31st March 2008 Ride

Only Vet Geoff and Rev Trev available today. Ruth having to work and Dave doing his own thing on his bike. Its good to know that Dave is able to do a few gentle miles in his own time. We hear that his body armour has arrived so he will soon be back on our runs but hopefully taking care of himself. The weather forecast was good for today so we made up our minds we would go for a big run. Rev Trev decided he would like a visit to his old courting territory of Wareham and the church where he and Jean were married. We met each other the Yeovil side of Montacute and cycled back to Yeovil making our way to the relative peace of the Dorset countryside via Yetminster, Boys Hill, Holwell, King's Stag, Hazelbury Bryan, Stoke Wake and Milborne St Andrew. Avoiding the busy and dangerous Blandford/Dorchester Road we cut through to Bere Regis and then the long straight road through Wareham Forest to arrive at Wareham Quay for lunch. A little over 3 hours to cycle the 45 miles. The lunch break also included taking time out for Vet Geoff to repair the inevitable puncture. Our journey home took a different route. We headed out of Wareham on the Wool Road and turned off through Worgret Heath alongside the Bovington Training ground. The sight of tanks thundering along beside us either scared us or spurred us on we are not sure which, but it was certainly a punishing stretch of road. From there we had fun with the names of the little villages on route; Tincleton, Puddletown, Piddlehinton, Piddletrenthide (where Rev Trev can be seen resting amongst the primroses). In fact we followed the River Piddle through to Buckland Newton and Glanvilles Wootton then back on familiar territory to Yetminster and eventually going our separate ways at East Coker. We were both extremely tired but enjoyed a rewarding day. This ride was a good test as it is a few more miles than we will need to cover on our daily runs in July. Swopping notes the next morning we both felt in good shape and could have got back into the saddle. Miles today = 87.7