but tubeless tyre exploded on the trail. 😯 Will be up there again so will watch out.
Great ride tonight from titchfield abbey to wickham railway. Up into Bere forest and from there I am lost, little bit of road but mostly off road stuff, really enjoyed it despite my riding partner big Shep who cheats on hills. I have proof now that 29rs are massively quicker than 26rs on hills going up 😉
So… Sunday 20th. Who’s in, so we can agree a time? I’m thinking 3-4 hours or so riding plus time for pub/cake stops… so if it’s a mid morning start we will be out over lunch time.
Headed out early this morning for a loop from Alresford taking in Cheesyfeet Head and the Meons.. overgrown in places but not too bad for the most part, just blinkin’ hot!
Can anyone advise of an off road route from cheesyfoot head to Andover? I fancy giving riding to work a bash but currently can only get as far as cheesy before I need to join a road and then subsequently the A34 which is never going to happen.
john – there seems to be a few opportunities to cross the A34. There’s an NCN through Winch but looks as though you’d need to pick up the B3420 before hitting the off road trails although if you diverted through Itchen Wood you could really increase the off road trails.
Weeeeeel… I now have the bits, minus forks, for 2 bikes… Decisions decisions….though tbfit’s probably going to be the canyon so I don’t rush the build on the stanton…. Probably
no worries, was a great ride, thanks Bartimaus.. however i still am not too sure the words “a nice” and “climb” should be in the same sentence!!!
so i did the Bavid Daily and took some snaps. i have omitted the ones with facial pics of slackalice (due, we were led to beleive, to legal reasons 😉 😆 ) hopefully bartimaus can supply where the pics were taken
Haha! 😀 What a stonkingly good ride! 8) Big up and thanks to Batimaeus for excellent guiding, forewarning of the trail to come, snippets of local information and for riding so effortlessly up the “nice climbs” 😉
My phone app made it as 27miles and a bit, with an average of just under 9.5mph – which I’m pretty chuffed with over such terrain – although I’m sure Barimaeus and Frostomp would have easily done it quicker, so thank you both for waiting for us at the tops 😀
The route contained a fab mix of everything, wooded single track, SDW, tiny bit’s of road linking, rapid descents that required concentration, the downhill trails at Stoughton that were preceded by all of us admitting that we were definitely in the ‘wheels on the ground’ type of riders and rad gnarr was duly shredded with finesse and maturity 😀 . We had climbs that ranged from ‘nice’, to ‘very nice’, to ‘incredibly nice’, just because it maintained its sharp gradient for so very long… Definitely the Hors Categorie climb of the day – which was all very quickly forgotten with the 2km descent that followed, even though DV picked up the only puncture of the day. We did the decent thing and carried on, safe in the knowledge that the bears would be more apprehensive of him than he of they 😉
Yep, continuous litigation over broken camera lenses and loss of pixels, means that unfortunately, my visage must no longer be captured without due consent, never mind! However, I feel everyone else is fair game and I produced my camera for the main reason for the ride in the first place – namely the cream tea stop 😛
In no particular order, the happy crew include Dom (riding buddy of mine for the last 20+ years 8) ), Bartimaeus, Daftvader and Frogstomp.
And here are our bikes taking a rest during the stop
I think the locations for DV’s pics are:
Looking over Stoughton
Top of Kingley Vale – bit hazy for a really good view of the Channel and IOW
Lunch stop in I think Stoughton
The next two are Harting Down
Cream Tea in Compton.
Bartimaues, Frogstomp, daftvader and my mate Dom, thank you all very much for a great ride with great company, gorgeous weather, dry trails and no injuries! 😀 8)
Well I really enjoyed that, including the uphill bits… and once you’re ‘up’ you know that it’s time to head ‘down’. Thanks for coming, guys.
Pics (1) Walderton Down at ‘the bar’ overlooking Stoughton, (2) Kingley Vale looking south over Stoke Clump (you have to imagine that you can see Chichester Cathedral and the Isle of Wight as it was very hazy), (3) The Royal Oak at Hooksway, (4) Harting Downs looking NW towards South Harting, (5) Tower Hill ruins, at Uppark, and finally (6) The promised cream tea at the Compton Village Shop and Tea Room – splendid!
According to Strava the climb out of Stoughton is 129m in 1.2km, with the steep section 86m in 500m… today was my 77th and 15th fastest ascent. That one is not ‘a nice climb’!
Posted 9 years ago
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