Monday again, and 4 of us free to ride today. I used this route once before, dropping into Holybourne enroute to the Chocolate Frog at Oakhanger. It turned out to be rather warmer than I had expected, so we all suffered a bit in the end with the heat. But we did it.
garmin route screenshot at end
We drove everyone to Odiham and we left up the High Street, then on Bidden Road to Ford Lane. It's a little undulating just before the turn into Ford Lane.
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here come the boys about to turn into Ford Lane.
I'm sure they are both on the wrong side of the road 😄 |
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Ford Lane junction before we dogleg into Gaston Lane
to ride towards South Warnborough |
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| Wonder why they but the field like this? Wildlife corridors? |
I love the views from Gaston Lane, which is pretty easy going with a just bit of rise then we drop into South Warnbourgh, across the B3349 and the climbing begins on Froyle Lane. A nice bit of welcome woodland shade toward the end of Froyle Lane, but uphill. John got ahead with his camera.
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Me, Daphne and Dave on Froyle Lane,
before we leave and face the nasty climb to the "field with the horse."
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There actually WAS a horse in the field today! More often there is no horse. 😂
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John had waited at the junction to wave me and Daphne round
with no traffic in site. Then came up with Dave. It's steep! |
A quick recovery time and water intake, before we took a right turn at the Tjunction on to Froyle Road.
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| Froyle Road. An almost white field of parched crops. |
As easy couple of miles, then a turn left to drop down a HUGE steep hill into Holybourn on Brockham Hill Lane. Daphne and I had opened a bit of gap from the boys, and whilst she carried on I did a couple of photo stops on the way down.
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| Views to the left on Brockham Hill Lane |
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| Daphne out of site, as the hill continues. |
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| Views on the right. |
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| down, down, down it goes. |
I thought it strange by this time that the boys had not yet appeared to catch me up, but continued down to the bottom to the church.
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| Loved the curves of the crops just before Holybourne Church |
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| The unusual graves are always a reminder of where we are. |
Daphne and I hung around a few minutes, then I started to worry that something had happened, so phoned John. Just let it ring a few times, thinking he will call me back when convenient if he is maybe fixing a puncture?
He called back to say he had missed the left turn down the hill, but said he would soon meet up with us at the church. I checked my phone to track his Garmin, to now see that he was in Alton!! He had taken a next left turn, which must also have dropped down, but into a residential part of Alton. I could see he was wiggling his way through, heading for Holybourne. So, Daphne and I left the church and met up with them at the end of the road. How ridiculous. Turns out they did a 3.5 mile detour. 😖
(He needs to set his Garmin to alert him immediately if goes off course!)
From Holybourne, we soon followed our "normal" route to Oakhanger, through the Hamlets of Wyke, West Worldham, and Harley Maudit. The fishing lake at Hartley Maudit was just mud! With a few plants lying on top of them. So sad.
All 4 of us experienced a rather unpleasant Jeep driver coming uphill, on the steep narrow section as we dropped down into Oakhanger, he basically was shouting "Get out of my way". Hard to comprehend WHY some drivers are like that.
Refreshed at the Chocolate Frog, with 13 miles to go. Dave and I had cold drinks today instead of tea and coffee. I was a little worried he was suffering more in the heat.
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| A shady break at Chocolate Frog |
A climb soon to Binstead, which starts off with about a mile of very gradual uphill, and plenty of shade, thankfully. But it gets steeper just near the top, then church comes into view. We're up! 😍
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| Binstead church unfortunately had a Bin outside today. |
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Coming into Binstead, after I stopped for the church photo.
Photo by John who was already up of course. |
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| Well done Dave. |
A lovely downhill now for several minutes to Isington Mill.
One for Jeanette to paint?
I was confused about which route I was using today and had expected to head now to Bentley, but Garmin told me we were returning left, so via Lower Froyle then. It's a slow burner of a climb, not steep, but about 1.5 miles long, the last few yards though a tough climb approaching "the field with the horse" from the opposite direction. (horse was still there.😂)
Once that hill was done, the worse was over as we dropped into Long Sutton where the pond was completely dry! Then back our normal route to Odiham on Long Lane.
Well done team. A few hills today, and it was rather too hot. Hope everyone had a relaxing afternoon... maybe asleep? 😉😂
