West by SouthWest Hastings CC Chaingang

un

taking a break at Pevensey

Andy Bennet and Stuart Hodd

Around twenty five riders,  splintered into smaller groups by a howling Westerly. We got some short spells going at the front for a while along Cooden Beach - always welcome in the teeth of a such a withering block wind, after a while it was back to a handful of strong lads taking longer pulls. Pace was tough enough to hang onto but still picked up at the end - with four of us going for the best interval before the stop - good fun.

I found it harder to keep up on return on fixed, sweeping  up Spooky hill and rashly on to the front on the descent thereby using up all my spare spin. By Cooden beach I was watching the others shift into top gear and pull away with that 25mph plus wind at our  backs.  A fun, fast ride, see you next week.

26/1- Early Bird Reverse Friday

On arrival at Stamco for the early bird at 8:00 I was surprised to see Chris P there. I know Chris loves a bacon butty but two hours in the cafe before the bacon butty ride at 10:00??

For Once, The Weather Did Not Let Us Down!

The early morning rain had just cleared and the forecast promised some sunshine . Good to see Metin out on an early bird again (only his second of the season). As most of us had dropped some form over the last few weeks due to the Arctic weather , we set off at a steady pace. I was anxious to see what state the roads were in after all the rain and frost but it was surprisingly good except for Dumb Woman's Lane which is now in a very poor condition, here it was hard to avoid the puddles and some of them were deeper than they looked. We were however beeing treated to plenty of sunshine, John V reckoned it felt like the first day of spring but I can't say I agreed as having forgotten my overshoes my feet were completely frozen. The route finished with the turn off near Guestling towards Three Oaks. It was here that Metin missed the turn but surprisingly he managed to find another route and we were all back together by the end. This was our best spot of weather for many weeks, lets hope we get some more for the reliability trial next Sunday!
30.5 miles
13.6 average

25/1- Baxter's Back!

Was It Cold? Yes just a 'Little'!

As I cycled up to the Fairlight lodge for the Friday night ride , I was surprised to see snow by the side of the road. Were we doing the right thing riding on such a cold night? Ivan had already phoned in to say he wouldn't ride as it was too cold, and apart from myself, only Simon G and Nathan were up for the ride. On the ride down battery hill I almost came off when I rode straight over a pothole in the dark which nearly knocked my hands off the bars, after that I descended even slower than normal cursing myself for having brought out my rubbish Raleigh instead of my stable SCR. As I got dropped by the others I could see in the distance an extra light had appeared and in the fairly still night air, I could hear someone talking about the cost of fitting new kitchens. It could be only one person, Paul Baxter had reappeared from his mid winter hibernation!
 Having not ridden for 10 weeks , Paul was about the same level as myself so we formed a pair riding together which allowed the much faster pairing of Simon and Nathan to go off at the front. After regrouping at Broad Oak and missing the ever increasing number of potholes we decided to ride up to the ridge on the main road through Westfield rather than risk Stonestile lane which had been shut during the week due to ice. This made for a steady ride back rather than the usual drama of out of control heart rates and burning thighs. Good to see Paul B back again, he will need to do loads of training if he is still going to attempt to do the double south downs way in one day (200 miles off road!!) this summer.

23rd Jan Chaingang; cold, drizzly, lorra' lorra' potholes

It's been two weeks since my last ride, so i was keen to get out to limit the loss of what scraps of form I'd saved over Xmas. The forecast looked promising, one degree above freezing, no black ice then, not even the soft crunchy kind that eight dextrous Eskimos  skated  across last week. After half an hour of getting ready running up and down stairs for warm layers, gloves , shoes, overshoes, hat, lid, hiviz vest, phone, phone sock,  pumping tyres up -  I open the door and am met with a soup, no a wall of steady drizzle, just a smidgeon warmer than freezing, not ice, not sleet, but quick running silvery icy drizzle - imagine  a million dripping cold taps.  Lets allow a degree of exaggeration and call it soft ice . . . liquid ice maybe. 

Well it'll probably dry up  in five minutes, I say to myself, too late to stop now, might as well get on with it. A welcome tail wind  and I arrive at the hut on time for a change. Eleven riders have turned out from a ten mile radius - spiritual Belgians to a man - all happy to be out. 

The ice has melted to reveal some new potholes, and some old favourites have expanded.  But best of all the highways agency have scraped off the road surface of the last hundred yards of Bexhill seafront, exposing little drain covers, now  cast iron towers of  sharp cornered evil,  all but invisible in the spray and mirk. After three or four direct hits, my wheels should have been square, so I must be very lucky,  and thank Max Norrell  for building me some very strong 36 spoked wheels.  the latex tube I put in the front after my last pothole pinch puncture might be helping too - the last hole I hit bounced my tail lamp loose - but the old steel fixed soaked it all up, without a complaint. I endo'ed it into a ditch last year, and rode away after straightening the bars -  a lighter weight machine would surely have snapped its forks.

