Lewes prison Ride 24 July

At last some decent sunshine for an off road South Downs ride. We met up at 7;30 at Firle for the 30 mile 'Lewes prison ' circular. There were only four of us: myself, Ivan, Paul K and Dave HH. Starting off at firle village means you immediately hit the long road up to the firle beacon car park (this is used as hill climb TT in the Autumn). I love this hill but dave didnt like it and felt unwell with a chest infection so decided to abandon the ride. The rest of us continued riding the SDW until we got to sussex university and Stanmer park. Our usual tea stop at stanmer park had not opened yet so we pressed on up the long climb to the top of Ditchling beacon (hard!) before enjoying the fabulous decent down past lewes prison and into lewes. Here we decided to have some bacon butties. We stopped at a riverside cafe which was almost empty and propped up our bikes. A woman came out and told us to move our bikes and put them on the other side of the railings (even though we told her we had no locks), as she was rude we decided to move on and found a much nicer place about 300m away where the bacon butties were very expensive but also very tasty. After Lewes there is the horrendous 'white climb' back onto the Downs ridge, this is so steep very few people can mange to keep the bike moving but somehow Ivan made it. After this there was just one more hill to go which is the horrendous Rodmell hill. At this point paul was suffering and couldnt wait to get to the end, climbing hils on the downs can be horrendously hard and every Kg of extra weight makes a difference. paul and I were releived to get to the firle beacon, from there there was the fantastic decent back down to firle vilage where we were doing about 40mph. best ride on the downs so far this seaon!
S.C