Roger Donne’s Miscellany |
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My cycling routes around Christchurch generally go North and East - to the West lies the conurbation of Bournemouth and Poole, and to the South lies the English Channel. Most of the routes will be self-evident from an Ordnance Survey map of the area, and you will certainly need to buy one if you want to follow up any of these suggestions. But if you are new to the area, or require some encouragement to get on your bike, I hope thes page will provide it!
The routes I favour are those on the back roads, relatively traffic free - since I reckon these increase my chance of survival. I also choose early morning where possible, when traffic is less and the air feels fresher.
By the way, these routes are all on metalled roads. I ride a road bike, and prefer to keep to the roads. While there are attractive off-road routes in the New Forest and on the chalk downs near Salisbury, I leave those to walkers and hikers.
Most trips can be completed in under 3 hours by the averagely-fit cyclist - just right before breakfast on a Sunday morning - if you start early enough. Maybe I'll see you one of these days? I've broken them down into sections (routes) which can be fitted together to provide some variety or to vary the distance according to your inclination.
You will need a map to make much sense of these descriptions. To carry with you on your rides, I would recommend the Ordnance Survey Tourist Map of the New Forest. This covers most of the area on single sheet. Based on the old 1 inch to the mile series, I find it is just the right scale for cycling, and in fact more convenient than the current Ordnance Survey Landranger series at a scale of 1:50000. Some of my rides venture onto neighbouring sheets - in this case you will need to set yourself up with OS Map 184 (Salisbury and The Plain) and OS Map 194 (Dorchester and Weymouth).
For browsing my web site, however, I've included links to the mapping services provided on the Internet by Multi Media Mapping. Just click on the thumbnail to see a scrollable map of the area. The maps don't fit easily into my homepage frames and so each will launch another instance of your browser. You can return to my homepage by clicking on the appropriate window.
So, if you want to know more, go to my Routes Page
This page last updated on 2 May 2005