Sunday, and having used our road bikes last Sunday, today was definitely one for ebikes. The route around the Meon Valley area is undulating! We had 6 BIG climbs today, and several others not classified by Garmin as "climbs", so was conscious of preserving power incase I ran out. 😓
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| We parked in a very messy East Meon car park, and knew straight away, that which ever direction, its a climb to get out of here. |
The first climb was not too bad, and I stopped for a few photos, since the sunshine was not necessarily going to last today.
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| Leaving East Meon behind, heading to Coombe. |
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| and the road ahead continued uphill |
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| Some lovely light thanks to the clouds today. |
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| John had stopped too, so now catching me up again. |
We dropped downhill again, on the same road, and I always stop at this pretty view, just before we climb a steeper hill up to a X roads in Coombe . (a tiny Hamlet).
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| The valley as we now start our second climb towards the Hamlet of Coombe. |
Left at the Xroads, which we will return to late, but in the opposite direction. It's a very steep climb now on an unnamed road, to join Droxford Road at the top, to Old Winchester Hill. Today's route took us straight over into a lane with no name, towards Chidden. We stopped briefly at this gate since John said we could see the Isle of Wight from here.
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| Isle of Wight in the far distance. We could see a tiny strip of water, but not very noticable in the photo. |
Having climbed very steeply over the first section of our ride, we now cruised downhill for miles! Bliss 😊. The roads were a bit messy at times with lots of dirt in the middle of these narrow lanes, but no traffic to worry about. We came to a junction, East Street, where Hambledon was sigposted to our right (2miles), but we crossed straight over. Or at least I did, with John turned left and shouting "where are you going?". I was right, or course, and he soon followed me up a VERY steep hill. At the top, we slightly overshot a right turn, my fault this time. It was a VERY steep descent, and I'm no so keen on these, so took my time until it was not quite so steep.
We spotted Vineyards through gaps in the trees on our way down, and eventually came back to the main road, East Street with this pretty house facing us. I'm guessing it might be part of Hambledon vineyard.
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| House at Hambledon Vineyard looking even more pretty with the blossom |
We could have once more used East Street to get us directly to Hambledon village Tearooms, called The Old Forge. But my trusty navigator, had other plans. Back up another STEEP hill towards Anthill Common, called Rushmore Lane, before looping back on Fareham Road to soon arrive with the Village Tea shop on our left. All seats outside were taken, so we were inside today. It was only 7 degrees, so that was fine.
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| Old milk bottles were our view from inside The Old Forge today. |
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| HUGE car parked outside the Tearooms |
We left the tearoom to face our next STEEP climb of the day. I've done this one before too, and knew it had to be red power on from the word go, and into bottom gear as well. It was 18% at one point. It's tough, and I would have been off straight way without power.
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| Views from the top after climbing out of Hambledon for a long time ! |
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| Yet another hill ahead, but this one doesn't count . |
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| Crossing the bridge in the Hamlet of Exton, where we turned sharp left, once over the river. |
The lane out of Exton is called Beacon Hill Lane. EEeek! That doesn't sound very flat to me! And I was right. It comes to an area called Beacon Hill Viewpoint. There were other cyclists gathered at the top, who no doubt had no power. But they were also a lot younger. (and probably came by an easier route). 😇
The next bit of course was a fast whizz all downhill, for miles, pretty much all the way to West Meon. With my battery power now on "amber" ie 75% used, I was being careful now, since the hills are not yet over. We went via The High Street in West Meon, and soon a right turn into Coombe Lane, eventually passing the Fisheries. But it's an uphill first before dropping down to the fisheries, on the edge of the river.
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| Views along Coombe Lane, once we had climbed out of West Meon. |
Back at Coombe X roads, John announced "it's all downhill now". It can't be I thought, since we dropped downhill earlier to get here. So, yet another not insignificant climb, before we finally did drop back into East Meon.
We had to pull over just short of the car park, with this coming towards us....
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| Timeless apart from the high viz jackets. |
By the time we got loaded up, and left the village, we then followed this horse drawn cart part way down the Meon Valley road back to West Meon. Not an easy road to overtake on. A lovely ride, thanks to the Ebikes. 😊
Where we were, ,and why we could see The Isle of Wight.
