Early bird 21 Jan- Jon returns, Dan takes a tumble

Good to see Jon back out again, he hasn't be able to ride with us since before Xmas so I was expecting Jon to be struggling at the back but in fact it was Jon together with Doug who were leading at the front with myself and Derek further back (with Duncan somewhere in the middle). We repeated the route that Pete mapped out for Xmas, although I modified the final 10 miles to cut out the main road back to Bexhill, although stupidly I forgot to put into the route the loop around Brightling so we ended up sticking on the mainroad to Woods' Corner. During the ride I was really looking forward to the long steady descent from Wood's corner to Ashburnam and was not disappointed with fast riding on a minor road with a good quality surface (much more fun than it was before in the dark)

Distance 40.3 miles Av Speed 15.3 mph

PS- Dan harwood sent me a text to ask what route we were going as he didn't know the meeting point and intended to meet us on route, near Winchelsea. Unfortunately, just like Colin a few years back, the curse of Chick Hill struck again and Dan ended up crashing into the fence at the bottom. Pete took him to A and E for a check up. Luckily Dan escaped with just bruising but his road bike is a right off with broken forks, cranks and chainset. Dan intends to use this as excuse to buy a brand new one on the ride to work scheme.