ESCA Reliability Trial- the 3.5 Hour Group

The 3.5 hour group

Myself and Derek arrived at the recommended car park in plenty of good time along with a number of other HSLCC members. Mother nature was being kind to us and the weather forecast promised us a dry ESCA.The temperature was in between cold and mild,was it tight wearing weather or not? looking around the carpark I could see it was about 4 to 1 in favour of tights but not being someone who feels the cold I decided to go for the bare legs option , only to change my mind after cycling to the HQ, so I had to  cycle back to the van to put them on again. This caused general mirth back at HQ where members were laying bets before how long I would take them off again (most riders thought 15 minutes!).

The 3.5 Hour Group Waiting To Be Released!

All too soon the 3.5 hour group were lined up at the start, garmins at the ready! After waving goodbye to lee and JV (from the three hour group) we were off! Whenever we have done reliability trials before we always seem to come in too early so our pace was initially steady rather then fast as we stayed together in tight formation. The first fifteen miles were fairly flat but just before some proper climbing near Horsted Keynes, Gary suffered our one and only puncture. This gave Diego time to do some calculations and we were shocked to hear that at this pace we would fail by 20 minutes! Some of us wondered if this calculation was correct, so our pace remained steady as we climbed up towards Hindleap warren. From here there is a brilliant steady descent all the way down to Colemans hatch before the sudden dog's leg down  to the bottom of the 'Wall' (Kidd's Hill). This ecstasy of thrilling downhill riding would now be paid for by the effort need to get up this famous climb (I am surprised Pete Tadros has never attempted to bag it).The strongest ones in our possy were Diego, kevin and Gary, and they were soon out of sight while the rest of us settled down into survival mode. Pete b managed to get around me early on but couldn’t drop me as  I hung to his back wheel, then much to our surprise Derek made a great effort and managed to get round both of us and put a little distance between us for his best ever performance on the ‘Wall’.

 With overheated legs at the top, it was finally time to strip off the tights. Looking around I could see the ground  dropping away in all directions, now gravity was on my side! For the next half hour or so we seemed to be endlessly riding  downhill ,enjoying smooth road surfaces with graceful sweeping bends. Everyone had suddenly become very quiet and focused, there was the unspoken wish to claw back the necessary time and for once become reliable! We were now only loosely riding as a group, if riders couldn’t hang on nobody would notice. First to drop off was Derek, being the lightest he was at a disadvantage with all the descending. Next to go was Chris Parker. There were now just five riders left : Gary, kevin and Diego were doing all the work at the front with myself and David struggling to keep up. Every time there was a bit of climbing the gap between them and us widened, only for it to close up again when the road pointed downhill . At the last checkpoint some riders from another club got in between the front group and us. This increased the gap to a distance that our by now painful legs couldn’t close. We both found the last five miles particularly tough as the terrain became more rolling . Relieved to reach the  HQ, we quickly joined the registration queue with Kevin, Diego and gary just ahead of us. We were all confident we had made it . Sadly it was not to be; Chris P informed us we had missed it by a few minutes and some more calculations by Kevin confirmed this. Unreliable again! Never mind we all agreed this was a fabulously well organised event and a superb route, well done Sussex Nomads!

Steve C