With that tailwind I closed a gap and  hung on to a fast group of four but finally ran out of spin and dropped off before  Spooky Hill. John C punctured in the big pothole on top of the hill, same one that got me a month ago. Only Chris P stopped to help so both missed the blurry phone photo.

As cold and rain soaked in from the feet up - its the first time I've felt cold on the bike all year. However the bunch was in good spirits and enjoyed a strong finish. 

See you for a drink at the Club AGM, Carlisle Pub, Hastings Seafront, Monday Jan 28th, 7:30pm

11/1 - Oh Hole---y Night

Good Turn Out For A Friday Night Ride

Good turnout for a Friday night ride with eight riders present. This included Steve B who has been out of action with the Noro virus. Much to our disappointment, the patching work on Battery Hill only seems to apply to the upside so we had our normal jarring descent. The big pile of pebbles which must have accidentally fallen out of one of the sea defence lorries on the early part of the nature reserve path had been cleared away by John during the week with his plastic shovel, so we were able to make good time on this part of the route. As usual I was the slowest one up the long drag to Broad Oak where the others were waiting, I wasn't too far behind Duncan but that was only because he had stopped for a pee! Steve D is going really well this winter and managed to stay with Simon G and the others all the way up to the top of the long drag. He is still on his cheapo Raleigh as he has had to send his new carbon planet X bike back, having decided he needed the next size up. None of the potholes that myself and John had reported on the approach to stonestile have been fixed and two more nasty ones, side by side have appeared since last week.With eight of us riding together, this led to the serenity of the still night being broken by frantic cries of "HOLE". The main group (Simon, Nathan, Duncan, Malc) soon disappeared up the climb but Steve D's legs were now wasted so team Raleigh rode up more or less together. We were all really glad to have ridden the Friday night ride as with all forecasts predicting freezing weather all week, who knows when we will be able to ride again?

here we all were at the chaingang on wed 9th jan

 . . . and back to full strength with 22 riders and some new Strava pals, welcome!  As Stuart Davis said pace was easier than back in September when a few racers were dragging us along at eyeballs out 25mph+.  Tonight I found it challenging enough just to hang in on the fixed with 48 x17, 48 x 15 is more better for this ride unless its windy - but hey its the off season, I'm supposed to be giving my knees a rest,  should go to 46 x 17 for solo rides and flip to 46 x15 for chaingang, but too lazy. Simon G Malc and Matt also on fixed.
Svawek and Malc paced us out, Simon N trying to break up the group like Phillipe Gilbert, while I sat in till the final straight, having been ill over hols didn't feel like taking a pull, *sorry!* but still found some dregs in the tank to jump away like a dirty poacher at the usual spots. Nathan 'Cav'd' me at the roundabout. That's Shaun Reed in yellow telling  Chris Parker and I about the road races and crits he's putting on for the Eastbourne Cycling festival in May , with seperate events for cat4, cat 3,  and another with E, 1s and 2s - it sounds like another good one.

Early Bird 5/1- Cloud Busting

"You Said The Weather Was Going To Be Dry!"

None of us bothered to check the weather forecast this morning as we had been promised good dry weather all weekend. We were therefore very disappointed to arrive at STAMCO in mist and drizzle. We kept hoping that the sun would clear it up but the drizzle continued throughout our ride, Derek said it felt like riding through a cloud. Good to have a rare appearance from konrad on an early bird. Steve D was with us but was quite a different rider to last week as since then he has had the pleasure of the Nora virus and its recovering from two days of illness. We rode one of the oldest early bird rides' Dallington' . This may be a short ride (30 miles) but it does pack in a lot of hills. The condition of the main roads were OK but some of the minor roads have really deteriorated this winter with all the rain , so we had to take it easy on many of the descents. In particular, the worst piece of road is the cut through between Ashburnam and Marlpits, the road surface was so bad we were holding on for dear life trying to avoid not just pot holes but whole sections where the top surface had peeled off and was full of gullies and mud. Steve punctured on this road , it was surprising that more of us didn't get pinch punctures, unfortunately I will have to remap this section of the route to avoid this unpleasant stretch.The road surface improved considerably after this and as we climbed up towards turkey road we saw a large group of cyclists descending on the opposite side of the road, this turned out to be Chris P with what looked to be a record number of bacon butty riders (should they be called the butty boys?)

4 Jan- Battery Hill Gets A Makeover

Battery Hill Gets A Much Needed Face Lift !

