A new hobby is Dot Watching we are into the second week of the India Pacific Wheel Race - an unsupported ultra endurance cycle race of 5500 km's in Australia. It is the inaugural year of this race and they seem to have got the social media interaction well sorted. Each competitor has a spot tracker on their rig, which allows them to be tracked in real time. So you can follow individual riders and watch their strategies unfold on how to cope with great distance they have to cycle against getting sleep/food along the way.
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The selection of saddles i have seem not to be getting on with my behind any more, especially after a couple of hours into a ride. So we have procure a Selle San Marco Elba Bioaktive saddle - which is much more of a touring saddle, and in comparison to the saddles i have been using looks like a sofa on the seat post. Fortunately it also feels like a sofa when riding so initial indications are good. This morning's ride out was to Redrice, off road to Kentboro and back home via Grately, Quarley, Amport, Monxton and Anna Valley. Interestingly enough looking a my Strava results, even though the FS 29er feels sluggish we are going faster than we did on the Gravel bike, especially on the byways.
Andover is an meeting place for two Roman Roads, the Portway and the Icknield Way (Street). These old Roman roads meet in East Anton have given some of the roads their names in the area. Following on from the last ride out to Hampshire gate, I decided my route should follow the Icknield way as closely as possible up to the Hampshire gate at Conholt. This meant we started on the aptly named Ickneild way road and this joined the Hungerford lane which follows the Roman roads course with no real derivations from the original course, straight as an arrow until it gets to the Chutes causeway. So it was a mixture of bridleway, country lane and single track.
As the weather has been improving I had moved back to the Cube Sting 29er, which meant swapping wheels and tyres over. Considering it has been sitting in the garage over winter it had no issues on this first outing, gears and brakes worked with no issues. It was rather strange moving back on the full suspension mountain bike, as it felt heavy and sluggish. Strangely enough due to their being no real difference in gearing between the Cube and the Mango Point AR my speed wasn't much different. I guess this is many due to me having a natural cadence i fall into and generally cycling alone means i'm not paced by anyone else. So 30km's ride which proved to be very much - constant climbing on the way out to the "Hampshire Gate" at Conholt via Tangley and sweeping descent back down to Clanville, Abbots Ann and home. Again it was a warm day, we had forgone a jacket and was only wearing a jersey and base layer over the bid tights. Again we got rather warm on the way up, time me thinks to break out the shorts for the rest of year.
Warm and murky, not the greatest combination when it comes to laying up for the ride. So in part we ended up taking off my hardshell for some of the ride, and riding just in my merino wool baselayer, but as the elevation grew we ended up cycling in low hanging cloud and the baselayer especially on the arms got saturated with moisture. So back on went the hardshell, off came the gloves and cap to provide some ventilation.
The actual ride was a mixed bag again, north and west of Andover. Cycled to Charlton and planned to take the byway at the end of the playing fields to Penton Garton, but it was closed for tree felling, so ended up going a little out of our way. So from Penton Garton we took as series of small quiet country lanes to Lower Chute, and then we made our way back towards Andover on the Hungerford lane which follows the course of a Roman road, and is made up of country lane and bridleway to Charlton Down, more country lanes back to Penton Graton and then onto Weyhill, Thruxton under the A303 to Amport and then back via Anna Fields and Valley to home. There was a lot of mud on some of the smaller lanes which made the descent back towards Andover some what interesting, but we had not mishaps, 33km up to Tangley and back via Thruxton and Amport. Pleasant enough effort around the small country lanes between Hatherden and the Chutes.
Windy ride out to Hatherden via Weyhill and back home via Charlton, 20km in total.
Repeat really of the previous 40km trip out to Broughton, Minor change to get to Palestine via a byway rather than Mount Carmel Road. Also stopped at Nether Wallop to look at the Phone Box library which is a common feature of the disused Phone Boxes in the villages around Andover.
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January 2023
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