Last week, I posted an article reminiscing about my first ride abroad in Lanzarote, a post inspired by a series of rides I’d recently ridden on Rouvy. By sheer coincidence, this week Graeme and I met up to repeat our first ever mini-tour, a circuit around Dorset that we first rode with friends back in April 2013.
This was, in fact, only a couple of months after that ride in Lanzarote. I’m not sure where the idea of the cycling tour came from, but I’ve always been the uber-organiser and by this point the cricket club I founded had already done a series of tours, so perhaps a cycling tour was just a natural progression. Anyway, I put together a route for us, starting and finishing at Dorchester and covering less than 150km and 1400m of climbing over two days. How times have changed!
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Saturday, then, was an early start, up and out of the door by 6.15 for the drive up to Dorchester to meet Graeme, who lives equidistant from Dorchester but in the opposite direction. We hadn’t met or spoken since getting back from Nice but had somehow managed to smuggle a day of riding onto the calendar between end of term and family holidays. The day began with an exchange of gifts, as I presented Graeme with a canvas photo and hand-made certificate (from my youngest) commemorating his achievement in completing Paris-Nice, which I exchanged for a pastry and optional headset bearings. Then we were off, more or less recreating the ride of 2013.
The road out of town quickly led us onto a good cycle route past Maiden Castle, which ended in a steep gravelly slope in 2013 that had thankfully now been paved. Then it was straight on to the first climb of the day, the short but interesting Hardy Monument, with a variety of gradients and a really steep bit right at the top. The views today were excellent, and we could see right down to the tip of Portland, the route laid out perfectly before us. It was only 9am and we’d already reached the highest point of the day. We carried on down through the villages of Littlebredy and Long Bredy before arriving at the coast at Burton Bradstock, sadly too early for a pint at the Seven Horseshoes. After a bit of rolling along the coast we soon came to the biggest climb of the day, over to the top of Abbotsbury Hill. It’s another interesting one that you climb in sections, after the first steep bit there is a drop-off and descent before it climbs again at about 8% to the top. The traffic was pretty busy on a Saturday morning in the school holidays, and I tried to stay close to make sure we were overtaken in one manoeuvre rather than two. It was hard to relax because if I gave Graeme a few metres the gap would inevitably be filled with a car, so for once it just made good safety sense to stick together.
Before long we were at the top and enjoying the views from the lay-by to the east of the summit. We stopped for a brew in Abbotsbury, then found a quiet coastal road/bridlepath that wound its way down the Fleet to Chickerell, and then across the beach that connects Portland to Dorset. We got a bit lost following the GPS around the one-way system and ended up walking the first part of the climb against the traffic, then rejoined the route at the top and enjoyed yet more amazing views back down the Fleet to where we’d come from. Dorset at its best really is wonderful.
We then span round Portland itself, feeling the wind that seems ever-present on this Channel outpost, stopping briefly for a ropey pint at the Pulpit Inn. The Pulpit was our first control at 59km; we’d taken around 3.5 hours to get there which wasn’t too bad considering we’d done most of the climbing. In 2013, we stopped at the now-closed Portland Youth Hostel on the way back; I remember Graeme and I walked down to the local Spar to get snacks and found everyone else was in their bunks and having a nap at 5pm! Today we had a lot more to go. We followed the flat section through Weymouth, missing the ‘no cycling between 10.30 and 4’ signs on the prom and getting muttered at by a few locals before we realised, and then we were off back into the countryside again, going up Coombe Valley and east towards Lulworth through a mixture winding country lanes and faster A-roads. After 100km in total and six hours on the bikes, we finally arrived in West Lulworth and took another well-deserved drinks break at the local shop.
At this point I made a mistake; I was short of water but didn’t refill my bottles because Graeme still had plenty, and we’d stopped for a few cans so I was well hydrated. There was only one big climb left, the steep Whiteway/Povington Hills on the Isle of Purbeck, and we took this confidently. There was a lovely undulating descent down to Corfe Castle where we suddenly hit tourist traffic again, then the last 30km was flat and should have been easy.
Unfortunately I was now having to manage my water. It wasn’t super hot but it was warm, and not a day to be thinking about rationing. We were just a few kilometres from our second control when the effects of dehydration kicked in; I got some mild cramps in my legs, turning the pedals suddenly became difficult and most worryingly I stopped sweating. Graeme had eased ahead and waited for me; when I caught up he said ‘only 3-4km to go to the pub’ and I said ‘I’m stopping here then’. Graeme offered me some of his water then remembered he had a carton of orange juice on the back; I ripped it open, poured it down in one, almost immediately started sweating again and we were off once more. We reached the pub at an easy pace, I necked a pint of water, then a glass of Coke and finally took my time over an excellent pint of Proper Job. We stopped for dinner too and the food was excellent – if you’re in the area check out the Frampton Arms in Moreton, I could have easily made a night of it there.
Now we were 10km from Dorchester and, rejuvenated by food and ale, the miles flowed past easily. Dorset is always good for a ride and it was a great chance to catch up with my best mate and have a debrief about Paris-Nice.
