18/10 HSLCC Fri Ride- Double First

Mark Ready To 'Defy' Stonestile

With some riders planning on doing the Chailey Audax and with other riders saving their legs for the hill climbs on Saturday and Sunday, I wasn't surprised that by 7:30 there was only myself and Jon S ready for the ride, but in the last five minutes four more riders appeared including Metin who was doing the Friday ride with us for the first time and Mark who was doing the complete route with us.This goes to show what a good bank of riders we have now for the Friday ride, we seem to have a different combination every week. It was a full moon but unfortunately there was thick cloud cover so we didn't get the benefit of the extra light down Battery hill. Having successfully made the decent I could feel my bikes rear end going all squidgy, yet again (third time in a month) I had picked up a puncture.I ended up having to do the job twice as the first (patched tube) I put in wouldn't hold any air. I am a bit disappointed in these schwalbe Durano tyres as they are not as puncture resistant as the Continental 4 seasons. I think I will keep the Schwalbe for the front only and go back to a 4 seasons on the back, they almost never puncture even when the tread is badly worn.On reaching the sea defences we were hit by a strong gusty south westerly wind. This seemed to get worse as we entered the reserve, we were all leaning to the right in order to stay up right and despite riding as a group we were down to around 15 mph. For once we weren't the only people on the reserve as the husky dog sleigh teams were also out there with lights just as bright as ours. Getting through the reserve seemed to take ages, it felt like we were on a different route to normal but once we changed direction we had a strong wind up our backs. This was going to push us all the way up to Broad Oak and helped mark to get a PB for the important Rye to Broad Oak segment moving up to 17th place overall. There was no such chance of a PB for me as my little pump had only managed to pump the tyre up to about 60 psi and with my 14 stone plus on the back end, the handling was terrible. Despite this being a low mileage week I felt done in by the time we all reassembled at the top of Stonestile in time to take the traditional first ascent picture of Metin and Mark.

First HSLCC Fri Night Ascents For Metin And Mark