What a relief it is to have temperatures drop back down to normal. Suddenly you have your energy back. Sunday evening we headed out to follow our noses through the Purbeck Hills which happened to include a perfect 10-mile (16km) loop out of Corfe Castle in the course of our three-hour ride. You can start the above loop anywhere of course, and we initially rode it anti-clockwise (which explains some wrong direction photos), then I rode the whole thing clockwise on my Merida. It flows better clockwise and includes some of the best ridge top trails in Purbeck. The ride is about 60% trails, there are at least 15 gates and the climbing adds up to 240m.

Leaving Corfe Castle town square, cross Corfe Common and after Blashenwell farm yard, ride up into Kingston Woods, dodging the stony track when you can. At the edge of Kingston follow a dead end road west with views north to Poole Harbour. Then, at a car park set off on a gentle grassy unfenced ascent along the broad rim of Encombe House’s ‘Golden Bowl’ to Swyre Head hill tumulus and trig point.

From Swyre Head, it’s a rutted track then a steep descent off Smedmore Hill with views across the sea to Kimmeridge and Portland, to meet a country lane. Follow it over the Corfe River and up to reach a turn off which climbs steeply up Ridgeway Hill, but is just about doable on an MTB. Interestingly, we found both this and the Smedmore gradients much smoother than a few weeks ago. My theory is that passing users along with the lack of rain has let the loose soil and sand fill the holes and smooth things off; a kind of organic grading. The next downpour will wash it all away, expose the stones and make it rough again.

Once on Ridgeway Hill with great views south across the downs and valleys where you’ve come from, you have a glorious, airy ridge-top ride with a quick road crossing at ‘Cocknowle Gap’, before another ridge ride ending with a drop down a steep, stony track you might like to walk to an awkward gate, before it levels off to Corfe Castle your start point.

With a few rests it’s easily doable in less than two hours. When we did it there were about 15 gates, though a couple were open when previously they’d been closed. For a seaside splash, at the bottom of Smedmore Hill left leads 1.5km down to Kimmeridge Bay (cafe). Or after Kingston Woods you can follow a road then steeper tracks down to Chapmans Pool which is usually less busy, though neither are especially picturesque swimming locales. Both in blue on the map above.