26/12 Boxing Day Early Bird

First HSLCC Ride For Martin

Dave HH Loves Fixing Punctures!

At last, a short period of dry weather with light winds before the next batch of storms were due to arrive. Joining us for the first time on an early bird were Barney's son Cameron and partner Susan. Also, welcome to Jon V's friend from running , Martin. This was to be a short 30 miler rated medium for hills. Dave HH was supposed to join us but had gone to the wrong cafe by mistake. After a quick phone call to Dave we were all assembled and started the route with the stiff ascent of Harley Chute road. The air temperature was lower than I expected and it made our lungs hurt breathing in all the cold air. Jon advised me to  breath through the nose but this is not easy to do when you have blocked synapses, lol. Continuous climbing up through Crowhurst and on to Catsfield followed. At this point I realised that Susan , Barney and Cameron were missing but it turned out that Cameron was suffering too much with the cold conditions so they had decided to break away. Myself and  Dave HH had no such problems, our layers of blubber do come in useful during the winter! There were a few places where the roads were quite badly flooded, it was tempting to  speed up and plough through these areas but that would risk hitting a hidden pot hole so we cautiously  passed through these flooded areas at low speed. More surprising than the flooding was the unwelcome appearance of a few patches of ice which Ivan on a fixie, found his rear wheel slipping about on. After more steady climbing up to Cripps Corner Dave was struggling with the hills due to a combination of weight gain and difficulty training following from his neck injury last summer but I reassured him that from here on it was mostly down hill. Having fixed a puncture we enjoyed the five mile decent down the Udimore road before turning off at Float lane. This lane is often in a bad condition but it does bring you at on a nice quiet section of road around Winchelsea station. This turned out to be a bad decision as almost immediately Dave punctured and then a few minutes later I hit a hidden pothole and suffered a pinch puncture. Stu, Martin and Jon had family duties to intend to so had to go off on their own.Now the sun had come out it was rather pleasant and with the buzz of being outside again we gently rode on chatting about future cycle trip plans to France such as climbing Mont Ventoux in 2016 (yes I do like to plan well ahead!) . To save time we stuck to the main road all the way back to Hastings, Dave was struggling again so we all road at our own pace with the others disappearing into the distance up Guestling hill with Dave bringing up the rear. More good weather is forecast for the Sunday club ride when we will try out a new route suggested by Mark, the 'Benenden Buster'.