Wind Sand and Sea

Wind Sand and Sea

This past week the weather has been pretty variable for my rides..but as I mentioned in my last post it's been OK for my search for a minimum traffic northerly escape route out of the town. 

In the past, one of the routes I have chosen if I wanted to go north was to travel east....Yes I know it sounds stupid but the plan works....
What I have done is followed the promenade east for about seven miles almost to Hengisbury Head and then headed north from there...by taking this route you tend to avoid all the traffic that you would pick up in the Bournemouth area if you just headed north from my home at Alum Chine...

However there are a number of problems with this route...
One of those is that during the summer period you are not allowed to ride along the promenade between 10.00hrs & 18.00hrs. 
Of course I could always get up earlier and get the promenade part of the route completed before the magic hour of 10.00hrs...it is an option I suppose, but that would mean starting the ride tied to a timetable and as I would only use this route when setting off on a touring ride on which I am trying to escape from clocks and watches it is not ideal....

Another problem can be seen in the picture above....on many occasions the sand on the beach looks as if it is trying to take over the promenade....the wind blows it up off the beach and in places it can be six inches deep or more spread across the entire width. 
Now this would be no problem at all if I was riding a wide tyre mountain bike or better still a fat bike but on the narrow tyres that I ride on, hitting a ridge of this deep sand stops all forward motion in an instant. 

On top of that of course is the way that all that sand gets blown into the running gear on the bike. 
I used this route when doing a backpackers weekend last spring and when I got home I was staggered at how much sand had been blown into the chain, cassette and the chainset...
It took me ages to strip down and clean everything properly...

Now I know that on the right bike riding on sand and beach can be lots of fun- you only have to look at the blog http://coastkid.blogspot.co.uk/  to see that...but as I said my bikes are not built for it and I like to try and get maximum life out of my bike components any way......

The search for my minimum traffic northerly escape route will continue........