I fully appreciate the blogs have been a little lacking over the late autumn / early winter, and this does reflect the lack of time, energy and drive for me to get out there on the bike. Lots I could blame for this situation, but blame gets you nowhere, and with a little time off over the Christmas period, and my lovely wife Jan working almost all the way through the festive holidays I took a couple of cheeky opportunities to dust off Red the bike and get back on the saddle!
For a few months I've been considering a cycle home from London, which I would look to combine with a catch up with both my daughters who live and work in the city. In my research I found (ok , google maps suggested) a reasonably cycle friendly route back from London via Winchester. Whilst I was really keen to get back on the bike with only my daily commute to and from the office taking place since the summer I wasn't really at any level of fitness to try and attempt a days worth of cycling home from London, not yet at least.
However the thought of cycling back from Winchester was a far more appealing thought; somewhere around 45 miles back to my house if I were to take the train, and something which would allow me to stretch the legs and take in a part of Hampshire I only really know from the M3....... so not really at all.
By the power of google maps I plotted out a route to take in lunch in Beaulieu (fuel of course!) , but I realised that by adding a few more miles I could achieve 50 miles rather than the more direct 45 miles or so. By adding a couple more locations to the route , the village of Kings Somborne via Sparsholt I could loop down towards Romsey and back through the south east part of the New Forest.
Route planned I proceeded to book a train ticket from Christchurch to Winchester (for less than £8, bargain!) and with a few snacks, water bottles filled and appropriate cycling gear I was ready to go.
My alarm was set to allow Jan and I to get up for her work timings, aka relatively early for my day off work, but in fairness we walked our dog Archie, had breakfast and Jan started work as I packed snacks and water on the bike and set off for the train station.
My arrival at the train station, our nearest is Hinton Admiral, (from what I understand a station built specifically to allow train access for the local land owners the Meyrick Estate) I was greeted by the station manager who very kindly offered me a chocolate from a box of Celebrations - how lovely!
She then offered chocs to the other people waiting on the platform as they arrived, and told us all at length about a website she recommended for following the progress of trains on this stretch of the railway. A few minutes later the train arrived with space for Red the bike and plenty of choices of seats for me.
We then trundled through the New Forest towards Southampton stopping at almost every minor station along the way before then stopping before Southampton itself for around five minutes (not quite sure why) before then waiting for a good twenty minutes once we'd arrived at Southampton station to add five more carriages to our train.
I was in no rush at all and only two stations later Red and I had arrived in Winchester where I loaded up Satnav and away I cycled roughly north westwards away from the station. After a short ride on relatively busy roads leading out of the city centre I soon found myself on a more minor road heading towards Sparsholt, home to an agricultural / horticultural college.
As I cycled away from Winchester the roads and surrounding landscape became very much out in the country rather than urban, including small amounts of vegetation in the middle of the road. After a short railway journey from home I was back cycling through countryside in south east Hampshire.
Climbing up the first of a few hills on the route I overtook (at relatively slow speed) another cyclist who appeared to be following the same sort of route as me. I took a short moment or two to check my Strava was working (Jan following on the Strava app as I rode.....) and my fellow cyclist overtook me, again at a relatively slow speed at the top of the hill.
Strava working I got back on my way, heading through the village of Sparsholt (very Miss Marple....without the murders, probably...) and I continued on the google route towards Kings Somborne. Ahead of me, within view was my fellow cyclist who appeared to be moving from a tarmac surface, with vegetation down the middle, to a surface with very little visible tarmac. The tell tale sign was the two horse riders coming towards me with very little hoof related noise!
I rolled downhill from Sparsholt village and found that the route had not simply become a little more rural / unused, but had in fact become a bridleway ! As I continued onwards the route became very much a series of very muddy ruts, making my progress virtually walking pace. In between my earlier overtaking of my fellow cyclist we had both also overtaken a runner using the same path, and as my progress slowed to a very slow cycle / walk in very slippy muddy conditions the jogger overtook me again!
A slow start to my ride, impacted by conditions underfoot / under my tyres and in race terms I was now third behind the cyclist and the jogger! However as I got to the top of the next bridleway hill I was pleased to see the return of a tarmac country road and for the next few miles I managed to overtake the jogger and take in some beautiful vineyards along the way.
I should also have mentioned that whilst the December weather on the day of my cycling adventure was dry with occasional showers was accompanied by what felt like gale force winds from the west. As I rode through the first few miles of the ride I was very much riding into what I could politely describe as a lovely head wind*
( * it was making things very hard work!!!)
King Somborne however is a beautiful village, with what appeared to be a chalk stream, maybe a "winter bourne" (a seasonal stream also found in parts of East Dorset I cycle in) and with a little more shelter this also felt very much another Miss Marple village, beautiful flint fronted houses , pubs etc on either side of the main village street alongside the stream.
