21/3 Mad March Marsh Ride

A couple of days ago was the first day of spring but it certainly didn't feel like it as myself and Ivan set off for the cemetery to meet up with Malc C, MalcD and Duncan for our annual Mad March Marsh ride. While waiting five minutes for any last minute riders we saw Steve D riding past. A minute later he had ridden back to us to ask us where we were going. It turned out that he had forgotten the ride was on and having done both the Friday night ride and a shift at work that finished at 3am he was out for a short ride on his own but said he would join us at least as far as Rye.

This year to make the ride a bit more interesting rather than straight to rye via Fairlight we were doing the last part of the Friday night ride in reverse.

What A relief To get To the Pub!

By the time we reached Brede, Steve was beginning to feel the twin effects of the Friday night ride and his work shift and was beginning to struggle but the mostly downhill drag into rye should give him chance to recover.Despite his tiredness Steve decided to join us for the whole ride.

From Rye it was straight out to lydd and then onto new Romney via the coast. I know that Steve Butcher regularly uses this as his standard training ride but speaking for myself  I am glad to only do this route once a year, its just so grim, wind swept and desolate . By now we had split into two groups of three . I of course was in the slower group with Steve D and Malc C , plodding along into the freezing cold head wind at around 11 mph. Myself and Malc C tried to give Steve some shelter from the wind but he was not always able to keep up with us. For a while, as well as the constant freezing head wind we also had to contend with   drizzle blasting into our faces . Fortunately this only lasted for about half an hour.

Regrouping at New Romney we were now on the dead straight B2080 which would take us direct to Snargate. Steve D knew the route from here so we were able to leave him behind and push the pace up a little. It was a relief to be out of the wind but it still seemed to take ages to make any progress and there was more traffic than last year (I have remapped this section to avoid the B road for 2016) .

With a sigh of relief we reached our main objective, the legendary red lion pub at Snargate
http://www.heritagepubs.org.uk/pubs/historic-pub-interior-entry.asp?pubid=100
If you don't know this pub it is well worth checking out as its the prefect antidote to today's franchised plastic pubs, only the 'Standard' can match it for ambience. The red lion is only open for three brief hours (12:00 - 3:00) and it was already nearly two o'clock so we had to polish off our three pints quite quickly . The publican recognised us from last year and on leaving we promised to be back in 2016.

Heading back out into the cold wind we were at least partially numb from the alcohol in our blood streams and we knew that we would have a tail wind all the way back from Appledore. Sure enough , we flew down the Military Canal road in record Strava time and soon arrived at the kettle O' fish. the owner is very bike friendly and was more than happy for us to leave our bikes inside. The fish and chips were excellent and well worth waiting for (check out the curry sauce- yummy)

Malc Makes It Up Battery!

With a big belly full of fish and chips we would struggle up Battery Hill but at least we still had the wind behind us. Malc C had only done this hill once before and had dismounted for a while so was a little apprehensive. In the end he made it without too much trouble while the completely knackered Steve D brought up the rear.

Despite the gloomy weather, this was a fun day out, lets hope for nicer conditions when we repeat it in 2016.