Sept 17th 2007 Tour of the New Forest

Greetings from The Capital – Edinburgh, up here on business. I see the Guilford Pelaton had a successful ride in Kent, well done.

Unfortunately Brentford got thumped by the MK Don(key)s on Saturday in the League 2 head to head. We were at Griffin Park to see the shambles. It was a disgrace.

The weather was glorious in Dorset for the Tour of the New Forest. As predicted it was an undulating 28 miles through the scenic countryside dragging a whingeing 7 year old on a tag-a-long and trying to ignore the wife's asthmatic yelling "slow down, it is not the bl**dy Tour de France" as she trailed behind on her touring cycle.

We did the 28 miles in just over 3 hours including the stop after 10 miles for coffee (and to inspect a 1935 Sunbeam which was being ridden by a member of the vintage Cycle Club) and the stop after 20 miles for ice cream (and to let the wife catch up and catch her breathe).
My son threw a wobbly on the start as he wanted to do the ride on his own bike as "only babies ride tag-a-longs". Anyway, after that was dealt with and trouble with the wife's back wheel which led to two false starts we got on our way.

I only had to walk up one Col which came up after 6 miles (obviously did usual trick and went out too fast running out of glycogen). The rest we managed without too much problem. At one stage we were riding with three guys on aluminium racing bikes with my son shouting to them that we were faster than them as we had caught them. After about 3 miles I let them go and waited for his mother to catch us up. When we restarted he wanted to ride flat out again to catch them but I thought better as we had been stationary for a good five minutes. We also overtook a load of racing cyclist struggling going up a Col just after the long route rejoined the medium route we were doing. One of them was on a Look bike! Once we hit the flat they came back past us with a hearty "good on ya" as they disappeared.

Generally we were overtaking people all the way and my passenger/stoker was pedalling. We opened up 15 minutes on his mother in the last 5 miles.

When we stopped at 20 miles I got talking to another bloke who was towing his daughter on a tag-a-long that he had hired. He told me he was looking to buy one. After a conversation we left them at the stop but shouted back that if he made me an offer at the finish line I would be willing to sell. At the finish (he took an hour longer than us from that stop to the finish) he came up with £40 and a deal was done. He took the tag-a-long home with him (without my son as the wife would not let me throw him in as part of the deal). My son will have to ride his own bike next time time as we no longer have a tag-a-long.

I also enjoyed a sausage bun with loads of ketchup and mustard at the finish to replenish the fuel supplies - and very nice it was. On the way home in the car the wife slept, and once we got home my son for once asked to go to bed early.

So, is anyone up for the South Downs Challenge this weekend. I have official permission to do it.