As I continued on towards Romsey I saw a really lovely recently renovated large watermill just before I turned off the road onto the Test Way Permissive Bridleway..... which appeared to be a disused railway line (excellent, flat cycling) More clues to the history of this route were the old fashioned signals, railway carriage and disused station at the beginning of the Test Way. Even now a few weeks later I'm not sure what was permitted on this bridleway...... I was only there for the cycling.
Whilst occasionally a little damp the Test Way was excellent, running alongside what I assume was the River Test running roughly parallel to the A3057 towards Romsey which I did have to join after a few miles of flat traffic free permissive bridleway, but even this was on a separate cycle footpath meaning as I got closer to Romsey I had been on very little road and probably only seen a handful of cars, a near perfect cycling route (thanks google / SatNav....).
As I got closer to Romsey satnav directed me away from the main road onto more minor roads, followed by a very muddy road and onto what appeared to be a river / canal side path. With the exception of a small number of Romsey residents this tow path made for excellent, flat cycling and within another mile I found myself right in the middle of Romsey!
Back on a main road for a short distance I encountered lots of people driving into Romsey, but the traffic was at a standstill so I was able to make my way around the queue of cars onwards through the Waitrose car park and on through towards Southampton.
The Waitrose car park was very busy, on the last Friday before Christmas everyone appeared to be waiting in their car waiting to park and to do their Christmas food shop. Meanwhile I was avoiding any food shopping related stress, cycling my way carefully through the centre of Romsey being directed back out towards Southampton.
My next road courtesy of satnav appeared to be a fairly major road between Romsey and Southampton, with lots of traffic, but for the most part respectful of this cyclist. Once again however satnav guided me off this road and back onto far more minor roads heading south. Away from Waitrose and the centre of Romsey I hardly saw another vehicle for a number of miles, in part because I was directed onto what turned out to be a very damp, muddy footpath which clearly wasn't designed for any vehicles, not even a bike!
The first few minutes on this footpath appeared to be flooded, and my progress was careful not quite knowing the depth of the water......but a wooden boardwalk came to my rescue followed by a slightly drier footpath. Whilst I was confident prior to the ride that the google route / satnav was going to guide me home, paths like this and the far earlier bridleway north of Winchester made sure I was careful on the bike and slightly nervous of the remaining route home.
The footpath came to an end with a handy not very bike friendly style over which I needed to lift Red the bike. Once back on the ground I was presented with my own railway crossing with its own traffic lights. A first in all my previous cycling adventures and who doesn't like a railway crossing with health and safety provision?
With the lights on green for me I opened the railway crossing gates, crossed both tracks looking left and right, listening for the arrival of any trains, and I safely crossed to the other side of the tracks. Through one more set of gates I found myself on a road which continued alongside the railway towards Totton, and after a few twists and turns I found myself on yet another cycle path heading towards the New Forest.
Probably because everyone else was stuck in the Waitrose car park in Romsey, the traffic as I headed towards Beaulieu was relatively light, which was lucky because the next few miles involved cycling on the main road towards Fawley......this I am sure would be a really busy and potentially dangerous cycle route on any other day of the year...... but I proceeded to cycle southwards now focussed solely on lunch in Beaulieu.
The closer I got to my planned lunchtime stop the stronger the headwinds became, or at least that's how it felt..... I might simply have been a little low on energy having been on the bike for around 3 hours at this point, give or take a short snack stop or two.
However as I pulled into the destination for lunch, the excellent Fairweather's garden centre on the High Street in Beaulieu I discovered that I wasn't the only one with lunch at Fairweather's in their plans! The restaurant was full, a large Christmas party booking and lots of other people enjoying the excellent home cooked lunch menu. As Jan kindly pointed out later I was more than a little naive to expect to be the only one thinking of lunch at this garden centre.....and as always she was correct.
A plucky spirit and a flexible attitude towards eating my lunch outside, undercover with a heater for company helped me out in my hour of nutritional need, and an excellent toasted sarnie and coffee was soon being consumed. Once refuelled I was soon back on the bike on a really familiar route towards Bucklers Hard and on towards Lymington on the back roads.
With the exception of the headwind which continued to be an annoyance I continued problem free all the way back to Lymington, stopping at the train crossing, and then cycled the remaining 11 miles or so once again on the minor back roads of south west Hampshire towards my home.
52.66 miles of cycling fun came to an end as I arrived home. Red the bike showed the muddy scars of the various off road sections of the route, but I had enjoyed a really lovely cycle avoiding too much pre-Christmas food shopping stress, seeing parts of Hampshire and the New Forest for the first time.
Would I have any more time for a cycle ride before the end of 2023 to top up the years mileage total ? You'll have to wait for the next blog to see what I might have been able to achieve......