UK Cycling Events New Forest Classic

The New Forest Classic 2024, organised by UKCE.

Komoot and route here: https://www.komoot.com/tour/1512224013?share_token=aDQJp03BPZ5e7cGRvDpA9KrF6T8C1PAjqs1SvBLKFLU9F1UzsH&ref=wtd

so here we are at the start of the UK cycling events New Forest classic 2024 and just about to line up we were allowed out from about 8:00 a.m. uh so that gave us plenty of time for this 127 km route that we were doing and they gave us the usual safety briefing before setting off the event was on 13th of April 202 for and on a Saturday there’s my friend Andy behind me in the green fluorescent we initially headed south out of uh gang weily was the name of the location took us to this little Coastal section and uh very they warned us of the sand here which they tried to brush away but obviously had to take a lot of care coming around there on the wet sand but nice little start to the ride to sort of Hit the coast before you headed north to give you that sort of sense of different Terrain as you work around lots of sand around here and also some of the terrain is kind of Sandy across the New Forest too I was in shorts and I was in short sleeve jersey as well and didn’t need any thermal layers or anything on put the summer shoes on too and it seemed warmed up in the afternoon I think it got to like 18 or 19 um so yeah I was fine from out the offset really great weather for it so here we are UK South near the aisle of white off the South Coast there sandwich between Southampton on the east of the route and on the west Bournemouth there was the New Forest National Park start point was in that Southeast region there and we ended up of course quickly heading south to the coast uh which is that Sandy patch that we’ve just had on the video before starting to head further north and then into the Westerly Direction at this point you’re sort of heading straight into the national parks here beginning to go over a lot of cattle grids through brockenhurst there which is a very sort of famous old school Village and then North through the forest before kind of breaking out of the forest onto more of a plateau region which was much more like brushland and scrub scrub looking no Hedges So You Could See For Miles which was fantastic as well before heading right up north here again a lot of this area was that sort of open brush scrub a lot of headwind which made it kind of challenging but really enjoyed it great little Plateau section again here very much riding into the wind there before turning to head south at that foron bridge there and this bit got a little bit heavier with the traffic all of the horses cattle and deer have right of way in the New Forest so you find they just stray into the road cars then have to stop and you end up sort of queued up behind so there were some frustrated drivers queued up behind cyclists and horses yeah so overall about 127 km which is I think just a a few yards short of a 80 M route which was a lot of fun check my description for a link to this route [Music] so just beginning to warm up here I followed this couple for quite a while actually seemed to have the right pace for me and that’s generally how I took to the whole day I was with my friend Andy so we’re kind of pacing each other but at the same time we’ might latch on to a small group or a couple of people that were moving at our sort of pace sometimes a faster group would come past and then we’d TR and get onto the back of them and then within about a mile realize whoops these guys are going too fast for us so we ended up raining in and slowing down again which was great to be able to pace oursel through the day we’re not sort of seasoned Professionals in terms of our performance and speed so we took our time this is brockenhurst I think that uh has the sort of very classic old school Village look almost like the land That Time Forgot really given that it was in a you know it’s a village in a national park which is already a protected location so everything’s kind of an antique including the nice cars there on show this old train came up quite often it’s sort of quite empty Brushy scrubby get to see the horses there on show uh which was really entertaining to see them along the side and something to look at that uh made you feel like you’re really in [Music] nature yeah this is the other tree rain I liked where you had some horses again that could just stray across the road but at the same time s of mixed Forest kind of Sandy edges to the The Roots no potholes well the occasional one and just a fantastic sort of feeling of being in a forest that was a bit more alive [Music] [Music] w [Music] so we’re heading a bit westly and North here where we’re starting to see ourselves come up onto this well I’d like to call it a plateau I don’t know what they call it in New Forest terms but you come up out of the forested areas and you get a lot of this scrub land here which makes for a different terrain again so great to be see a bit of the coastline bit of the scrub land and then up on the higher areas as well before dropping back down south this guy came past hit the water and then splash me literally had spray all over my face Al that was kind of you just to cut in at the last moment before the spray this was a split so we’re heading off onto the 128k if you went left there you got the sort of medium and and shorter Rach which are 50 and 705k I think so yeah that that was a key point you needed to be there by half 11 and we uh made it within an out I think it was half 10 so we felt really pleased that we got there a good while before they would shut down the split cuz if you got there too late they’ redirect you down the short route which is fine isn’t it really if you’re struggling you thought you’d take bit off too much then you can actually take out and a bought from the longer route and take the shorter one with no problem [Music] [Music] this was really dropping back south um actually this one headed west of that that uh sort of hair pin there as you came back onto this section and then this was just one of the most stunning bits of the day cuz the sun came out uh this is where I got some Sunburn and then I think this road went on for a good sort of 10 miles or so maybe maybe s 15K in the end and um it was hard the the wind was incredibly strong here uh strong head wind but just such a stunning piece of scenery as you can see there that just made up for it even though it was a bit of a fight we probably ended up going you know maybe a mile 2 miles an hour slower than we would do normally just because it was so windy as we were coming through there but a lot of fun [Music] Indian police are holding a pigeon under armed guard because they suspect it’s been on a spying mission for Pakistan [Music] and admiring the horses [Music] [Music] and admiring the horses here we are just on the return and this is about the last stretch I think we’re probably only about 6 km to go and interestingly after the whole day out um this one feels like most of the more of a wasteland kind of Boggy and you can’t see it very well cuz the GoPro gives you such a wide frame but there’s kind of a heavy industry Smoke Stack type gear at the back there in fact you can see it right behind this uh final return into the uh finish here where we got got our wooden medals and um finished up packed up and left thank you don’t get the [Music] GoPro yes so great route good event and they had some food pizza free beer at the end so UK cycling events did a good job well signposted route as well you could actually work your way around without your satnav you could actually just follow the signposts and the rest of the cyclist so great fun we enjoyed it and there’s my burnt arm the 1 of 2024 a little bit of a burn from that uh cycle in the Sun that is the end of this broadcast