Occasionally I go a bit rogue and do something I wouldn’t normally do. Rewind to Saturday and we were in Great Malvern with some friends having pre-theatre drinks and food which gave me the idea to go back on the train the next morning and ride the hills. It’s something I’ve never really done before. I’ve ridden the roads but the only offroad I’ve done was about 30 years ago, I used to MTB from home out to Malvern, climb the Worcestershire Beacon (highest point), descend and then ride home for training. This was a chance to explore and very unlike me, no route or plan!
I woke up a bit groggy. It was a bit of late night after the concert in Malvern the night before. I checked the train times and the first direct train to Malvern Link was 10.20am. I eventually peeled myself out of bed about 9.20am and had some breakfast, got dressed and got my bike ready.
I left about 10am and rode straight down the main road and cut through my old housing estate to Bromsgrove Station. I got there with a few mins to spare but despite saying the train was on time it was a few mins late arriving and leaving. An announcement told us there was a brief technical issue with the signalling or something.
The train wasn’t busy and I was in the space for prams and disabled passengers which had some open space for my bike. The train was lovely and toasty too.
It took about 40 mins to get to Malvern Link passing over the bloated River Severn and the remnants of the recent flooding in Worcester around the racecourse on the way.
Exiting the train and station at Malvern was easy, no steps and a just a few yards to the road. From here the only was up but before that I cut across to Great Malvern town and took the steep climb up the main street upto the A449 and then between the houses up Happy Valley which was super steep. The road gave way to a wide tarmac path that just seemed never ending. I took a wrong turn and went up someone’s drive before I made the correct turn a bit further up and then began the long, open climb to the top. On the way I navigated a few hairpins and caught a couple of MTBers.
As I summitted, my first impressions were how good the views were but how high and long the climb was too. I’d completely underestimated it. The wind was really strong and really cold too so I made my way off the top down the main track to the car park and Wyche Road which descends to Colwall.
I wanted to check out a longish stretch of gravel on the Severnth Heaven event in July I’d chosen so I descended around the hairpins with plenty of roadies coming the other way and eventually found the junction and then turned back on myself and began the gradual climb. The track goes past a school then the surface breaks up until you reach a house. From here the surface really deteriorates and kicks up sharply until you reach carpet smooth tarmac that feeds driveways of big, posh houses perched on the hillside looking out across Herefordshire. A the top it really kicks up for the last 50m to the road junction and I was back in West Malvern.
From here I checked out the proposed start of Severnth Heaven at the West of England Quarry car park. From here I followed a signed MTB route back up and then took a loop around North Hill and then around the side of the Beacon and back down to the Wyche car park again.
Unsure where to go now I decided to follow one of my old road ride routes along Jubilee Drive to British Camp car park. I flirted with having a coffee here but I didn’t want to sit outside in the cold so instead I rode over the road, down through the car park and picked up a bridleway that took me down past the small reservoir and across a very soggy field section which caked the bike in mud. I briefly lost my bearings, so I followed a van back to the main road across Castlemorton Common and I was back on familiar roads. Ex-racing roads.
At Welland I took a left and climbed, or rather, clawed up Marlbank and tried to compute how I used to race up it back in the day. I was getting cold and the time was getting on too so I turned right at the top and headed back towards Malvern and not long after just randomly took a narrow road off to the left which was a narrow, quite twisty climb and descent which just ran parallel to the main road. It was better than traffic anyway.
Back in Great Malvern I found Dirty D’s Doughnuts and sat in there with a coffee for a while running the time down a bit before I had to catch my 2.30pm train back.
When I got back to the station I had about 15 mins to wait and it was freezing. I was looking forward to a toasty train back but the heating was off when I got on.
No delays on the way back. At Bromsgrove the ride home was pretty cold and I was tired and frozen when I got home so a hot bath was a must.
A great ride. Quite spontaneous for me. I think I’ll try the train again sometime.
