Thanks, Adrian.  I do remember going along the B3157 in a rental car and descending the Abbotsbury Hill, and thinking..."Jeez, climbing this'd be a handful on a bike."

Lovely countryside -- I get all weepy & sentimental seeing the Google photos...

Enjoy, in any case!

Quote

Just to explore our area (Dorset) more and go camping on a bike.

Welcome, Adrian!

Trust the comments by Andyb1 and B Cereus will help you date your spiffy bike 

On other matters, where are you in Dorset? I have fond memories of the Isle of Purbeck -- was born in Swanage, & came to consciousness in Corfe. (My dad was with the Tanks, based in Bovington.)  And, I spent happy times over the years with a favourite aunt, who lived in Charmouth just east of Lyme. Too long since I last visited...

Cheers,  John

(dialling in from Ottawa, Canada)

Hello John, thanks for the reply, Purbeck is lovely.  I'm in Litton Cheney, a bit further west, a village in the Dorchester/Bridport/Weymouth triangle... sort of not close to anything other than big hills and the sea! If travelling from Dorchester to Bridport it's a one mile drop at 20% in places from the A35 to the village! It'll be a while before I can tackle that!

Adrian

Just to explore our area (Dorset) more and go camping on a bike.

Welcome, Adrian!

Trust the comments by Andyb1 and B Cereus will help you date your spiffy bike 

On other matters, where are you in Dorset? I have fond memories of the Isle of Purbeck -- was born in Swanage, & came to consciousness in Corfe. (My dad was with the Tanks, based in Bovington.)  And, I spent happy times over the years with a favourite aunt, who lived in Charmouth just east of Lyme. Too long since I last visited...

Cheers,  John

(dialling in from Ottawa, Canada)

An edit… is the build date likely to be May 1995? (595XXX) and assume 808 would be the build number?Anyone?

Your bike looks a very similar vintage to my old Club Tour. I dated mine to around the end of the millennium by using the two letter date codes on the Shimano components. They can be a good indicator to the age of a particular bicycle. Be aware that an older bike may well not have all of its original components.

Briefly:

The first letter indicates the year, starting with A in 1976 through to Z in 2001. The whole process repeats on a 26 year cycle, so 2002 begins again with A.

The second letter indicates the month.
 A=Jan, B=Feb. C=Mar, --------- L=Dec

Now you're talking, Jags!

Actually, soda bread is my second fave Irish bread. There's another one, called "swamp bread", that was available only from one shop in a lane off the Main Street, baked by the wife of the owner. It was a flat round bread made without yeast, with slices of tomato in it. Haven't been able to get it for many moons, since the shop closed. Big loss that. No idea whether it was only a local specialty, or maybe something the lady perhaps picked up from the Traveller community -- I say that because even more moons ago, I ate with a family of gypsies in Hungary, and they gave me bread very similar that they cooked on stones heated by their fire.

Some dishes I like cooking are at http://coolmainpress.com/andrejutefoodindex.html, for those who haven't seen them yet.