HSLCC Friday Night Ride 15/11

What Do You Mean We Must Stay Together?

Last week  following some foul weather,the ever reliable Simon G was the only rider who turned out for the Friday night ride. With cold but calm weather it was a certainty that Simon would not be on his own tonight. However, with both Ivan and Steve B nursing knee problems, and Nigel out on the London to Brighton night run, it was only myself, Marcus and Jon S that were able to join him. Dropping down Battery Hill I was grateful for the extra 200 lumens that my new front light was throwing across the tarmac helping me get my one and only Strava achievement of the evening on 'Little Battery'. Deciding to avoid the harbour reserve path due to all the pebbles that we assume the council/sustrans have failed to clear up we headed in good peloton formation along the main road. Jon, Marcus and Simon are all stronger than me so I was grateful to stay behind them and leave them to swop front man between themselves. Reaching Rye I was looking forward to easing up a little rather than fighting to stay with them but they were having none of this and insisted that as we were low on numbers we would stay together instead, groan!!! Its amazing how much more effort you need to go one or two mph faster than normal up that long drag and it was a relief to reach the top, stopping for only a few seconds to remove my woolly gloves that were causing my hands to over heat. Having swapped the saddle for one with less set back my Defy felt more stable than normal and we all swooped down past Broad Oak and past Brede, Marcus was convinced he was heading for a PB on the decent but this was thwarted when we were caught by the temporary traffic lights at the bottom. With close to a full moon lighting our way we had a good safe approach to Stonestile before I had to ask one more effort of my aching muscles to get to the top and finally get some relief, LOL.