May 2019 ride

Last year at around this time, we had a very pleasant ride to/from Petersfield. The weather’s looking good, so how about we do it again?

As before, we’ll take two routes to Petersfield:

1. I’ll leave HIADS at 9am to cycle to Peterfield via Butser Hill – a relatively easy hill over the Downs
2. Those not wanting to cycle the whole way should meet at HIADS at 10am with a view to catching the 10.40 train from Havant (or, perhaps, the earlier 10.34) to Petersfield.

There are, of course, other ways to join the train including: parking at The Ship; and getting a train from Portsmouth (for members that live there).

We’ll meet in Café Mezzo – on the south side of the High Street a short distance to the west of the junction with Dragon Street.

We have two obvious routes back:

1. Up Butser Hill – a short but very steep hill. Pushing up is not a great hardship and, from the top, it’s a pleasant route back to Rowlands Castle.
2. Through the Butser Cutting – a shared walking and cycling path so no traffic. Not as steep a hill, but longer. From the end of the cutting we can choose between a short route alongside the A3 or we could go back via Chalton meeting up with the Butser Hill route.

Last year we split into two groups that each took one of these routes and we met up at the George in Finchdean. I suggest we have a discussion about routes when we meet in Petersfield.

Andy