HSLCC Fri Night Ride 27/2- Belen Restored

Unexpected Rider, Dave B!

A cold but dry windless night awaited us for the Friday night ride. I got there ten minutes early and was just enjoying a little piece of solitude which was soon disturbed by the completely unexpected arrival of Dave Belen. For those of you who don't know him, Dave used to be one of my off road cycling mates in my pre HSLCC days when we used to call ourselves the 'Battery Hill Climbers', he then went on to become a member of Bayeux road cyclists where he was nicknamed 'jet pack'. For a decade he disappeared only to resurface on one weds night chaingang before Christmas and the ride to visit Steve Butcher a few weeks later.

Dave admitted he had not ridden since the last time I saw him and so set off ten minutes before the departure time , he would wait for us to arrive at Broadoak .

A few minutes later, the rest of our merry gang had all arrived: Diego, Malc D, Nigel F and Ivan. To my surprise Ivan was there on his Pearson fixie, the bike he had his recent accident on. The frame had survived the crash intact, Malc had given him some old alloy bars and Ivan had splashed out on a very nice quality pair of curved ITM forks which Ivan declared had made for a lovely smooth ride. Unfortunately he had made a bit of a cock up of putting a replacement bottom bracket in (wrong cups fitted- whatever that is)

Ivan Admiring His New Forks!

There has been some new patching on battery Hill but I still managed to hit some surface irregularity. The sudden jolt to the bars caused my old indestructible  RSP light to fly off the handle bars and go rolling down the descent. Nigel was behind me and very kindly stopped to pick it up . This is about the third time the light has done this and is due to the crappy bracket design where the light stays on due to a little plastic tongue which wears down after a while (time for me to upgrade!)

We caught up with the others at Rye harbour, this gave me a chance to chat to Diego about his John O' groats to Hastings ride that he is planning for the summer and the merits of bikepacking versus pre booking all the accommodation.

Dave's ten minute head start was perfect as he arrived at Broadoak just a few minutes before I did. All that climbing had made me overheat so it was off with the full sleeve windproof and on with the gillet. Malc was just about to lead off when I noticed that Ivan was sitting on a wall looking a bit dazed and confused. He was complaining of feeling dizzy. The pounding up the road to Broadoak had caused his concussion to resurface but after a few minutes he declared himself ready to push on but following Nigel's advice we all switched our lights to steady mode rather than flash just  in case the 'strobe effect'  upset Ivan's slightly befuddled brain.

Almost immediately I regretted switching to the gillet as the air temperature had dropped to around one degree and the long decent past Brede was freezing. Even the short stiff climb up to the Doleham turn wasn't enough to warn me up so I had to put the windproof back on. Dave was struggling to keep up but we urged him to stay with us and promised a 'Stonestile photo' if he could make it up the climb without dismounting.

With Ivan's bottom bracket playing up he had no choice but to dismount and walk up the climb but got back on just before the end, catching me up onto the final relatively straight bit.After some waiting there was no sign of Diego or Dave, perhaps they had punctured or gone an easier way?
Then some lights appeared in the distance moving slowly but steadily. With Diego's encouragement Dave had made it up the climb without the 'walk of shame'. The promised obligatory photo had to be taken but poor Dave was so tired he couldnt lift his bike up properly, lol.Dave only lives round the corner from the top of Stonestile so hopefully his success will encourage him to become a more regular attendee to the Friday night ride?

Knackered But Happy- Dave Is Back!