Never mind the weather, Mike West is hosting a Green Badge ride and a Ducati in winter is a rare sight. So it was that 5 hardy souls met up at Loomies for a good old-fashioned blast. It is worthy of note that there were 3 Garmins being used………more on this later!

The lovely café in Dorchester was the chosen lunch venue, and indeed the only stop apart from petrol, also at Dorchester after 100 lovely miles. Mike choose a suitably twisty route and, whilst circumnavigating Salisbury, decided to ignore some marvellous sensible advice from a qualified Map Reading Instructor (I shall remain nameless), threw caution to the wind and followed the GSP route. This involved a private unmade farm track, a Ducati getting bogged down and pushed out, and a perplexed rambler wondering why we were Green Laning on such exotic machinery; I put his mind at rest by explaining that we only ever followed Mike out of curiosity. Tarmac was eventually rediscovered and much fun was had making progress to a well-deserved pukka biker’s lunch - the plates are only slightly smaller then a Viking shield!

Thus fortified Mike led us home via Lulworth. Autocom came in handy and we did the Ranges loop by proxy. This really is a superb piece of road and I heartily recommend it to you. Next time I lead a ride…follow me, no Garmin required. Through the New Forest we headed for home. Just as well really as Mike had found another green lane stream, I kid you not.

Finally bang on schedule we happily arrived back at Loomies having had a thoroughly good day’s biking, 200 miles of good roads, food and company.

Top tip Mike, buy a map!