1/5 Puncture Pete!

Why is it so damn cold I pondered as I road up barley lane towards the Fairlight Lodge? Its the first of May and yet here I am in vest, fleecy top, roubaix tights, full windproof, fleecy under helmet hat. I stopped short of putting on full length gloves but that was a mistake as my fingers were going numb from the cold. It was also so dark and gloomy even though it was only 7:00pm.

Arriving at the Lodge it was clear that the cold had put others riders off, as there were only five of us, well below our more typical average of 7/8 riders.

Heading out along the sea defences towards the nature reserve Peter told me, 'I am not feeling it tonight', I must admit that as we  pushed on into a cold head wind, I felt the same way. At least it would all be over in about an hours time!

Arriving at the harbour itself, Malc, Dan and Nathan said they were going going to divert along to the edge of the harbour to claim a strava hill climb segment. As the road here looks to me to be as flat as a pancake I wasn't sure what they meant but apparently it involves riding up and down some sort of ramp and shooting across the road junction so you have to have riders guarding the junction to watch out for traffic? All very strange but Malcolm told me later he was successful and now holds the KOM for this segment, LOL

While the boys were engaged in their segment bagging, myself and Pete pressed on at our own steady pace up the long Broad-oak drag. It wasn't until we were about half way up that they caught up with us. Nathan and Dan  shot past us like we were standing still but Malc was feeling tired and decided to stay with us instead. With our mini chain of three riders we were having an easy time of the climb but it wasn't long before Pete picked up a puncture.

This wont take a minute (more like 20) !

By his own admission Pete is the worst cyclist at carrying out puncture repairs in the universe! It didn't help that it was one of those annoying quite slow punctures where it is difficult to feel the air coming out of the tube. Eventually we had to give up trying to find out what caused it, stick  a new tube in and hope for the best! After finally inflating the tyre, Pete managed to jam the chain inside the cassette which took some determined yanking from Malcolm to sort out. Finally we were on our way up to broad-oak , and were glad to be climbing to generate some useful body heat. Dan and Nathan were long gone as I had phoned them up about the puncture and suggested they head for home on their own rather than waiting for us getting cold. 

With thoughts of getting home into the warm, we rapidly descended down Brede hill , this gave me my second fastest descent ever

Pete turned off towards three Oaks, leaving just myself and Malc to continue up Stonestile in the pitch dark. It felt like someone had reversed time and we were back to January!

Its fair to say that myself , Malc and Pete found  the ride tough going but it just shows you how different riders can have totally different experiences as with Nathan's help Dan was having a great evening, bagging himself 10 achievements and  commenting on strava "Great ride. Great great ride, loved it!"