18/4 Pre-BBR Brighton Special

A couple of months ago myself and the illustrious Mr Pete Buss had organised a Pre-BBR Special to Lewes. http://hastingscc.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/101-pre-bbr-special-40-miles-of-headwind.html
This attracted a small group of just five riders who stubbornly  rode through 78 miles of pretty awful weather with cold fierce winds and flooded roads. With the onset of Spring we decided to extend that route (originally supplied by Nigel T) as far as Brighton and then come back via the university, through Kingston and over the seven sisters coastal route.

Some Of The Super Turnout For The Pre-BBR Special 

There was a good turnout for the Hastings departure at 7;20 and we arrived at Normans bay with around eight minutes in hand. At first there was just the familiar figure of Pete Buss patiently hunched over his TCR but as the clock moved forward , rider after rider kept appearing until it was hard to count them all.Our final tally came to sixteen riders including some familiar and less familiar riders. Among the less familiar riders were the very tall figures of Gary Lake and his mate Paul , along with the equally tall figure of Patrick. I think the average height of the club has grown by a couple of inches in the last few months! This delighted myself and Pete as we never expected such a large group although we did feel a bit under pressure in having to deliver a good safe ride.

One of the last riders to appear was 'Captain Caveman' himself (Nigel T) which was particularly fitting as he had originally mapped out the initial part of the route we were to follow. Some riders had had little sleep , having been out until 2:00 am with JV and the others revellers on the post social curry evening, and after daring to use phal curry sauce they were suffering the ring of fire, lol

Unfortunately there was something wrong with the gpx/tcx file I had sent out. Those of us with more modern garmins found that the gps kept re-routing and was insisting that we do the ride the other way round. this was very strange but apparently JV had  complained of a similar problem on a different ride. Luckily due to the problems of reading a Garmin colour screen in sunshine I also had with me my trusty eight year old garmin 205 with its black and white breadcrumb trail, this unit was not effected by this strange malady.

With a stiff south westerly wind at our backs we made easy progress through Hailsham, Ringmer and Ditchling. This route had around 5,000 feet of climbing over its 92 miles but where were all the hills?

Waiting For Tom's Ice Cream!

The first significant hill of course was the famous climb of Ditchling Beacon. I was surprised the number of riders who had never climbed this before so there was a nervous anticipation as we hit the bottom of the climb which rises up with a 3% gradient before steepening to a 9% gradient for the last 1.1 miles of the climb. The climb didn't seem to phase anyone and we all got up quite easily with myself bringing up the rear. One of the first to arrive was the 'Bianci Bomber' who made a beeline for the ice cream van. Unfortunately 10 minutes later Tom was still standing there and the troops were getting restless. Unable to wait no longer I crossed over to find out what the delay was and it turned out Tom was the first customer of the day and it would take a while for the ice cream to be prepared. Another five minutes and we were finally off with Tom clutching his cornet as we began the fast descent.

This is one of the greatest and longest descents anywhere in the south east and it was great fun accelerating past some of the lighter riders (I wish I had had a go-pro with me to film it!). When plotting this route I had mapped it so that we would do the complete descent down to the university. On paper this looked obvious but unfortunately the road soon spread out into a Y. Were we supposed to be taking the left or the right fork? With only the old bread crumb trail to guide me I could not tell? . This caused some dangerous hesitation on my part with riders slowing down behind me while other riders ahead of me had chosen the left hand fork. Stopping in the little area between the two forks we were in a very dangerous position but quickly realised it was the right fork and so headed off in the appropriate direction (to avoid this ever happening again I have remapped the descent with a tun off before the Y through Stanmer park)

With relief we reached the cycle path alongside the A27 and rode into the university where we hoped to find refreshments. We found an ideal large cafe at the rear of the university with lost of large tables outside. Our enjoyment was only spoiled by the thought that our navigation error meant that Ivan, Paul Malc and Gary had gone the wrong way. Speaking to Ivan on the mobile they had now gone as far as Lewes, it was too late  for them to turn back but they would seek out a cafe in Newhaven and rendevous back with us there . Ten minutes later we had a call from Malcolm, apparently he wasn't with Ivan , somehow he had gone right instead of left and was now at Brighton Marina on the coast! Malcolm said he would just press along on his own.

Suitably refreshed it was back to the cycle path for us all the way to Kingston. This cycle path parallel to the A27 is a Godsend , it felt so strange riding along so safely while cars at 80 mph whisked past just a few metres away to the right.

The route from Kingston to Newhaven was my favourite part of the whole days riding with some lovely quiet roads along a slight downhill in warm sunshine.Despite heading into the wind we were shltered from the worst of it by the surrounding hills. At Newhaven I had planned to ring Ivan et al at the bridge but by pure luck they were just coming out of a side road as we passed by. Except for Malcolm, we were all back together.

We were soon on the seven sisters route. This is where most of the days climbing would be. We no longer enjoyed much shelter from the wind and the next 30 miles were going to be a slog. I felt pretty good ad had the endurance to plod steadily up the climbs while some of the other riders stared to fade a little, I was no longer the slowest climber.

I was very impressed with the two peter Bs. they were both climbing really strongly all day .They were the two front riders on the Cuckmere Haven climb. Unfortunately some unpleasant car diver who was pi**ed off at having to slow down for the long line of  (single file) cyclists decided to wind down his window and along with his delightful passenger shout all manor of obscenities and threats to the two Pete's. Furthermore when the Petes stopped at the bus stop to wait for the rest of the riders, the car pulled in as well. Presumably the driver and his passenger were going to get out of the car and do goodness knows what. Fortunately as they looked round they could see a mass of other riders appearing ,thought better of it  and so drove off!

Shaken but unbowed the two Petes and the rest of us pressed on with the Beachy Head climb,our last major obstacle. The wind was strengthening and it took a long time for us to all reach the pub at the top. There waiting for us was none other than Malcolm, hooray we ere all together at last.

Normally the decent from Beachy towards Eastbourne seafront is great fun but  today it was spoiled by the increasingly blustery wind trying to knock us off our line.

Who's Up For The cafe?

By the time we got to Pevenesy bay I was feeling wobbly and dreaming of slices of cake and big mugs of hot tea. For me, Patrick and Nigel T, the cafe was irresistible so we said goodbye to the others.

We did have to pay a price for this later in that there were only three of us to take turns leading into the wind at 13mph all the way back to Hastings.

Many thanks to all those who came on this ride, a classic route that we will possibly do again in the autumn .

Steve Curtis