11 Aug- Cissbury Ring Offroad

Chanctonbury Ring, All Is Well!

Not A Great Place For a Puncture!

Rather than map out my own ride, I decided we would follow one that I had lifted from mbr magazine . Starting all the way over at Bramber made it further west than any of our other off road routes. All weather reports said it was going to be dry so despite the angry looking skies we thought we would be ok. We headed up to Chanctonbury ring and further west to Amberley Mount before heading south. Up to this point we thought we had got away with the weather but as we entered Angmering park it started raining and judging by all the puddles it had been raining there some time. Suddenly our tyres would not grip and the ground was littered with large tyre juddering pieces of flint. We had to proceed with great caution to avoid coming off and suffering an injury. Along a fairly steep and very slippery slope under tree cover, Paul suffered a puncture. At this point if there had been an easy exit we would have taken it but we were about half the way round and there was no escape route so we had to press on. The trail through the forest was very confusing , we had to put our faith in our Garmins even though sometimes it felt like we were going the wrong way. At one point I stopped to take a photo and by the time I had put the camera safely away there was no sign of the others. Knowing Duncan had a gps, I stuck to the muddy route, my wheels so choked up with mud they would barely rotate. After a few miles I couldn't understand why there was no sign of them, they couldn't be that far ahead surely? It turned out they were actually behind me, as Duncan had initially gone the wrong way . Use of our mobiles soon had us  regrouped and we thankfully escaped the forest only to have to ride through very narrow overgrown single track. At this point I would have given this ride one star only, this was turning out to be our slowest off road ride ever! In need of some cheering up we diverted off the route to Findon where we discovered what looked like an expensive restaurant. Throwing caution to the wind we ordered sausage sandwiches and tea and were pleasantly surprised when they only charged up £6 each (we will use this venue again). Wary of the terrain the route was taking us we were tempted to take a short cut back up to the downs but in the end decided to stick to the GPS to avoid getting lost. I was really pleased we did this, as the rest of the route was excellent on some nice wide open paths I had never done before. Duncan, Josef and Derek rather enjoyed this route but for me and Paul all the mud, flints and over grown single track were the cause of much anxiety so I am going to score this ride two stars.The Findon and Cissbury ring areas are great but I never want to go near Angmering park again (mud, flint lumps and more mud!)

Josef Escapes Angmering Park!