Day Two (Saturday)
Distance: 55 Miles (Fordingbridge to Swanage)
Top Speed: 26.4mph
Early morning Saturday was gorgeous. Being an early riser, I left David snoring away, and had a wander around, and a chat with Tom, the campsite owner.
We had breakfast (rubbish croissants and ham) and left about 9.30. This was to be the real test of me and my bike. My assumption was about 38.3 miles - the stats at the top of this post make it clear just how wrong I was.
Until now, a “long ride” for me was just a little further than my commute. My ride to work is just under 12 miles, to my parents about 14 total. I thought that about 45 was my upper limit, especially with the weight that was being carried. I cannot recommend highly enough to those considering touring to do as much training in advance as possible. I thought I was prepared, but I most certainly wasn’t.
I discovered that I needed refuelling a lot as well. I had packed a number of Mars bars ready for when I bonked out. Actually, I could have done with more than this, and more water too. David had not attached a water bottle holder to his bike, so I was left carrying two. I like to think that I would have lasted a little longer than I did before resorting to pushing the bike up those final steep hills if I could have made more use of the liquid without having to share it around… but I’m possibly kidding myself.
Topeak suggest that the MTX Beam Rack is “Great for touring with full suspension” but I have to disagree. My bike is a GT Avalanche 2.0, and does not have the eyelets on the frame for a standard pannier rack. I am reliably advised that this is because the bike has disc brakes. About a year or so ago I plumped for this, assuming that I would be using the bike mostly for commuting, and by and large it does do the job. What I noticed over the weekend however was that, without fixings to the side, the rack had a tendancy to wobble, especially with the side bags on. This occasionally resulted in the rack rubbing against the rear tyre, or simply the momentum causing something of a hindrance when riding up a particularly steep hill. A much more civilised solution would have been the P Clip as recommended. I think I will investigate this now.
I also regret keeping my Bontrager Comfort tyres on for the ride. Whilst these have been perfectly fine for road use, and occasional gravel, I found that they had no traction on very wet surfaces, such as mud. Sandy ground was a similarly hard experience. I’ll hold my hands up to say this is my fault for not following Rule Three of touring and being fully aware of the projected route, but it did make things slightly tougher. In retrospect, I think I would have preferred to have left the knobbly tyres on even for the road sections for the extra grip I would have gained off road.
The campsite in Swanage, part of the Shorefield group, I found to be slightly disappointing. In truth, the facilities that it had on offer were no less than Tom’s Field, and in fact much better. However, it is a much larger site, built onto a very steep hill with only one shower/toilet block at the very bottom. Naturally we were placed at the very top, though beneficially in a quiet patch to ourselves as cars could not reach our little oasis of calm. For the price, however, I had expected a few more on-site amenities.
Swanage itself was very pleasant. Taking Sunday off as a day of rest, we spent it instead walking around the coast tiring out the other muscle groups, leaving Monday for the route home…