Bournemouth 2 Weymouth

What a weekend! decided on another micro adventure but being me didn’t get up till 12 on Saturday. Changed direction this time and headed towards Swanage, with the weather looking good I thought I would risk it and not take water proofs… and you thought I had learnt my lesson after last time.

Left Bournemouth just as the air festival was getting in to full swing, I thought this would be a blessing as the road were shut to cars but the crowds proved just something else to swerve. Once i was out side Bournemouth life got a little bit easier, the traffic died and I was starting to enjoy my self. So much so that there was no que for the ferry to Swanage, leaving me to pay my 80p fare and jump right on board for the epic 2 minute journey.

The great thing about getting off the ferry at Swanage is you are immediately out in the country side, cycling along the Studland. Waiving at the nudists and praying the wind is on my side I headed up the coast towards Swanage. Now usually I would head all the way to Swanage and then skirt the coast but I knew i would need to keep as much gas in the tank as possible as I wanted to hit the Purbecks with all cylinders firing. So after two miles I took a left on to one of the many cycle tracks and headed for the the first of the big hills.

Near Lulworth

Once your on the Purbecks its pretty easy to follow the trail all along the ridge and before you know it you’re passing Corfe castle, Lulworth cove and Durdle door to name but a few. But beware! there are some pretty steep descents and you can be out of your comfort zone before you know it.

One of the most annoying parts of the trip was hitting the army restriction zone: walkers aloud, biker not! I chose to walk for about 10 meters then thought “what the hell” and got back on the bike. Luckily for me the army are on holiday until the 3rd of September ( not to sure how that works?)

After a lot, and I mean a hell of a lot of ups and downs you reach Weymouth via the costal path, this is about another 15 miles past Lulworth. I’m not entirely sure where the Perbeck way gives way to the coastal path but its pretty seamless.  The Sunset was amazing and Ive included one of my favorite pics over Weymoth bay.

I spent that night outside of Dorchester in a field, in the bivi bag… happy days, even if I was being watched by some rather suspect cows but then again I think all cows are suspect.

Sunday: Joy of joy wok up to great weather and managed to get out of the field before the farmer could catch me Took a totally different route home headed directly east for Wareham, after the previous day being 100% off road my legs were screaming at me. So I squeezed as much air into my tires and hit the road. I made the mistake off assuming there would be at least one village shop on the way home …. but there were none until Wareham. Bloody Tesco’s. From there it was just a case of finding my way around Poole harbor and the the home straight.

All in all a pretty successful trip. One thing I have learnt is that I need to keep my body hydrated and fed. By the time i got to Weymouth I hadnt eaten enough and was feeling pretty low. This is a mistake I definatly wont be making twice.

Near Lulworth

Above Weymouth

Whitenothe

Sunset towards Weymouth

A Micro Adventure

Its been a while since I did any type of camping and although I’ve been cycling for the the past few weeks I knew i needed to start getting more accustomed to sleeping outdoors. So after work on friday i packed my rucksack with a few essentials: Sleeping bag, Bivi bag, a good book and some cold pizza to keep me going! Initially I wasn’t 100% sure where i was going but the plan was to head toward Bristol and possibly even Wales.

On the fire trail

So at 6pm on Friday 14 I jumped on my bike and headed out on my first micro adventure. Pete my house mate had kindly lent me his Bivi bag and offered to ride with me along the first part of my journey. I knew secretly he would loved to of done it with me but he was sky diving on the Saturday and there was no way he was going to miss that! We headed out of Southbourne towards St Catherins Hill but unlike our usual evening trips there, we skirted the bottom rather than going up and over. We followed an old railway line cross country until we hit Hurn and from there headed around the south side of Hurn airport. From here we followed an old fire trail that ran along side Matchams road all the way to Ashley Heath.

I had originally kept my tire pressure quite low but after the first few miles it started to dawn on me that I needed speed and that the usual set up fro my day rides was just not going to cut it. When we reached three legged cross I waived goodbye to Pete and adjusted the tires so that hey were better suited to the conditions.

My day pack (a small north-face rucksack) was giving me no problems at all. I had thought that it would start rubbing against my skin or just be plain uncomfortable, as it was fully packed but  I had no problems at all with it.

After leaving Three legged cross I was heading directly North west on a road that would take me all the way to Shaftsbury. I passed by numerous small villages including Horton and Cashmoore.

The best part of the trip was the 45 minute climb past Tollard Royal as I entered Wiltshire to the top of the ridge on the B3081. The view up on the ridge was simply amazing. I wish I had been able to take a picture but the failing light meant that there was no way I would get anything worth looking at. I would recommend this route to  anyone. After the climb you are rewarded with a great drop in to Cann Common on some alpine style roads.

Accident!

It was now getting on for 10pm and I was debating whether to carry on or stop but the decision was made for me as I tried to head out of Cann Common. Id seen the blues and twos from some distance when I was on top of the ridge. Two cars had collided head on, luckily there were no fatality’s but it was pretty messy. If I had been 5 minutes earlier then…. well it doesn’t bear thinking about. Just one mile further down the road i came to Shaftsbury, where I discovered was the home of Golds Hill. If you remember growing up with an Hovis advert of a kid pushing a bike up a hill, that’s the hill!

After looking around for an hour or so I managed to find a Field just outside Shaftsbury where I set up camp for the night. All of which involved jumping in the bivi bag and falling asleep for the night. Just before I zipped the bag up  I took this long exposure shot looking into the valley below.

Lights of Gore Common

The next Morning I woke to the sound of rain and clouds, lots and lot of clouds. Having brought no water proofs or a change of clothing I had to head back. The return journey proved to be an adventure in it self.

