14/12 HSLCC Early Bird- High & Over

First HSLCC Ride For Andy

All Together On High And Over!

The fantastic weather brought out a great turnout of ten early bird riders. This included on his first ever HSLCC ride, Andy Ashby. Andy commutes from Bexhill to Eastbourne every day , so as you would expect he turned out to be a strong rider. Also on their first ever early bird were Pete Buss and Malcolm Carr. Pete felt apprehensive and things did not get to a good start for him when the front dérailleur bolt broke off, leaving him without use of the outer chain-ring . We set off at a steady pace along into Bexhill, and up towards Hooe. The route took us along 'Horse walk', this road seems to have its own micro climate and was a good few degrees colder than elsewhere. Great care had to be taken over the frosty and mossy surface. Derek's hands were completely frozen meaning he couldn't change gear forcing  him to drop way back as he tried to do the climb in the wrong gear .Rather than take the proposed Sustrans route through Rickney, Jon proposed that we take the B/C roads through Stonecross, as with all the recent rain, the condition of the Sustrans route was very poor. This was a very good call and we made fast peloton style progress into Hailsham. So far the ride had been flat and easy. This was all set to change once we got to Alfriston and tackled high and Over. This was a good chance for the faster ones to really stretch their legs and gave Andy chance to show off his climbing skills while the slower ones plodded  their way up. Newbie Malcolm C coped really well with the climb but Peter did struggle up this first test. Next up was the Cuckmere Haven climb, so much easier since they resurfaced the road last year. After this all that was left was the climb up reverse Beachy. Normally this is a stiff test but today it was easy as we had a strong wind behind us all the way up. With the wind at our backs the ride down into Eastbourne was exhilarating and the wind blew us all the way home, making it easy to gain lots of STRAVA achievements. It was great to have such a good turn out,everyone enjoyed it, Peter found the hills a bit of a shock but is determined to join us again.