Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Biking

Day 3 Winchester to Weymouth – 25,251 days old and still pedalling

A very welcome cream tea
A very welcome cream tea

Oh boy what a glorious cock up today was 🙁 🙁

I arrived in Weymouth after 9 hours on the road to find no ferries have left here for over a year 🙁  They now run from Poole 🙁 🙁 where I was a few hours ago…….

The day started OK although starting of up a steepish narrow busy main road wasn’t ideal in fact once I found a spot to stop I decided to deviate from the route chosen by Strava to one created by GMaps which went very well picking up the old railway track around Poole, although it let me down grotesquely just after Winfrith Newburgh, where it decided a track across a field up onto a ridge was OK, it wasn’t 🙁   but it proved again The Galaxy is an OK mountain bike 🙂

Favourite spots of the day were the lovely village of Fordingbridge and of cause the cream tea in The New Forest. I enjoyed the converted railway track around Poole ending in The Costa at Upton which is where I should have dropped down to Poole Harbour. Plus of course my very reasonable Seaspray Guest House in Weymouth

Real problems with my gpx devices today with the ETREX20 deciding to close down half way, Strava app conking out and Memory Map failing too. However good old Moves came up trumps with th missing bits easily pulled out of Moves Export

Christopher came to the rescue by finding a train from Weymouth to Poole a quick 45min ride. So I’ve booked the 10.30 crossing to Jersey.

Todays Strava is in two parts here and here a total of 78.5 miles and 2,353 feet of climbing

 

 

Day2 Em’s Place to Winchester 25,250 days old

At Kingston Bridge
At Kingston Bridge

Phew what a scorcher as the tabloids used to say! with the temperature n the thirties,  a bit like riding in South Africa / Cuba except for the traffic and awful state of the roads.

After a bad night’s sleep, the Turkish food did not agree with me leaving me with an urgent call to nature at 2.30am 🙁 I left with Em at 8am.

First stop was The Olive Tree cafe around the corner for some brekkie then it was a ride through the hilly capital with its disgusting road surfaces 🙁 except interestingly up millionaires row around Hampstead Heath. The ride through Richmond Park was gorgeous except for the obligatory hill 🙁

In Kingston I met up with Nigel & Margie friends from my Cavendish days in the 70’s for a drink and natter then  I cycled past Pirbright and onto Farnham a town that has decided to gives its centre over to cars 🙁 After Farnham hill I entered open country for the first time where I was hoping to find a country pub to stay in. Alas it wasn’t to happen, the pubs not closed down were either full or didn’t do b&b.

Finally after 11 hours on the road I arrived in Winchester to find the hotels full 🙁 eventually I homed in on the Westgate Pub and its last available, expensive, room but at least the bike has slept in the pub overnight!

Strava made it 88.6 miles and 2415 feet of ascent, or though it seemed a lot more ascent than that! You can find it here

 

Day 1 of bike ride at 25,249 days old

First tea stop at Ware
First tea stop at Ware

I finally set off from home at 12.34, according to Moves, on my latest bike ride heading towards Weymouth to get the ferry to Jersey and then St Malo. Hopefully getting to Ibiza and Morocco.

Todays ride ended at 18.10 at my daughter’s flat in London after a pretty exhausting 52 miles at 10.9mph. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to do the 600 yard swim first 🙁 plus the SW headwind didn’t help. The front gears on the Dawes Galaxy also aren’t shifting properly, apparently the mechanism isn’t suited to click shifts 🙁

Tomorrow it’s a ride through Central London emerging at Farnham, probably better than riding through Hertfordshire lanes with Chelsea Tractors being driven at high speed by mums collecting their little dears.

My Strava for the day is here

 

 

The next little ride.

Last time as Miss Jones

With Emily’s wedding, even though I say it myself, successfully completed last Saturday I’m now free to do a decent autumn ride  in this brilliant weather.

I’ve never been to Ibiza, which is very surprising given my love of trance music and equally I’ve never done the Channel Islands especially Jersey.

So I’m thinking of biking down to Weymouth catching the ferry to Jersey, circumnavigating the island then getting the ferry to St Malo. followed by biking down the West coast of France to the Pyrenees and over to Spain. Once in Spain I intend to cross over to the Mediterranean coast and  bike down to Denia to get the ferry to Ibiza. Sam reckons the clubs are still open so I could do an all nighter or two followed by a bike around the island.

If I’m still fit and have time I would love to bike onto Tarifa and get the ferry to Morocco and do a bit of biking along the Moroccan coast 🙂 returning on a flight to Stansted.

Nothing booked, of cause, except for staying with Emily on my way down to Weymouth.

The Dawes Galaxy is getting an overall at Kingsway bikes with the obligatory new cassette and chain before any ride.

Simon has welded up my accessory bracket that cunningly attaches to the Rixen Kaul bar bag.

To follow the links below befriend me on https://ridewithgps.com

The first part to Weymouth is here just over 200 miles and just over a mile of ascent.

From St Malo to the port of Denia the route is here just under a 1000 miles and well over 5 miles of climbing 🙂

Denia to the port of Tarifa for Morocco is another 500 miles and 4 miles of climbing.

Will be interesting to see how far I get especially as some days I struggle to get over Elizabeth Way bridge 🙁