England : Isle of Wight Night Ride Around the Coast 2017 (May 19)

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Eddie_C

Über Member
Stu
My recollection is that the Freshwater - Yarmouth railway path is not very nice if it's been wet recently. Unless it's now got an all-weather surface.....
Eddie
 
OP
OP
StuAff

StuAff

Silencing his legs regularly
Location
Portsmouth
Stu
My recollection is that the Freshwater - Yarmouth railway path is not very nice if it's been wet recently. Unless it's now got an all-weather surface.....
Eddie
Good point. I'll do another route version (well, revert....).
 
OP
OP
StuAff

StuAff

Silencing his legs regularly
Location
Portsmouth
www.plotaroute.com/route/419521

This one's sticking, honest.....

I recall one year on the Randonnee a TT bike going down the path (I've never had problems on 23/25mm tyres, but then not in the wet).
I imagine the Sunshine Trail will be somewhat, er, sodden, but still a better bet than Cowleaze Hill I think!
 
OP
OP
StuAff

StuAff

Silencing his legs regularly
Location
Portsmouth
Have just been down to Gunwharf to buy my ticket for tonight. There is (as has been for a few months) building work there- Wightlink are putting in two ramps & a new terminal building, ready for the ferries they have on order, and there's a temporary vehicle waiting area on the other side of the road. You can ignore that on a bike- just continue on to the existing terminal building, the waiting & boarding arrangements for foot passengers haven't changed.
 
OP
OP
StuAff

StuAff

Silencing his legs regularly
Location
Portsmouth
And the remaining 4/5 of the ride are en route to Fishbourne. A ferry delay, what a surprise (!).
 
OP
OP
StuAff

StuAff

Silencing his legs regularly
Location
Portsmouth
Well, that was a ride of contrasts…

Work finished, as so often on Fridays, dead on 9.30, so no help there in getting to the start on time. But as this is the one night ride when I'm in rather less of a rush, really not a problem. Back home at 10.15 or so, and a fairly relaxed prep before heading down to the harbour at about eleven. Even by the compact and bijou standards of previous rides, this was going to be a small peloton. Eddie was going to get the ferry into East Cowes and then meet us at Tesco. With a flurry of withdrawals & no-shows, that left a mere four for the trip over to Fishbourne- yours truly, Phil from the local audaxing contingent (who I had ridden with on last year's London-Pompey night jaunt), Nigel (@Shadow ) and Paul (@Bollo ) . Having checked the Wightlink website, I knew there would be a delay on the ferry. They said up to half an hour, BBC red button news an hour and a half. Fortunately, neither was the case, and we were on our way just over fifteen minutes late. After disembarking, a pause to let The Traffic out of the way (as usual on this ride, once out of the Ryde area there were far more pedestrians and animals to be seen overnight than anything with an engine, and even the first stretch is very quiet by SE England standards) and a rather more perfunctory safety talk than usual (my usual spot for that had been turned into parking, and we all knew the score anyway), on we went.

Firestone Copse Road (familiar to anyone who's done the IOW Randonnee) was evidence of the good work Island Roads have (eventually) done…and what they've still got to do. First part from Fishbourne is same old same old- potholes, grotty surface (I compared it on the night to teenage acne), all very helpful when you're grinding your way up a slope…and then a little way along all of a sudden you're on lovely, smooth, even tarmac. There was a few sudden transitions like that on other stretches, that made us think 'why couldn't they have done that bit?'. There didn't seem a lot of rhyme or reason to it. The trip to Tesco was uneventful, and we didn't have long to wait for Eddie to make his way round. No-one buying huge bags of cat litter at 2am this time…On we went north to Seaview (obligatory Island weirdness quota filled by bloke who appeared to be on his way to or from nocturnal gardening), then round to Bembridge and Sandown (local foxes causing a rumpus). The Sunshine Trail was thankfully in good nick…then the heavens opened. A trickle at first, then a flood. We resorted to sheltering under a bit of tree cover at the end of the trail for fifteen minutes or so, in the hope that it would ease off…when it didn't we just got on with it. As so often though, rain meant punctures. Paul was the first unfortunate, a flint the culprit.

Having done its job by washing a load of grot onto the road and hiding it, the rain thankfully cleared off, and by the time we climbed Blackgang we were enjoying a bright clear sunrise. It was absolutely glorious! After half-time sandwiches, Phil suffered two punctures in fairly quick succession- thankfully the last mechanicals. After speeding down the rest of the Military Road and grinding up Freshwater Bay, we turned north- we all agreed that getting through Newport ASAP was a better idea than the detour to the Needles.

So, after going through Yarmouth and turning east, we sped along quite nicely thanks to the tailwind. And then came The Motorway. I have previously described this as the most ridiculous stretch of dual carriageway in the entire country- it's a quarter of a mile, doesn't seem to do much if anything for congestion- but it's also thoroughly unpleasant to ride on. It was busy, and nasty even on Good Friday morning. And no less, actually more so, on Saturday morning. Paul said afterwards he was afraid, and frankly I don't blame him. Grim and we beared it. Had the appalling so-bad-it's-really-not-funny chain ferry saga (read tale at link and weep) been resolved by Saturday morning, it would definitely have been the best option, even at £1.50 each. Staplers Road proved to have just as many grindy ups and downs as the A3054 into Wootton Bridge, but was thankfully rather quieter (Lushington Hill in the early morning rush isn't nice at all). Eddie turned off at Wootton to make his way back to East Cowes, the rest of us progressed to Ryde and a well-earned breakfast. Exciting News: black pudding is now an option on the Wetherspoons menu! Very nice it was too. There is also a bagel with smashed (sic) avocado. Which led me to wonder how exactly one smashes an avocado…After many calories we made our way down the pier (no speeding from us or naughty drivers) to the catamaran back to the mainland.

Thanks to the four musketeers for joining me, it was a pleasure (rain notwithstanding). Next year? Yup, this will return. Hopefully with more people…
 

Bollo

Failed Tech Bro
Location
Winch
Thanks to @StuAff for organising this every year. As I said at the start, it deserves a wider audience because there just isn't anything else quite like it in the CC ride calendar. It's immaculately planned, executed and the home of heroes.

Thanks also to Phil, Eddie and Nigel for the company and forbearance when I punctured at exactly the worst time.

To fill in the Island weirdness, Monty Don was stood by the side of the road at about 2:30am with a gardening fork and a bucket. The bucket probably had a head in it, but I didn't stop to ask.

On the fast-cat back to the mainland a wedding party boarded with the bride to be in full length white dress. I hold with Nigel's theory that the catamaran pilot carries the right of sea captains to marry couples on board.
 
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