D E T A I L S

WHERE: East START/FINISH: Alice Holt Forest to Docks DISTANCE: 55 miles approx PICTURES: Gillian Pullinger/ Alamy and Josie Dew Left: Gillian Pullinger / Alamy. Others by Josie Dew FLOOD FULL IN A celebrated her 50th with a soggy 50-miler 50-miler celebrated with asoggy her 50th hit the Cycling UK, UK Vice President Last winter, when rainstorms were queuing up to Great ridesGreat RACE-AGAINST-FADING-DAYLIGHT RIDE… BIKE ADDITION TO SENSIBLE MOST YOUR KIT ONA PRICEI KNOW GARAGE NOT IS AFISHER THE and here deliver to children three I had But light. first at left have Iwould Ideally, DEPARTURE DELAYED excitement. cycling of abit add would floods and bogs mud, well, Oh havoc. wreaking Eva and Desmond storms with acentury, in And dank. and dark short, are days when January, Victory. HMS Nelson’s flagship, restore to helping dockyard the at months spending is (a carpenter) Gary husband my connection: apersonal even was There years. 50 for miles 50 right: just was length Its Tudor navy. the build to dockyard Portsmouth’s to Downs South the over hauled and Forest Holt Alice in felled timber by taken route the traces It bridleways,lanes, boggy and coastal paths. country tracks, forest of amixture on trail horse-riding and walking, cycling, new fairly aday. in ride Icould something to my idea down Iscaled there, Iwasn’t find to only me for calling and night the in up waking him of idea the like Ididn’t As cough. wheezy a with down came Jack son two-year-old my my birthday, before day Way. the But One problem was that I was born in early early in born Iwas that was problem One a is Hampshire in Way Shipwrights The this winter was the wettest December December wettest the was winter road route of the South Downs off- 100-mile the riding days of acouple spend to been had plan my original dweller, s aDowns 20 stone sculptures dotted along its route, route, its along dotted sculptures stone 20 about has Way Shipwrights The crossing. level- pedestrian unmanned, the across in. heat the keep to door van the shutting Gary, said Jose!’ birthday, ‘Happy jackets. two and hat, under-helmet neck-warmer, trousers, waterproof Idonned van. the of out Igot when Idiscovered as well, as cold was It windscreen. the off hammered rain the as cheerily said Gary shower!’ a clearing-up ‘Just torrential. became it Bentley to route Way.Shipwrights the of start the station, Bentley to us drive to him for van Gary’s into Jack with climbing finally before hoovered, and washing, the up hung beds, the made up, cleared back, cycled away, then miles two-and-a-half school 9) Molly, to (Daisy, 5, and girls the I cycled up. gathered were gloves and helmets boxes, dinner bags, school then breakfasted, and roused were offspring Sleepy first. there around on his balance bike. I spent half an an half Ispent bike. balance his on around racing Jack with Gary, was there behold, and Lo Centre. Forest Holt Alice the at arrived quite impressive – in summer. apparently is through passing Iwas area conservation stone The butterfly butterfly. a one: first the Ipassed railway, the Over area. each of wildlife or history the showing And then I was off, bumping cautiously cautiously bumping off, Iwas then And en but morning all hard raining been had It A lovely wooded and muddy mile later, I later, I mile muddy and wooded A lovely Josie Dew

IN FULL FLOOD | FLOOD FULL IN Josie enjoying the Weaver’s Down Weaver’s sunny mud on mud sunny My cycling My bit of sanity. a restore to way agood is then and now wheels your on alone time alittle but anything, than more sproglets three my Ilove years. ten in night free child- first my have to and bike my on alone off head to was though, most, Ifancied What weekend? aromantic for away you whisk to going husband) (my Gary is said: Others aparty? have to going you are asked: friends approaching, feel about 10. Istill bike, my on Iget when Luckily, century! aflipping half That’s Fifty! 50. me makes day, which day, every all bike a ride to want to started Ifirst when 10 day. Iwas every virtually abike ridden Ihave years, 40 last the For BIRTHDAY A HAPPY When my 50th was fast fast was 50th my When CYCLINGUK.ORG GREAT RIDES GREAT

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45 Right: Up on the Downs near Previous pages: (Main photo) Alice Holt Forest. (Sidebar) Wishing I’d brought a snorkel: large and deep flood at Langley near Liss

