Last Training Weekend - 93 Miles - New Forest Off-road Trails

For the final weekend of training of the Go Ghana Cycle Challenge Jill booked a great Bed and Breakfast on the edge of the New Forest recommended by our friends (David, Eraine and Billy Allan) so that I could get some further off-road experience.

It was an excellent weekend, with great weather and I managed to cover a total of 93 miles over the Saturday and Sunday with about half through the New Forest off-road trails and the other on roads.   This was a total of almost 8 hours in the saddle to get used to back to back days on off road conditions.

The trails were great fun, particularly dodging the various wildlife roaming freely including ponies, cows, highland cows, deer and pigs!!!!.   Some of the trails had lots of pot holes so good experience of what is to come in only 5 days time in Ghana.

Sunday was challenging with 2 punctures within 30 minutes, which was frustrating but also good experience to be able to fix them and continue for another 20 miles.   Amazing that I have now covered over 1,500 miles this year training for the event and these were the first two punctures - I have been very lucky!

Many thanks to our friends the Allan family for their fantastic hospitality, dinner on the Saturday night was lovely and a hot shower on the Sunday was particularly welcome, especially as I was covered in oil and muck from the punctures.

  Trails and animals in the New Forest:

Although I had a map of the New Forest cycle trails I still managed to get lost a few times:

I now have all my kit ready to be packed and just need to do a final check before squeezing into my bag ready for Friday 30th September this week.  I am very much looking forward to the challenge and feel that I am as prepared as I can be with my physical training.

Looking forward to meeting everyone on the challenge on Friday morning at Heathrow.

Bring it on!

My kit ready to be packed in our spare room (hopefully it will all fit in my bag!)