I took a more direct southward route through the Tarrants, Wimbourne and Poole before heading along the coast past Bournemouth and eventually getting to Southbourne. A few places I would recommend along the way are Kingston Lacey House, The Vine @ Pamphill and following the old train line from Wimbourne to Poole.

It was 70miles in total and I completed it in less than 24hrs, hopefully I will be able to do a longer route over the coming bank holiday weekend though this time with waterproofs!

Planning equipment

I’m only just starting to realise the amount of planning that is going to be needed over the next few months. Having spent the last few days working out routes, i decided to do a bit of re-search on equipment. At first i was rather blase about what i would need and how easy it would be to carry it, but the more i look into it i realise there are quite a few important factors to be taken into consideration. One of which is balancing the cost V’s quality aspect. I have a feeling that at some point along the trip if i skimp on quality i will be silently cursing my self.

Ive spent the last day checking out a few of the larger products needed as well as a few of the small ones and come to a more finite on what i am looking for. The products listed below have been chosen for a mixture of reasons, these include:

reviews from previous long distance tourers

Quality – My tent, sleeping bag, waterproofs, panniers and cooking equipment will definitely be the big spends. These are things that you just cannot afford to skimp on.

Cost -  I will try to accumulate as much as possible through auctions such as eBay

Weight – It would be great if i can get sub 10kg for all my equipment

Comfort – Sometime the lightest or easiest to carry wont be the deciding factor. 15,000 miles is along way to regret not bringing something because you wanted to save a few pounds!

This is just the start of what i need to have:

Kit Description    Price     Weight (g)

Camping Gear
THERMAREST BASECAMP REGULAR SELF-INFLATING MATTRESS    £52.99    1250g
WhisperLite™ Internationale    £100.00    460g
terra nova voyager    £200.00    2000g
GELERT SILK SLEEPING BAG LINER    £25.00    100g
Trangia 27-2 Ultra-Lite Aluminium Stove with Spirit Burner    £40.00    860g
Marmot Wave 3 Reg    £80.00    1760g
Fire Steel Army     £13.00
First aid kit     £15.00

Altura Dryline 56 Rear Panniers/Ortlieb Backroller Classic Panniers    £80.00
dhb Earnley Padded Under Shorts    £13.00

The Middle east

So I’ve had a look at which routes to take through Central Asia, but after initially thinking that i would go via Turkey-Iran-Pakistan-India  ive  now decided a very different route.

My plan is to hit Turkey and then travel through Georgia to Azerbaijan. At present there is a little thing called a war going on between Russia and Georgia, though surprisingly you can still travel into Georgia without so much as a Visa for up to 90 days. After crossing into Azerbaijan from Georgia I’m going to head for a town called Baku. Baku sits on the western shore of the Caspian Sea where it is possible to get a ferry over to Turkmenistan. From Turkmenistan its a 900 mile journey to Uzbekistan, passing through some of the famous silk road cities such as Bukhara and then on to the Fergana Valley. Fergana valley  is the entry point in to Kyrgyzstan which in turn is the entry point into western China!

Yurtcamp near the Issyk-kul lake in Kyrgyzstan

Europe and Eurovelo

So i had heard that there were already European cycle routs, i didnt however realise just how vast they were.

“EuroVelo is made up of 12 routes, totalling over 66,000 km, of which about 45,000 km is already in place. The EuroVelo routes are made up of existing and planned cycle routes at regional and national level, selected according to published criteria (see the EuroVelo Guidelines for Implementation/ Route principles for further details). A signposting system for EuroVelo routes has been developed (see the Manual Signalization for EuroVelo routes for details).”

Of the 12 routes, i have dicovered that Eurovelo 6 passes through pretty much every Country i want to visit plus a couple of new ones!

Eurovelo 6

The great thingabout the Eurovelo cycle route is that it has to hit a certain criteria, and because of this there are certain things you can expect. For a route to be part of EuroVelo it must:

• have no gradient above 6%
• be wide enough for two cyclists
• have an average of no more than 1,000 motorised vehicles a day
• be sealed for 80% of its length
• be open 365 days a year, have provision points every 30 km (19 mi), accommodation every 50 km (31 mi), and public transport every 150 km

Planing a rough outline

So the first thing i need to do i start drawing out a rough guide for the rout i am going to take. Listed below is the begings of an idea.

Start:

Christchurch: Dorset-France-Switzerland-Austria-Germany-Czech Rep-Slovakia-Hungary-Romania-Bulgaria-Turkey-Georgia-Russia-Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan-China-India-Burma-Thailand-Malaysia-Indonesia-Australia-New Zealand

23 countries in total so far, but I’m sure along thing will change as i find out about visa’s along the way. I think the best thing to do next is find out about the visa’s. How long each country will permit me to stay there for and what type of visa i will need.

My first post

Well hi there! My names Joshua, and i hope this is the start of something great! I was advised by Alastair Humphreys (The best Adventure cyclist in the world) that this would be a great way to start my Dream. A dream i hear you say….. what could this be? Well, i plan to cycle to Christchurch in New Zealand some time in 2010, probably around august.

After reading The man who cycled the world, the auto biography by Mark Beaumont (http://www.pedallingaround.com) and also following Alastair’s amazing journeys around the world, some 50.000 miles. I think its now time for me to have a go.

The next year will involve more planning than i can possibly imagine at the moment. Bike, gear, route, Charity’s, and visa’s to name but a few.

I also hope that this will prove to be a good resource to improving my writing skills how ever much my dyslexia wants me not too and also a great way to preserve all the memories not just the trip but also the planning will involve.

Thanks for tuning in.

Joshua