Butts Brow Bash - June 8th

Safely Back At 'Butts Brow'

This was the first Off Road Downs  ride of the season. Just four of us went including on his first off road ride with us, Tom Norris.We parked the mpv at the top of Butts Brow where we had arranged to meet Tom but when we saw the cost of a days ticket we got back into the vehicle and drove down to the bottom where we were able to park on a side road. This meant we had to ride up Butts brow with cold legs. As this was the first ride I had done with knobbly tyres for 9 months and my seat was too low, this was a bit of a shock to the system, but thankfully I have a mega low gear that can climb up mount Everest if need be!As I rode up (slowly!) I kept thinking how much some of our best road climbers (Trevor, Stuart, Chris W etc) would enjoy a STRAVA on this segment because it really is  a magnificent climb being 1.3 miles long and reaching a gradient of 15.8% (such a shame its a dead end at the top- for roadies anyway). Having met up with Tom we all enjoyed the fabulous decent down to Friston followed by the equally fabulous climb back up to Jevington before the very bumpy decent down into Alfriston (my newly fitted thudbuster really came into its own here). The weather was sunny but with the strong winds on the Downs it was pretty cold. I was glad to have a vest and windproof on (not what you would expect for June) . Ivan was really feeling the cold and needed to keep moving just to stop hypothermia setting in! Dropping down from Black Cap farm into Bishopstone we arrived at a little road section. Every time we have been here we always go the wrong way (despite having a GPS) and this was to be no exception. Surprisingly Paul (who normally has a terrible sense of direction) realised where we had gone wrong and we were  soon back on track. Now began my favourite bit, which is the 5 mile steady climb back up tot he top of the Downs. I love this climb because its not too steep, is nice and straight and has a great views from the side of the escarpment. From the top it was easy riding along to Alfriston. From here the plan was to ride through Folkington. This was not a good idea as although it looked easy to find the path on the map, in reality there was no obvious path and we ended up following a 'sheep trail' which took us off course. To get back to any sort of trail we then had walk pushing the bikes over the sheer grassy slopes of Windover Hill. This was particularly difficult for me as I have to ride off road with look delta pedals and cleats (due to nerve damage in my left foot). Finally we were back on track but all this effort was not worth it as the bridleway through Folkington is in a shockingly eroded state. Having fitted a thudbuster suspension post to my On-one 29er, my knee and bum were loving it but as my weight was now further back the front end had become a bit too light so on this eroded section I was having trouble keeping the front wheel down and came off a couple of times (I can cure this by removing spacers and going back to straight bars- hopefully). having got past Folkington it was a relief to be on the long climb up the Eastern side of Butts brow. Great to have Tom riding with us , hopefully myself and Paul haven't put him off with all our moaning about equipment  (Tom,you will get used to this!) .