56 Miler Part 1

I decided to take it easy this weekend, as I did a good distance last weekend, and wanted to give my body a bit of a break. Having said that, I was at a wedding on Friday afternoon, so I thought a quick 50 miler might be in order!

Once again the 2 G's (Google & Garmin) came up trumps, and I found a nice route of 56 miles down the A31 to Alton, then up to Hindhead and Haslemere and across to the A283 and back to Guildford.

I wasn't paying attention when I planned the route, and so didn't notice that I couldn't get off the A31 where I wanted to, and hence the route ended up being a bit longer than planned.

I'd promised Jules I'd be back by 10, and set off just before 7am. It was busy - Friday morning rush hour, but I made good time and was searching for the way off the A31 after an hour.

Then travelling from Borden to Hindhead I found a fantastic hill. It wasn't too steep, but it went on for about 5 miles. Must show it to Paul tomorrow!

By 9am I was in Haslemere and wondering how on earth I was going to get back to Guildford by 10am. I pushed on hard, and surprised myself when I got back in just after 10. 56 miles in about 3 hours 10 minutes!

Back to Chichester

John cycled down from Bishops Stortford to Guildford yesterday afternoon. He did really well, as it's 80+ miles and he was by himself.

He stayed with us on Friday night and then Paul joined us on Saturday so the three of us could cycle to Worthing via Chichester. John only wanted to go to Worthing where he was visiting family. I say "only", but Guildford to Worthing via Chichester is around 50 miles which is quite impressive the morning after an 80 mile bike ride the previous afternoon! Then Paul and I would head home, hopefully ending up between 90-100 miles.


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We set off around 6:45 after a breakfast and juice. We travelled down past CHASE and out towards Godalming then Haslemere. I dont recall cycling south on this road before. There were some great hills!! (although "great" wasn't a word I heard John using!). After 30 miles or so we stopped for 2nd breakfast at Singleton. I must have driven through it many times, but had never realised what a beautiful little village Singleton is.

I had Google'd a route into the Garmin around the back of Goodwood racecourse to avoid having to go through Chichester centre. Once again, I was really pleased with the Garmin under these circumstances. It was not an obvious route, and certainly not one that any of us had done before, but we found our way down to the A27 without incident. Then it was just a case of blasting along the A27 for 20 miles until we hit Worthing. This part of the trip was very quick due to the road being pretty flat.

At Worthing, about 1/2 mile from where we were dropping John off, we noticed Paul had a puncture. So we stopped and changed his tube and said farewell to John.

Paul and I were feeling great. 50 miles already, and we were doing fine. Just outside Worthing, coming up the A24, there is quite a long hill and we realised why we were feeling so good; the wind had been behind us on the way down!! It was tough going, and it took us pretty much the same amount of time to go 40 miles home as it did to go 50 miles down there! Although part of that was due to Paul getting another puncture, and us stopping to pump his tyre up a few times and eventually changing the tube again at Cranleigh.

When we eventually got home, I felt the best I've felt after a ride of that distance. Maybe I'll manage a ride tomorrow, although the weather forecast predicts snow.

Now we're getting somewhere!!

It's getting light earlier now, so we set off sharper today. Mad Paul still insists on cycling from his house to mine, so he ends up doing an extra 14 miles or so on me. I'd like to say he needs the extra training, but in fact the reverse is true; I'm sure I used to be fitter than he did. When did that happen? :-)

Anyhow, we set off at 8am with promises from the weathermen of rainshowers later in the morning. It seems that whatever the weathermen say is pretty much the most likely thing not to happen. So it was today. The rain never materialised, although it was a bit blustery. Largely the same route as last weekend via Haslemere, but with an extra 10 miles added at the southern end. 55 miles!!!!! Feeling good now. 50 miles was a mental objective for me. Better think of another one now. And that blummin hill at Hindhead felt a lot better today.

Ciaran, having told Simon we were starting at 8, woke up at 8 for an 8:30 start. So we set off without him and he promised to catch us up. We took a slight detour 8 miles in at Cranleigh, and it must have been at that point that Ciaran caught up and overtook us. I'm obviously not taking any pleasure thinking of him pushing himself for 50 miles trying to catch us up, but he got home about 30 minutes before we did!!!

Going for another ride tommorrow morning. Will be interesting to see how my bum feels...

40 miler!

Ciarán, Simon and I set out for a longer ride this morning. The weather was better than it was supposed to be according to the weathermen, but nonetheless quite blustery which made the going a bit tough at times.

We set out in a similar direction to my 35 mile route, but continued on into Bramley, then Chiddingfold, Haslemere, Hindhead then up to the Hogs Back back to Guildford. It was a good ride, with a particularly horrible hill out of Hindhead right on through Haslemere. According to my Garmin, we went from 200 ft to 850 ft. I need to work on my ascents - but I'm definitely getting better the more I do. The best thing was coming down the hill the other side - we hit 35 mph at one point.

I'm still not quite used to the distance you can achieve on a road-bike. I can't believe I cycled to Haslemere today....