Every year one or two HSLCC members do the South Down Way (SDW) offroad (100 miles) in a day. This is an incredibly hard thing to do. For lesser mortals such as myself it is more than enough just to do it over two days with a camp at roughly the halfway point. Up for this ride were myself, Derek, Ivan, Jon S and Nigel . For Nigel this was going to be a brand new experience as he had never been on the Downs before. The rail companies will not let you book a place for a bike on board the train which caused me some anxiety but in the end the train journey to Winchester went without a hitch and for just £13.50 we arrived at the start of the SDW after a three hour journey.
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| Arrival In Winchester! |
Feeling peckish we decided to get a snack but made the mistake of choosing a tea shop where we paid for our food but then had to wait what seemed ages for it to arrive.This delayed our start of the ride by at lest half an hour. Eventually we set off for the SDW which was picked up straight away by the GPS and before long we were out of Winchester and enjoying easy riding through the undulating western end of the route.
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| Thank Goodness We Have Escaped That cafe! |
The last time I did the whole SDW I was 30 years old and it used to start at Petersfield but a few years later the powers that be decided to extend it to Winchester, adding an extra 20 miles to the route. This SDW extension is a little more broken up than the rest of the route with a few road sections to make it work but we all found it very pleasant easy riding , I cant recall seeing a single car on any of the short road sections, the biggest hazard we faced was another off roader hurting down a hill at great speed towards us dragging an off road trailer behind him! Once we reached the impressive Queen Elizabeth park ( a giant and better maintained version of Friston forest!) we were now on the original route of the SDW and any road sections were few and far between. We noticed a field full of many large green army tents and wondered what that was all for, we would find out later! I have been on the South Downs hundreds of times but only at the Eastern half, I must say that I prefer the terrain on this Western half, as the climbs are less severe and the ground less rocky, which suits an overweight rider like myself. By now the sun was directly overhead and it was turning out to be one of the hottest days of the year. Foolishly I had chosen a cycle jersey with only a short zip, but found that tucking away the straps on my bib shorts and removing my bandana (usually worn to protect my bald spots from the sun) helped me to just about cope with the searing heat.We were all well aware of the need to keep drinking to avoid dehydration, filling our bottles back up at every opportunity.
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| South Downs Selfie! |
In the hope of avoiding a headache (successfully achieved), I was also popping in an electrolyte tablet in every refill (zero tablets). By 3:00 pm the temperature was reaching its peak, Derek in particular was suffering and struggling to keep up with us. With about 25 miles left to get to our campsite at Washington, he told us he would prefer to ride at his own pace and would meet us at the there. Eventually we reluctantly agreed and
pressed on without him. Nigel was enjoying his off-road experience a lot more than he expected but due to all his road riding this year had never had the chance to fully test his brakes. This turned out to be a big mistake as basically the calliper/ lever combination didn't work and they were barely powerful enough to stop the bike on the flat let alone on some of the steep down hill sections.This meant he had to take great care downhill, sometimes using his feet to scrub off some speed , somehow he avoided any mishaps except for on one particularly steep section where to avoid knocking down some walkers at the bottom he had to crash his bike instead, luckily rider and machine survived intact while the walkers seemed completely oblivious to how close they had come to being human skittles in a bowling alley.
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| We Are Happy Riders With Working Brakes! |
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| Look Out These Brakes Don't Work ! |
With around 10 miles to go, the temperature had at last dropped a few degrees but fatigue was beginning to creep in. The reason for the mystery army tents now became apparent as there were hundreds of walkers taking part in the Gurkha organised 'Trailwalker Challenge' where people have to walk 100 Km across the SDW (
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/trailwalker/the-challenge) , if any of you boys want a new challenge next year, there it is.The walkers looked really tired already with many sporting bandages around knees and ankles, but with so many of them doing it they must have enjoyed a great feeling of camaraderie and mutual support. Unfortunately having to constantly ask people to let us get past slowed us down a great deal and by the time we approached Washington the light was just beginning to fade. The campsite we were heading to was in a perfect location as not only was it about half way on the SDW it was also almost next door to a pub (Frankland arms).The publicans are used to riders stopping by and were very welcoming, the first two pints barely touched the sides,the food here was also excellent. Our thoughts now turned to Derek, how was he getting on? A phone call by the ever thoughtful Nigel revealed that he had got lost and didn't feel he could could go on. Luckily by sheer fluke he had ended up at Amberley where there is a pub, so we advised him to stay there, order some food and Nigel's girlfriend Lucy would pick him up after dumping our camping gear at the campsite.The campsite owner was so old and laid back that he was almost horizontal and there seemed to be no fixed price for camping, he just plucked a random number out of thin air and charged us the incredibly cheap price of £35 for all of us! The three pints Ivan had drunk effected his coordination quite badly and we watched with amusement as he got more and more worked up trying to erect his tent, only assistance from Jon managed to get the thing erected in time to go to the pub for more beers.
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| This was One Hill We Didn't Have To get Up! |
After a surprisingly refreshing sleep we were up and ready to set off again for the last 45 miles. Derek had decided to abandon and would get a lift home with Lucy in the car. After giving our farewells to Derek and many thanks to Lucy, without whom this trip could not have happened, we were off for the home leg. We were now on familiar territory with the Downs becoming more severe and rocky. Straight out of Washington was a climb so steep that neither myself or Jon could keep our front wheels down and we had to walk up (not easy to do with look delta cleats on carbon shoes), Nigel and Ivan had no such problem and were climbing even the steepest hills, this would be a repeating pattern . We were feeling peckish but with it being so early nothing was open for food, although we did enjoy some tea and coffee at the Hikers Rest at the bottom of Devil's Dyke. At this point even the normally superhuman Nigel was feeling tired but Ivan having now recovered from his five pints of beer the night before was now in full 'Ivan Power' mode and so bade us farewell as he set off for home at a fast pace. All along I had planned on leaving the SDW at lewes and getting a train back, deciding that 80 miles was enough for me. Nigel was also feeling tired and agreed to do the same but Jon was determined to complete the whole route and so would have to do this on his own. Not long after getting off the train a storm suddenly blew in, the heavens opened and for several hours there was hard rain and flash flooding on the roads, so I was grateful to be off the Downs but did have some concern for Jon who would still have been up there at this point.
This turned out to be a great trip and something we are sure to do again in the future. Many thanks again to Lucy for taking all our kit over and rescuing Derek from Amberly
Steve C
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