Our normal route down Battery Hill was not possible as we arrived to find the road  cut off by barriers. When we enquired what was going on, we were told that both sides of Battery Hill were going to have a major face lift with large areas of patching laid down on both sides and that the whole job would be completed in one evening. This is good news for us as this will mean a much smoother descent in future. The nice man in charge of the barriers agreed to let us through so that we could ride down Matineau lane and reach the coast via Chick Hill. As both Ivan and Malc were on fixed wheels myself and John S let them go first as we all descended in the dark very cautiously. On the long drag up to Broad Oak, Malc and Ivan raced up to the top (Malc later said that he thought he had never seen Ivan ride up there so fast) while John kindly gave me a tow all the way to the top. On the descent from Broad oak I was riding behind Malc enjoying the spectacle of his little legs spinning like mad on his fixie. As we reached the approach to Stonestile, we had to dodge a couple of nasty potholes that have just  appeared (and will need reporting), John has now reported so many that the council rung him up and invited him to a consultation evening! Ivan was going much stronger this week and had no trouble ascending stonestile lane on his high gear, although Malc made it up even faster.
The Friday night Broad Oak ride meets at the top of Battery Hill outside the Fairlight Lodge Hotel at 7;30 every friday.

Winter 2013 Chain Gang Rolls Out on 2nd January

With an early evening downpour it seemed we were likely to have few riders out as just three of us set off at 7:30. Barny set a quick pace from the outset with Svawek tucked in nicely. I was also holding a wheel, but only for the first few hundred yards, before deciding to enjoy myself on a solo thoughtful steady ride across Pevensey Marsh in pitch black, distant lights reflecting in the numerous stretches of water lying in the sodden fields. By the time I got to Pevenesy roundabout Barny and Svawek still had plenty to talk about, despite the long wait, with me getting there to hear Barny's tale of a cyclist he rides with at Hillingdon circuit road races who ignored a hairline crack in his carbon seat post only to have a catastrophic failure out on a ride shortly after which lead to the necessity for a delicate operation to his nether regions to remove numerous carbon splinters, ouch ........ Moral of the story: when cleaning your bike and noticing any hair line cracks in carbon get the part replaced before riding the bike again. Of course if you have a good old steel frame just pop in to a blacksmiths next time you ride past one, as in the good old days .............

Suddenly there was another approaching light. Malcolm had punctured on the way to the meet. Malcolm said two more were on their way: John V and Jason K had been for a long run before picking up their bikes from John's van parked at Rock-a-Nore and pushing their way in to the wind to miss the grand depart.

Since we were now quorate and Malcolm is always game to set a good pace Svawek decided to the return leg to Bexhill after all, rather than go straight home to Eastbourne. So we had a good brisk group ride back splitting in to two groups on Spooky Hill.

With John's van at Rock-a-Nore I was forced to join him and Malcolm in the Dolphin to rehydrate .......

Next week the usual sort of turn out is expected after a disrupted end to 2012.

The Autumn 2012 Wednesday Chain Gangs ended on some inclement notes, with no BLOG entries.

Wednesday 12 December: Shortly before the meet a message from Colin Enderson was circulated to advise there was already black ice on the Marsh Road. Despite that, and with the mid evening warming up, Barny says there were about 12 riders out but no Simon Prior so the only remaining 100% record finally ended.

Wednesday 19 December: A very wet evening with Svawek being the only rider out getting a soaking.

Wednesday 26 December: Svawek came over to Bexhill in his car and says that he only saw Chris Watson out on his own, getting a soaking.

So the first gang of 2013 as an improvement with a lot of surface water, hence wet back sides, but no rain and a good temperature with a stiff wind not being too strong.

Chris Parker doing a rare write up - I know I could do a lot more and had I taken up Steve's offer of a Christmas present (an old cast off digital camera) I could add some photos but .......

Southborough Wheelers New Year's Day Ten

I am not sure whether riding the New Year's day ten marks the end of 2012 season or the start of the 2013.  However, three of us were down to start, with Tim Miles and David Connor being the other hardy souls.  I had visions of the Hastings winning their first team award, as  there was no real competition; well if you discount the Yates family (6 riders), including ex Tour de France yellow jersey holder Sean, plus PMR@cing, we would have had a good chance.  Anyway dreams shattered as I was the only one brave enough (or stupid enough or perhaps the only "billy no mates" so not out celebrating the New Year) to ride.

It was a lovely morning, with the early rain drying and a surprisingly warm morning.  I did a 26:49, which I was pleased with as I had only managed 36 training miles in December.  There is deliberately no photo of me as I now have an unattractive aero bulge - training starts tomorrow.  Steve Berry beat Connell Yates by 58 seconds and did a 21:28, and improved on last year's event record by 10 secs.

Depending on the weather I may venture out for the Kent Vets ten at Harrietsham on 9 March or if a couple of you fancy dragging a fat old man for 25 miles there is the KCA 3 up Team Time Trial on the 10 March.  Otherwise, weather permitting, I will see some of you at the ESCA Hardriders.  I suspect Chris will be badgering us nearer the time to enter the events.