Fact file SHIPWRIGHTS WAY DISTANCE: Nominally 55 miles. The school run and ride home from the station meant a total mileage of 71. ROUTE: From Bentley station to Alice Holt Forest and down through Borden, Liss, , Buriton, Queen Elizabeth Park, , Rowlands Castle, , Portsmouth. GETTING THERE: The Shipwrights Way has six useful railway stations on the trail or within easy cycling distance: Bentley, , Liss, hour playing pirates with Jack on the big water, I then followed the bulging-banked Petersfield, Rowlands Castle, Havant, wooden play ship, built to mark the start of River Rother to arrive at Liss, where I was Portsmouth Harbour. the Shipwrights Way, after which the rain born 50 years earlier. CONDITIONS: Wet, muddy, flooded! petered out. Jack was keen to tag along with Normally, it might just be a bit me all the way to Portsmouth but I managed THE LAST OF THE DAYLIGHT muddy. to persuade him to stay with dad. Passing a charity shop, I spotted a toy BIKE USED: My 26in-wheel, 21-year- I looked at the time: 11:20am. It would be garage in the window for £1.75. I could think old Orbit Romany tourer, which is now dark in five hours, and I had a lot of mud and of someone who would love this! I know a fitted with a flat handlebar and my 30-year-old Shimano friction thumb- floods to get through by then. Fisher Price garage is not the most sensible shifters. Semi-knobbly tyres got addition to your kit on a race-against-fading- through the thick mud fine. DEEP WATERS daylight cycling mission, but how could I say MAPS: I printed out the maps from I sped off through the forest on wide gravel no? I bought a couple of DVDs too: Captain shipwrightsway.org.uk and followed tracks, passing a pack of wheezing, mud- Pugwash and Mr Benn. Pleased with my the little round blue Shipwrights Way splattered cadets on a training run. The purchases, I powered on to Petersfield and markers on signposts/fences etc. route was pleasantly undulating but then, then Buriton. I’M GLAD I HAD… Left Molly and approaching Headley Park, it became steadily In Queen Elizabeth Country Park, I Daisy at school and Jack with Gary. more deep-mudded and deep-flooded. The encountered my first cyclist. He was riding NEXT TIME I WOULD… And I did! ford on Cradle Lane was awash with muddy a massively fat-tyred 29er mountain bike. When the Hayling Island ferry was water so deep that even the footbridge was He eyed my old Orbit Romany tourer with relaunched in August 2016, I rode to Buriton and retraced my tracks to nigh-on submerged. suspicion, especially when I overtook him on Havant. Catching the ferry was much On through heathland and woodland, the next uphill humming the theme tune to nicer than riding alongside the M27. I passed a sculpture of a nightjar (since Captain Pugwash. removed due to vandalism). The next one A steep and muddily-rutted descent took Bentley station was a smug-looking natterjack toad sitting me onto a quiet rural lane that was once the atop a pedestal in a wood near Lindford. I main road from Portsmouth to Petersfield. Petersfield skirted Borden’s military training area and It would have been busy with stagecoaches. reached the Deer’s Hut pub at Griggs Green. The only vehicle to pass me now was a shiny Portsmouth Then I splodged through sloppy mud up over black 4×4, the driver chatting away on her Weaver’s Down, where the sun burst out, phone. Just north of Finchdean at , SHIPWRIGHTS WAY offering a fine view of the Surrey Hills to the I ran across a field to visit the beautiful 11th north and the South Downs to the south. century St Hubert’s church, whose murals After emptying a pannier of its food, I date back to around 1330. sped across the line of the Chichester to By the time I arrived in Havant, it was Silchester Roman road until I came to a as good as dark. The wind got up and a standstill at Langley: a small country lane hailstorm hit. As the Hayling Island ferry was now a muddy river, with wavelets and was out of service, I had to follow a path floating branches. alongside the M27 in freezing rain before The trouble with entering a flooded road peeling off to Southsea and into Portsmouth. on a bike is that you don’t know how deep By the time I arrived at Portsmouth it is until you’re in it (this one went over my Harbour railway station, my teeth were shoes with every pedalling revolution) or what chattering and I had turned partially white lies beneath the water (potholes, boulders, due to the icy accumulations of hail that had bodies, crocodiles…). settled in the folds of my clothing. It was It was with huge relief that I emerged at a memorable end to a perfect, memorable the other side, still upright and alive. Dripping birthday.

46 CYCLE FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017