A good turnout for our second social drinking ride with nine riders up for it. The weather forecast was iffy with showers and wind predicted all day . Early in the morning some of us were caught out in hail so there was some anxiety over what conditions would be like over the Marsh. Despite the poor start, by the time we met up it was dry and sunny. As we set off, Malcolm D immediately pulled over and stopped having realised that he had brought out the shoes with the wrong cleats. He would have to ride out on his own later. We were lucky to have a strong wind at our backs and made rapid progress through Rye and Camber before reaching Lydd where we met up with Nigel who had done the 10 mile interclub timetrial at Newchurch earlier in the morning. He was in fine form having knocked a minute off his previous time last year and having celebrated with a full English breakfast .From Lydd, the marsh is at its bleakest as it nears the ominous nuclear power station. To both the left and right of us there were thick black clouds with rain falling heavily. We were riding in a narrow beam of sunshine and blue sky, between the two opposing weather fronts, we wondered if our luck would hold or whether we were due for a drenching? We had decided we would stop at the first pub we came to. This turned out to be 'The Jolly Fisherman' pub at Greatstone. As I pulled up I discovered I had a puncture, so while the others were enjoying themselves inside I set about changing the tube, at least I knew I had a decent leyzanne pump to inflate it. Unfortunately there is one major design fault with these leyzanne pumps and that is when you unscrew the flexible tube from the valve, it can sometime unscrew the inside of the valve, this is what happened here, and despite screwing the inside of the valve back in, every time it unscrewed it again. Fortunately my other tube had a tighter inner and so was OK, but by the time the tube was inflated it was time to leave. Our main objective of the day was to get to the 'Red lion' at Snargate before it closed. Looking at the watch there was no way we were going to complete the planned route and get there in time, also we had a call from Malcolm to tell us he had arrived there. So, we decided to cut a large section of the route off and head straight for Snargate on the A259. Despite being an A road, this turned out to have very little traffic. We were now heading into the wind and I was just about hanging onto the back of the group. Most improved rider award must go to Malcolm C who has dropped over a stone in mass since riding with us and was up near the front of the peloton all the way to Snargate. Some of the riders had never been in the red lion before, it really is an amazing time capsule kept exactly as it was in the 1940's by the daughter of the then owners who was then a,little girl but is now in her seventies.
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| Back To the 1940s! |
She has lived there all her life and has withstood offers from the big brewers companies to sell up or modernise. After a good few pints we emerged into more sunshine and noticed that the wind had now dropped. This made the riding to Appledore easier than it might have been. Rather than take the boring military canal road to rye we chose the much more interesting 'Heidi' route instead.It also meant we could
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| A Good few Pints later! |
stop off at the excellent bell pub at Iden were they provided us with a free bowl of freshly cooked french fries. More chips were to follow at rye before some of us decided to have one last drink at the Ypres tower pub. To get there we had to traverse some cobbled streets which Ivan and Malcolm insisted on riding over in honour of the forthcoming Belgium classics. After this the whole group had split up with some riders getting the train and others continuing the drinking.So it was just myself and Marcus that headed back to Hastings across the main road through Winchelsea. Marcus picked up a puncture but with the use of a CO2 cylinder this was fixed in rapid time (I have been so impressed by these I have just bought an inflater and cylinders myself).With a gut full of beer and partially digested fish and chips, the climb up battery hill was hideously hard but somehow we made it. Many thanks to all who came on the ride and made it such a great day.
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