Meeting Points

Meet at Bromley South Station Forecourt 07:45 for the 08:00 train to Victoria - arriving Victoria 08:26

We then get the 08:49 to Clapham Junction arriving 08:56  and we then board the 09:08 train to Petersfield - arriving 10:32

Buy return tickets to Petersfield

Obviously you can join us at Victoria or Clapham Junction or indeed at Petersfield Station itself.

The Ride

Today's ride is in East Hampshire ...new territory for Bromley Cyclists ...almost all on lanes . It will be fairly hilly throughout the 39 miles of the ride save for the last 3 miles where we drop 500 ft in 3 miles ....the total ascent and descent being 2810 ft .

The ride's route takes us South to Buriton ..then West to East Meon : http://www.hants.gov.uk/parish/east-meon/          then through Combe and North to West Meon : http://www.westmeon.org.uk/ then further  North to Hinton Ampner : http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-hintonampnergarden          ...before we continue to the village of Cheriton scene of one the English Civil Wars battles : http://www.battleofcheriton.co.uk/
 I intend to pass by the memorial stone and try and get an idea of how the opposing armies were deployed ..depending on how much we can see from our chosen route .

After Cheriton we will mostly be heading in an Easterly direction and will pass by the preserved Steam railway called the Watercress Line at Ropley  :  http://www.watercressline.co.uk/ 

Then onward down straight lanes to Colemore Common and back into Petersfield and our train home

The lunch stop will be in a pub somewhere along the route - I will research the possibilities

My email details are : kayacan@aol.com

My mobile number is 07717 693 701

Report

5 of us arrived at Petersfield – Captain Andrew, Gabriel, Jo, Katie and Trevor for a 37 mile pootle around Hampshire. The forecast did not look good, and sure enough about 20 minutes into the ride it started raining. But did that stop us? Of course not! The weather was so mild that it did not really affect us for much of the ride. As Andrew promised there was some nice uphills but also some beautiful descends, the roads of Hampshire being very wide so that it was possible to just break free and fly down them. Spring and nature were in abundance, the lambing season was in full swing and ducklings and geese were gleefully crossing the roads.

Our lunch stop was at Cheriton, where a very famous civil war battle took place and one of the characters was called Sir Henry Bard. He was a very ‘bard’ man, in that through his recklessness and folly was overwhelmed by the Parliamentarians, and so set Old King Charlie on the downbeat for the rest of the year.

Anyway, back to the ride. We had already done a good 24 miles or thereabouts, but there were some further clambering to be done, as well as being promised an awesome downhill. It was decided early into the second part of the ride to cut 3 miles out of the route, but a few miles later there were 3 hills in succession, which I happily (!) ground my way up. 3 miles further and we were rewarded with probably the most exciting descent that I think the group has ever done, on and on the bends continued and we rushed through the mist and gawped at the sheer drop to the side. And so we arrived back in Petersfield; Jo and I decided to take the train whilst the 3 gallant men went for beer and curry.

Many thanks to Captain Andrew for a wild and wet (and sadistically) enjoyable ride around Hampshire.

Katie Collis