I went for another convalescence ride today which went OK but could have gone better. I was going to go out on my non electric mountain bike but then decided to go on the Haibike sDuro with the consequence that the battery was only 95% charged, I set off a bit late while waiting for the battery to charge and I decided to find a route connection that I had only ridden once some years ago. It showed that if you predominantly plough along to work and back using a variety of the same routes you start to lose your knowledge of all the many other routes available.
It all started well enough riding down a great single track (picture above) past "Baretts Rough" into the outskirts of the Catteshall area of Godalming to pick up a farm track that can connect you to the River Wey.
However that was not what I wanted to do today as there is a junction of tracks and I wanted to try a new route over to Bramley but ended up on a wrong path that took me without realizing through a private estate (picture above) but the track did not feel so wrong while I rode it. I arrived at a locked gate with a narrow pedestrian access to the side that I just about managed to get me and the bike through and when I looked back at the gate from the other side saw the private property do not enter signs for the track I had just used (oops).
Now I had to descend a steep and quite technical track to get back to the track I wanted. Where I joined the track I wanted was a sharp narrow right turn into a very steeply rising narrow gully with roots rocks rock steps and leaf mold and I did not get far up it before I stopped and had to ignominiously push my way to the top of it.
The friend who had recommended this route comes the other way down it and that would have been difficult too but with a bit of nerve (and the dropper post I do not have) fun as the section though steep turned out to be quite short, one of those sections of tracks that you don't want to bottle out on as it would not be a place to try and stop until you have got to the end of it.
Well after all that it was relatively plain sailing (see picture above) to Bramley where I took a picture on the disused Bramley and Wonersh Station that is on the Downs Link route. (Picture below)
You might have to wait a long time for a train!
Well all this getting lost had used up a lot of time and I then needed to curtail the ride I had planned up to St Martha's Church and skedaddle back home all be it by connecting over to the very pretty River Wey navigation to ride on the tow path. Both the old Railway line to connect to the River Wey and the tow path being level were with the motor off and once up to speed the bike cruised along very well.
Bridge of sighs, the out of breath sort rather than the name of the bridge, good name though, perhaps it has been used before, Oxford rings a bell.
I returned past where I had taken the wrong turning and rode the bottom part of the track I had meant to ride before getting lost and found that it did connect to the difficult gully and was very nice. Finding new routes can always be a bit fraught. After all that it was only 12 miles in total. Started with 95% battery and ended with 65%.
