The Bikes of Spring Day 2

Stoford to Ogbourne St. George, April 5, 2009

Miracles will happen! We planned on an early start for Sunday, and we got it! Thanks to Steve for suggesting an earlier breakfast for us. Not having loads of beer helps as well. We set off from Stoford for the return leg to Ogbourne with the sun on our faces and the wind at our backs.

We followed the Wylye River upstream for some distance through picturesque villages and quiet lanes. After a sharpish hill climb we hooked back up with the Salisbury Plain. We knew we were there by the distant sound of artillery. We quickly made tracks as the terrain was not as bad as we had envisaged. By the time we made our first coffee stop we had covered nearly 1/3 of our daily route.

Our next climb was Alton/Knap hill where we viewed a white horse and an iron-age hill fort. This was big climb for us, one of the longest of the day. The gradient wasn’t too bad so we went low in the gears and ground our way to the top. All three of us made it without much difficulty. Steve and I were reminiscing as we had passed this way on our Lowestoft to Land’s End ride in 2008. Once on top, it was a very fast ride into Lockeridge where we celebrated our speed with baguettes and pints. Unfortunately the sun put its hat on for the rest of the day and we had to cycle in mostly cloudy and cool conditions, at least it wasn’t raining.

At this point we decided to alter course to avoid some A-road hell. We picked our way through Marlborough to the A4 and cut off to the nearest side road. We aimed for Ogbourne by using some of the lanes we had headed out on the day before. There were some heavy climbs to be found here. At one point we all looked ready to bonk after a particularly long hard climb. We had a quick stop and finished off our obligatory bag of wine gums. The last few hills were pretty tough as we were all just about out of glycogen.

The best part about the finish was that we got to go down the 17% hill we started on the day before. It was a scary ride down. We all held onto the brakes until we could see it was clear. Once clear we opened the taps and let fly. We all managed a top speed over 40 mph, scary enough for us old farts!

We glided into Ogbourne to find the pub closed. With nothing else to do we packed up and made our way home. Thanks to Mark (King of hills and maps) for organising this great ride.

Chuck