To be honest, I'm not sure if it's "lots" or just "many" but some of them seem fairly big when you're halfway up and the sun's beating down like a musically-challenged drum major. It's been 17 years since I've been riding on the Isle of Wight and I'd forgotten how many hills there are. It's also been a while since I've been on the hovercraft, which is definitely the best way to get to the island, and they seem to be fairly casual about taking bikes.
The hovercraft disgorges in Ryde, so I bought an OS map of the island and headed for Newport. I had an idea that it might be a good idea to acquire a rear mudguard because there had been rain overnight and I didn't fancy riding the hovercraft back to Southsea caked in mud but it was not to be; I rode round Newport a couple of times but couldn't find the shop I was looking for, so I gave up and made for Sandown on the dismantled railway line (at least, that's what I think it was).
These lines are pretty useful for travelling quickly but they get very boring, very quickly - they're flat, hard-packed, clean and dull. A couple of miles was enough, after which which I turned back onto the road and climbed up to Godshill, which is basically a village with a picturesque church on a hill in the middle of the island. Hunger was starting to set in by this point so I stopped at the village shop and bought a frankly revolting sausage roll and a barely edible sandwich. Having failed to sate my hunger, I headed south out of the village up the big hill, looking for bridleways where, it was rumoured, the offroading was pretty good.
Happily, the rumours turned out to be pretty accurate; lots of tricky (for me) climbs in low gear and some frantic downhill runs. Great fun. The OS map showed several bridleways around Godshill but I only found the one. By the time I'd reached the bottom of the hill I couldn't really face another climb, so I decided to meander homeward.
After this point things started to blur a little. The sun had come out and the temperature in the middle of the island was rather higher than on the coast; I was roasting and tiring, so I turned east on the easy trails, picked up the dismantled railway line and headed for Alverstone where I made a mistake and headed north up a little-used bridleway.
North seemed like a good idea; it took me up the ridge in the centre of the island, the ridge I needed to cross on the way back to Ryde, but it didn't curve - it just went straight up, getting steeper and steeper. By the time I reached the top (having pushed the bike the last third) I was shattered and still a good distance from Ryde. From here, though, it was mostly downhill. In fact, it would have been almost entirely downhill if I hadn't made a schoolboy navigational error and headed back inland when I reached the coast rather than following the shoreline.
Anyway. Great fun, lots of hard work. I'll definitely be going back, but not until I've forgotten how tired I now am. Here's the route:
link.
And what did I learn? Under Armour t-shirts are a definite improvement on cotton. 2 water bottles isn't enough; CamelPak next time. Buy sandwiches from Marks & Spencers rather than local shops. Avoid unbranded sausage rolls.
Oh, and my front tyre suffered a minor puncture at some point fairly late in the ride, which was lucky because I didn't have the right tools (no tyre levers) and I'd have looked a bit daft if it had happened earlier in the day.
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