Father's Day ride

Sadly I lost my Dad when I was young, but I've got great memories of him taking me down to his house in East Wittering, on the coast near Chichester, for exciting action packed weekends of fun.

One of my favourite memories was the journey down there, it was 30 something years ago, so we're talking Mk1 Ford Fiesta or a Mk2 Ford Escort for the hour and a half journey. I loved the route and have always followed the same roads even though they've now upgraded and moved the A3 to bypass the small towns.

The route went from Weybridge to Cobham, onto the A3 to Guildford, then I remember Wormley, Petworth, Chiddingfold, Northchapel... Many more, each place has a memory of a story my Dad told me or something funny he would always point out along the way. 

There was a fallen tree which looked like a crocodile, or the Singleton Open Air Museum where he'd taken me, the Little Chef just past Guildford where we'd often stop to eat or the old egg vending machine in Birdham that always made me laugh. So many visual reminders of quality time spent just me and him. I must have gone up and down those roads every other weekend from the age of 3 to the age of 10.

It was always in my mind as a target to ride there on my bike, and I did it last year along the old route, as much as I could. I had to use another route to Guildford because the A3 is just too dangerous for bikes but the rest faithfully followed my Dad's route. 183 kilometres filled with emotions.

I stopped a few times on the journey to eat and drink and it was on the way back that I got two stern warnings from the cafe owners about the danger of cycling the road I was currently on.
I got another reminder of the road dangers on the old A3 the day before I planned to go down this year and I decided to change my route.

I felt like I have done it by bike now and although it will always be the way I drive down, a safer route was a good idea.

Got onto Strava on Saturday night and punched in my destination. What came up was a bit of a surprise, a round trip distance of 200km! This was a real bonus as it would be the longest ride I'd ever done, previously being 184km on Edinburgh to Carlisle, the first day of cycling home from Edinburgh, then 183km on last year's trip to my Dad's old house.
A new record was a good focus for the new route :)

Sunday.
A slightly later than planned start and I left the house at just after 8am. Weather was forecast to be cloudy but not cold and a 15mph Westerly breeze that wouldn't affect my ride.

I booked a table for Father's Day dinner with my two, Lana and Reece, and Lana's boyfriend Tom at 7pm so I had the day to myself without responsibility. It was also Lana's birthday, so was really looking forward to it.

I have to say, once again, that Strava does a fantastic job at creating great cycling routes. I think I saw less that 10 cars on the roads it took me on for the first hour or two.

My bike pump had puffed it's last pump a few weeks ago so when I saw a guy in Cobham pumping up his tyres at the SWRC cycle club meet point, I asked him if I could borrow it and do mine. As is common with cyclists he was only too willing to help and I was back on the road.

I stopped at a cafe after about 30 miles for some breakfast at Wisborough Green and watched a bit of cricket on the Green opposite the Old Mill Cafe. Food was good but took half an hour to make my sausage and egg ciabatta. I needed to get cracking to warm up again once I'd finished.

While I was at the cafe quite a few cylists went past and nodded or smiled to say hello. One of them I caught up with a few miles later. A guy called Edam who was cyling from Sutton to Chichester via his Strava route.
We rode together for quite a few miles until he was near his destination.

The one thing that you do get with following a Strava route that are the popular cycling routes are hills. At 20 miles into the route I had gone over a hill that I would see again at about 100 miles on my way back. The descent on the way out was treacherously steep and about 2 miles long! This stuck in my mind as the big challenge for the way back.

The sun came out and I got to Bracklesham Bay at about 1pm. Went straight to the beach and watched the sea for a while before riding round to look at my Dad's old place a couple of hundred yards down the road.
I didn't stop long this time and just refilled my water at the local shop before heading homeward to get back for dinner.

Bit of traffic as people were starting to leave the lovely sandy beach a few miles down the road at West Wittering but once clear of that I was well on my way.

The route went past Goodwood where they were setting up for the Festival of Speed, a fantastic celebration of cars and all things fast that I must go back to again soon.

I stopped at another Mill for tea and carrot cake just after I crossed the South Downs hill range. I forgot the name but if I ever remember it then they were really lovely people there! A guy came to chat to me about his club who race closed circuit cyling at Goodwood every week and temped me to look it up for an evening visit.

I got back to the hill I'd been anticipating all day and had a couple of energy gels just before the road started kicking up. Dragged my sorry body over it and nearly at the top I was passed by another cyclist for the first time all day!

On the other side I stopped for a good stretch by a tempting country pub.

Carried on a bit and checked my time and distance left. Stopped in Shere and rang the restaurant to put the time back by half an hour. 15 flattish miles left and a quick shower and I should be there for 7.30.

One mile later and Strava had my at the bottom of the hill at Coombe Lane! This wasn't on my radar and I was looking forward to an easy flat ride back! Tried to find a detour but my brain was low on sugar and google maps said my phone was low on signal strength. Gave in and headed straight over it. Wasn't quite as bad as I'd remembered, maybe in comparison to what I'd done that day it was just another bump.

Glad to get home but I felt like I had some more in my legs had I needed it.

All in all an epic day's cycling, an emotionally charged ride full of happy memories with only a tinge of the usual sadness on this trip.

Turned out to be 204 kilometers, 127 miles with just over 2000 metres of climbing. Very pleased with that acheivement, I don't expect to break that record for quite some time.

Strava link to my ride.

Birthday and Father's Day curry was good, we were all stuffed at the end. My kids were good to me and I got some fun cycling stuff to read. Also when I got home there was a present of a brand new cycle pump!

On today's trip I also used a spot tracker application to upload my current position every 15 minutes, so I can be tracked in real time via a website. This is something I'll use on the John O'Groats to Land's End trip so people can see where we've got to.

Here's the link 

As a side note I'd planned the route in two parts, there, and back. When I told my Garmin 310xt to do the second route it promptly reset my mileage to zero, which made my heart skip a beat! It had, however saved the first half of my trip and I found an online utility to stick the two halves together to reflect the correct total days cycling. To not have my overall mileage on record would have been unthinkable!!!!
Here's the utility from a guy called Brian.... link