BRIDLEWAY BUDDIES DATABASE - FIND A FRIEND TO RIDE WITH

After many hours pouring over maps and a cup of tea I managed to link a network of bridlepaths and quiet lanes to eventually make a 30 mile linear track through a beautiful part of Worcestershire. Here is where the work now began! I drove over 100 miles/walked many miles looking and accessing the state of some of the bridlepaths that would be used.

I have a very good knowledge of the complete area after working over by Broughton Hackett, so I knew White Ladies Aston, Bow Wood Etc all to well, and then having hunted as a child and ridden with friends I knew Hanbury well too, so that just left Westwood over to Wychbold. Well this is my riding ground from home.. So there it was, a good solid knowledge of the area and paths, all I needed to do now was identify and difficulties, blocked routes, bad gates etc that riders may come across.

After many hours with my little dog Sal, and my other half, we checked out what we could and I noted any problems, astonishingly there were reletively very few which I was thrilled about, this meant that I could organise getting the route ridden quite quickly and see what the feedback was going to be? was it a boring route? to long? etc etc.

My two guinepigs for the ride were Camilla Mascall with Sundance and Jane Sparrey with Kis, all fit endurance horses and riders. Now you don't have to be up to this standard to do this ride as it is very gentle and you can go at your own pace too. I picked Camilla and Jane as I knew that 30 miles in a day to them was nothing, and they are a determined pair so not much would stop them.

Sunday 2nd August dawned bright and sunny, esspecially after Saturday down pour, I thought the girls might call it off due to boggy ground etc, but a call at 7.00am to say they would be leaving the strat at 8am confimed it was going to happen. I met with Camilla and Jane on a track at Elmley Lovett which i had decided needed a few branches taken out so they could get through easier, also they had to cross a stream bridge which was slightly overgrown, so i set about cutting back, when i heard the girls voices coming down the track. A quick brief on two gate catches that were broken on Westwood and off they went. I finished what I was doing and headed home to have a shower and meet up with them at Hanbury Woods. It didn't take them long to reach the woods, and as i phoned them to see exactly where they were, two heads emerged from the trees, they all looked like they were enjoying themselves and Sundance took the chance to have some fuss.