Jack And Jill West - Off Road

Go West (Not So) Young Men!

We started at the jack and Jill windmills car park again like last week, but this time we were heading west instead of east. This route provided fabulous riding with hot dry weather and over three thousand feet of climbing. It took in what is probably the most impressive part of the whole South Downs Way with three massive hills that had to be ridden over in both directions :Devils Dyke, Edburton Hill, and Truleigh Hill. It wasn't until a place called Annington Hill that we finally came off the SDW to head south on a new loop we had never done before. This turned out to be an excellent diversion as it took us down some nice fast wide tracks past Lancing college before some a gentle road section that took us back to the bottom of Truleigh Hill. The first section of Truleigh Hill is really tough, being steep, long and worse of all  full of loose rubble. I was worried that my front wheel would lift up , cause me to lose momentum and then I would have to walk all the way up. However, the flat bars I had fitted to lower my centre of gravity did the trick and I managed to stay in the saddle all the way. After this, the long grind up the road section of the hill seemed easy. After getting past Devils Dyke , we had a choice. We could either be lazy and just keep going on the SDW all the way back to the start or we could do the big loop around the downs called the Sussex Downs path. We all felt good so left the downs to do the loop. At first this didn't look too promising as it was a bit over grown and full of dry brown loose soil but before too long the surface became firmer, the tracks wider and this turned out to be an excellent diversion from the SDW which took us back to the windmills (I should have more faith in the guide book!) We all really enjoyed this ride and agreed its the best off roader we have done this year. We award it 5 stars.

Duncan Rolling Past Lancing College