21/6 Birling Gap Off Road

With it being father's day, Ivan was under strict instructions to be home by 1:00 for a family meal , so we decided to do our favourite short local ride from Birling Gap.

Derek loves this ride and has ridden himself back to full fitness so was bitterly disappointed to wake up to find his sciatica had returned. Turning the pedals was out of the question so he had to DNS

Tom was with us at the start but his father in law had injured his hip the day before and before too long he had to abandon the ride and head home.

This left myself, Dave HH, Malc, Josef and Ivan. By his own admission Dave had not done enough cycling over the winter/spring and is in the process of getting fit again so for once I was not
struggling to keep up with everybody.

After grinding our way towards butt's brow we then lost all that height as we descended the bumpy tack down to Jevington. This track normally shakes my fillings loose but with a lower pressure of 34 psi it wasn't so bad (must try 30 next time)

Yay, Now Its Time For Some Downhill!

Malc showed me a much smoother way down part of the chalky descent towards Alfriston, which I really enjoyed.

Passing parallel to Alfriston we had planned to take the Drovers track and the road climb up to Bo Peep , but Dave had other more masochistic ideas and suggested we take the very steep unnamed track directly up to the SDW . This is one of the steepest and longest climbs I know of. To make it worse the surface is loose and gravelly. Riding single sided look pedals made it difficult to clip in as I couldn't get enough momentum to give me time to push the pedal round before engaging the cleat . Eventually I made it but my pleasure was short lived when the front wheel refused to stay down and I had no choice by to unclip and walk. Eventually the angle eased a little and I was able to remount and ride at least half the track.

All this painful climbing was rewarded with the glorious three mile southerly descent from Bo Peep with  the fabulous view of Seaford Head in the distance.

Just as we cycled up to the 'Golden Galleon' pub the sun came out and the temperature rose dramatically . With Dave showing us pictures of his villa in Spain we could almost pretend we were there. A quick pint became two and we soon lost track of what time it was.

All we had to do now was ride through Friston Forest,ride a short road section up to Friston village and then (my favourite bit) descend directly down to Birling Gap. Dave HH branched off on his own 'single track' way through the forest while the rest of us headed down the family trail. The alcohol must have effected everyone (except me) as instead of taking the road they decided to take a 'short cut' through a wood.

I like to stick to the planned route so followed the Garmin navigation line back to Birling Gap car park . On arrival I was surprised that there was no sign of them . After half and hour of waiting I was getting worried. Eventually they turned up. After taking the track they had got lost and ended up going in circles.

By the time we left it was already 1:00 so I expect poor old Ivan was in the 'dog house' again.