Ride report: Winchelsea Tea & Cakes 100K Audax Sun 13/10/2013
As usual Dave Hudson, known in Audax circles as “El Supremo” due to the magnificence of his catering, had organised a killer route, starting and finishing at Hailsham. First a quick run along the coast (via Weds chaingang) to a generous lay-by luncheon in Winchelsea – hot drinks provided under Dave’s gazebo, self-service buffet of sandwiches, cakes, jam doughnuts, flapjacks, boiled eggs, tomatoes. Then a second leg inland to Heathfield. This means hilly and any geologist will tell you this is because you are traversing the weathered remnants of the Weald-Artois anticline, topping out at Brightling where the most ancient layer of rock rises to the surface and gypsum is mined 50m underground from the dried up remains of a Jurassic sea.
70 people had booked to ride but only 36 turned up, presumably the weather was a factor: the forecast called for rain and rain was provided. Some would counsel against riding in the rain but I cannot agree. The only real issue is temperature control which is similar to riding in hot sun or mid winter, once you are soaked through the only way to cope is to make more heat so you have to work hard ensuring a fantastic workout. QED wet winter miles provide the best training opportunities. And as Tim Krabbé said in The Rider “The greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses; people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you’. Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few friends these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms, she rewards passionately.”
At the end of the day the added challenge of riding in the wet will increase the amount of EPIC available on any given ride and that is, after all, the point, isn’t it?
That said I hope it doesn’t rain on the Mid Sussex Hilly next Saturday there is still time to book for this 100K Audax and join Steve and I (see Steve’s earlier emails), I’m sure Steve will ride whatever the weather.
Tom Norris
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