Whoops - took a while in coming. This ride was from Saturday 27th July:
Well, where to start!
This was a great day and make no mistake. It wasn't the fastest round the island trip you'll ever hear about but it was a lot
fun!
To start with I'll introduce everyone to make things easier. There was:
Me - riding Bianchi road bike
James - riding generic road bike
Matt - riding borrowed Raliegh road bike after his nice Scott bike got stolen
Nathan - riding Boardman hybrid
Dan - riding a MTB(!)
We all met (minus Matt) at James' house at 7am on the Saturday to head down to Gosport and get the ferry across to Portsmouth harbour. We cycled down the new bus/bike lane which is 3miles of glorious traffic free, smooth tarmac. Then through some estates before entering Gosport. We managed to catch the 7:30 ferry and got over to Portsmouth Harbour with plenty of time to spare...
...which was lucky because it turned out Matt had gone to the wrong ferry terminal! Doh! He'd ended up at the car ferry which was just round the harbour - but he got to the right place in time to catch the boat.
The boat was full of cyclists - at least 5 groups of cyclists who were all apparently heading off to circumnavigate the Jewell in the solent.
We got off the Cat & headed down Ryde pier to start out day-long tour. Straight away we were a bit surprised with the steepness of the hills, nothing like pan-flat Lincolnshire! There were a couple of drags which we were a bit too eager on but kept a good pace to start with. We were a bit at odds with the directions on my Garmin and the 'official bike path' but for the most part they agreed with each other.
Before long we came to the first, and probably hardest big hill of the day. It was going out of Ventnor I think and it was a twisty hill with lots of tree cover and hard to see where the climb might end. I led the climb the whole way up with James stopping to let Matt & Nathan catch up and Dan & myself plowing on, too afraid to stop that I might not be able to start again!
When we finally reached the top I felt a good sense of achievement. It was the first major hill I've probably ever climbed, so I was pleased with myself and especially pleased with the view out the south of the Island and to the sea.
When we were waiting for our two stragglers 3 older-ish guys came up the hill and proceeded to stop for their 4th man. This guy turned out to be in his 40s, massively overweight and wearing the Giro d'Italia's leaders jersey (at least an XXXL - full kit wanker anyone?!) but give the guy his due he pedalled up the whole climb which should have thoroughly embarrased my two young and sprightly friends. Those chaps then headed off whilst one of our bikes had a slight mechanical.
A little while later and we were headed through a small town, myself leading when I looked back and no-one was following me. I turned round expecting them to be gathered around a flat tyre when I saw Dan & Matt on the floor! It turns out some guy in a KA overtook them and immediately turned left into a side road with the result Matt & Dan both hitting the deck and one of them taking off the guys wingmirror. Did he stop though? Did he heck! Just drove off and no-one could get a number plate. Luckily both guys were more or less okay and even better news - the bikes were fine too.
The next slight hiccough we had was going down a descent which had a right turn junction, then a left bend with a left turning before the road went round to the right. This was a bit confusing and I lead us all left into a small village which was in a bit of a valley! After being a bit confused we cycled up the hill (28%!) and out the other side of the valley, to repeat the small section we'd just done and go the correct way this time!
All this time we were waiting for 'the big climb'. I'd spoken to Tim Wiggins who said he thought the Black Gang Chine hill was the highest and hardest on the Island so we were all waiting for this climb to come and to be over with.
Eventually we did hit the climb out of Chale and it really wasn't that bad. It was 6-8% for a mile or so but it was a straight line so you could see the top which defiantly helped psychologically. I saw in 2nd wheel for at least half the hill before Matt blew up and had to stop (I did ask him if he wanted me to sit on the front..) but I pushed on to the top and had a quick rest whilst Matt caught up with us. I think this hill may have been harder going the other way but I may never know..
We were then on Military Road which is dead straight, mostly flat, newly resurfaced with low volumes of traffic. So pretty nice. We zoomed down this stretch of road for 11miles at 18mph and made really good progress. We could soon see the Needles in the distance and decided we'd head round the bay to Freshwater for lunch - almost exactly half way round the Island.
After a semi-technical decent and climb over a cliff into Freshwater Bay I spotted a cafe with an outside garden which looked just perfect to stop at.
When we got to the chosen café the guys from before were just finishing up their lunch. It was nice to see they were struggling a bit but were also feeling fresh after the break. The lady behind the counter was kind enough to fill up all our water bottles (James was insistent that one would be enough for the whole day... he was wrong!)
I ordered a scone with jam & also a chocolate milkshake for my lunch. Which I proceeded to spill all over the tray, my shorts, my socks, the floor and my scone :-(
This meant I had a chocolate-y scone and had to go and buy another milkshake! Not ideal but I was hungry so just ate it anyway.
The last 25miles or so were fairly steady, uneventful and thankfully flat. There was a small issue with Nathan's bike where the chain wouldn't stay in the top gear and would just fall off and we had a period of time where we were stopping every minute or so to put it back on. Eventually James got it sorted at the cost of his clean hands and we went into north Newport before heading up to West Cowes. We got to the chain ferry which I was surprised to find out was free to pedestrians & cyclists (Good guy operator) and we got off the ferry within 7 miles of Ryde.
Unfortunately for those who weren't quite as fit there were 4 largeish hills left to go over before we completed our ride. The last miles were a bit stop and start due to being tired/others walking but we eventually made it to the most important place on the Island ride... the pub! We saw the same guys from before in the pub who told us none of them walked all day which is an important lesson for Matt to learn ;)
Our final stats were 63.9miles in 04:28:48 of moving time. Averaging 14.3mph which isn't blisteringly quick but very steady.
We caught the next Caterman back to Portsmouth and cycled home along the gloriously flat bus route.
Overall we had a great day, the longest I've ridden in a long time (82miles including to & from the ferry) and I'm actually glad that we had to stop quite a few times because it meant I got a sneaky rest whilst waiting to be caught up!
Hopefully we'll do a similar thing next year with slightly higher levels of fitness and without spilling my lunch!
Big thanks to the 4 guys who cycled it with me - wouldn't have been anywhere near as much fun without you.
Link to the Strava ride:
http://www.strava.com/activities/70214429#
