Set out at 8:45am, laden with two packets of oat cookies, a few Tracker bars, two Kendal Mint cakes, a bunch of bananas, and two bottles of diluted apple & mango juice. I tend not to eat "properly" on long rides, I normally just munch on energy foods (stored conveniently in a handlebar bag) to keep me going and have a good meal at the end. (I did have a couple of sandwiches on the Dunwich Dynamo but couldn't be arsed to make any this time) Eat before you get hungry, drink before you get thirsty.

I think I got the food levels about right this time - rather than buy a ton of shit that just weighed me down and I ended up not eating, I got through most of this lot. I don't think my energy levels were as good as on the Dynamo though - I didn't get to that point where I started tearing up hills. Which is a shame cause that was fun.

Navigation

Unlike the other long-ish rides I've done, this was unorganised so I was on my own with regard to navigation. These days I'm using pages pulled from a Philips' road atlas - which has all the minor roads, names of farms, etc. No contours, but does indicate extremely steep hills, high points, etc. And there's always common sense, e.g. following river valleys. But I will be very happy the day I can buy an sufficiently-detailed atlas of the entire country with contour lines. OS Explorers are impractical/expensive when you're doing any kind of distance.

I'd also written out a list of towns / villages beforehand - so I could focus on "where I should be next" rather than which exact roads I should be following. Variable levels of success with this method - it's better than my old navigation method of tracing out the exact route over the map - spent far too much time staring at the map. However, it's not easy to tell from looking at the map, what the people who put up signposts actually considered important. And it would probably help to note down road numbers too.

Navigation did fail once or twice - once near Hursley and ended up accidentally passing through the IBM campus there - lovely big manor house in the middle of nowhere. Other time was just south of Salisbury. I'd planned a certain route across the Wilts. Downs (following a river) but needed to get across the River Avon (see map).  Had been aiming for the little crossing at Alderbury but spent about half an hour pedalling up and down unable to find it. Ended up having to take the big roads around the edge of Salisbury.

All this was right after I'd spoken to my mum on the phone and she'd told me I had to be there for 7:30 "otherwise we can't go out for dinner" amid various offers to come and pick me up.

Hills

Couple of nasties - one 14% outside East Worldham (just down the road) - not that long but had to stop half way up to eat cookies. And a 12% coming off the Wilts. Downs into Ludwell. I'm ashamed to say I ended up getting off and walking that one - my legs were bloody tired.

So I made it to dinner in the end - arrived at 7:15, with enough time to take a shower, get changed and peel the layer of sweaty road grime off my face.

How the plan fell apart

Nearly forgot about this part. The plan was to stay a couple of days with my parents, then ride to my grandparents' in Dorchester, stay there a night and then spend the following day riding around Purbeck, probably going on to see some relatives in Poole as well before catching the train home in the evening.

It all fell apart when I arrived to discover my sister, who had been in Zambia since January and had been meant to arrive the same day I did, had been held up in Lusaka by the BA strikes. Half the point of the trip had been to see her, so I decided to wait. She ended up arriving on Wednesday, three days late, by which time I'd planned on being in Dorchester. And all four of us (me and the siblings) ended up wanting to go to Dorchester. So the four of us and the bike ended up bundling in the car on Thursday and heading down there for lunch. (driven by my 20-year-old sister, who to date is the only one of the four of us who can drive... and only one of us is too young). By then, it was time to get home and feed the dgym - so I got the train home from Dorchester.

Big bunch of roses on the table when I got back - hmmm, maybe I should go away more often :)

Photographs

I wish I'd taken more. After my mum called, I was in a rush so didn't get a chance to stop and take pictures. But I managed a few. And a few more while there. Including the silly pigeon, although I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of him upside down.

Other pics here too. Various stuff, and I want to get some of my older piccies up there too.