22/8 Off Road To Brighton- Some Don't Like It Hot!

Finally We can Escape cafe On The beach!

Cycling over to 'cafe on the beach' to meet the others for 10;30, the weather was incredible, the skies were a perfect blue , it was pleasantly warm and there was a light easterly wind, perfect, this was going to be our easiest ever off road ride to Brighton, or so I thought!

Most of us ordered bacon sandwiches but half an hour later the food had still not arrived. On enquiring where our food was, we were told that it had already been delivered to us. Once we convinced the proprietor that 'no we most definitely  had not eaten the sandwiches', we then had another half hour wait while they cooked some more (it turned out that one of the young girls at the cafe had delivered them by mistake to someone else- bet they couldn't believe their luck!)

Easy Cycle Path Riding!

Finally, an hour late we set off for Brighton. As usual Colin was on a road bike as he detests riding off road, he would arrive well before us but saw this as extra drinking opportunity.Sticking to the cycle paths as far as possible and working as a peleton many strava segment PBs were being bested..

Reality kicked in as soon as we reached the SDW at Paradise way! The angle abruptly shifted upwards and instead of smooth tarmac we were now mostly on grass. The usual endless slog took us up to the Butt's Brow only to have to lose all that painfully gained height on the rocky descent back down to Jevington. I was glad to have a fellow hard tail rider with me for company (Mark) , we let the full suspension boys go shooting off with whoops of joy while we hung on for dear life being thrown all over the place. I was riding some new rotors and disc pads so my breaking was superb, unfortunately they were also incredibly noisy , with a terribly high pitched squealing disturbing the peace of the countryside. 

Pausing at Jevington church for more water we now had the  long climb up to the top of the Long man  . On reaching the top, the full suss crew took a short cut down straight off the long man's head while myself and Mark took the standard rocky but less steep SDW route. Mark was saying he was getting quite beaten up by the track but I told him worse was to come as I knew we had to get down the terribly eroded track from 'High and Over' to Alfriston  . This track is in a terribly eroded state, Malc D always tells me I should have faith in my 29er wheels and just go for it but I find this track quite terrifying and would rather descend at a bumpier but safer speed. The recent rain seems to have eroded it even more and for the first and hopefully last time I actually had to do a 'drop off' , landing safely on the other side, the sudden jolt did something to my neck and I would have a stiff upper back for the rest of the ride! 

Flat Riding At The Foot Of The Downs!

As we were doing the 'hard' route to Brighton we took the incredibly tough Borstal Hill climb rather than the far easier drovers track. By now the sun was at its zenith, the temperature was about 28 degrees, there was almost no wind and we were generating an incredible amount of body heat as we struggled up the 1.5 mile rough climb. At this point Mark was suffering with the heat  more than I was . He declared this one of the hardest hills he had ever climbed in his life and at one point he had to stop and give his legs a chance to get rid of the lactic acid and try to cool down. 

A Full Length Zip Was A Big Advantage

Easier rolling hills now stretched ahead of us in the direction of Firle. Normally I would love this section but I was now paying the price for the ascent of Borstal hill. My face was bright red, I was overheating and feeling increasingly weak . Perhaps the long sweeping descent of Itford hill would cool me down?

Reaching the YHA cafe at the bottom, I was feeling weak and dizzy with the heat and exertion. I also realised that I had picked up a slow puncture on the back wheel . While the others tucked into cake and coffee I had to sort this out but at least re-inflating the tyre was easy as they have a a big chunky stirrup pump screwed to the concrete outside. 

Keep Going Steve, Keep Going!

Mark seemed to have recovered from his earlier overheating but I still felt really weak, just as if I had already ridden 90 miles off road. I could barely keep the bike moving up the concrete farmers track above kingston. With hindsight I can see why I was overheating more than the others: firstly I was carrying  more insulating blubber than anyone else, secondly the jersey I picked out had only a 3cm zip to let in cool air, my rear pockets were stuffed with various heat insulating items  and  instead of simple shorts I was wearing bib shorts. Releasing the sweat sodden straps of my bib shorts made an immediate improvement and things became a little easier from here on. 

Malc and Ivan wanted to change the route and head to a pub in  Rottingdean before taking the 'under cliff' cycle route into Brighton. Normally they expect me to be unhappy about deviating from the route but this time I was delighted as this would be far easier than crossing over the golf course above Brighton .

By the time we got to the pub I was suffering with the 'shakes' but a pint of full sugar coke with extra ice cubes got me more or less back to normal . After  a pleasant hour at the pub we joined the 'undercliff' route. Every time in the past that I have ridden this, various parts have been closed for repair but at the moment the whole route is open and this was a lovely and easy way to get to the cycle path at Mediera Drive. Mediera Drive is normally a joy to cycle along but this time it was chock-a-block with people wandering all over the place and lots of careful twists and turns were needed to get round all the people out enjoying the weather.

Roadie Rendezvous At Clock -Tower!

Finally we got to our rendezvous pub in Brighton. The wonderful 'Clocktower' by Evans cycle shop. As well as Colin we were joined by steve D who had also cycled over after completing his train driving shift in the morning. The beers went down very nicely and Duncan's girlfriend came down to join us for a drink . After a single drink Mark had to set off as the last train for Rye was only around 8:00.

Half an hour later mark reappeared in an anxious sate. There was signal failure between Brighton and Lewes and no trains were running! Having had a good number of beers by now , the rest of us were strangely unconcerned by this.There were a number of options open to us for consideration.

1. Carry on drinking and then crash out in Ivan's uncles garden

2. Have less to drink and then cycle all the way home

3. Take up Tatty's offer of crashing out at her place in kemp town

4. Cycle to lewes and pick up a train from there

5. keep checking the web site and hope that they would fix the signal failure before the last train

Ivan Makes It To the Train With Four Minutes To Spare!

All these options were discussed while we sat in a curry house over in Hove. In the end we decided on option 4 , but while we were about to get served Steve's phone app informed us the signals were fixed! Trouble was that by now there was only one Hastings train left! This shouldn't have been a problem as we had about 60 minutes to eat our food, pay the bill and then cycle to the station. However, from past experience  I know that things often go pear shaped . With just 25 minutes left, myself and mark urged everyone to get back on the bikes and head for the station. Colin and Ivan didn't want to move at this point so we had to leave them there. 

I soon lost sight of the others as we rode rapidly back towards the station. Five minutes later I was surprised to see Malc D riding very fast back towards the curry house, I assumed he had left something there?

Arriving at the station with ten minutes to spare I tried to buy a ticket but the the main desk was closed, the ticket machines would not take cash and there was a queue for the single ticket booth.

With just four minutes to spare, Colin and Ivan turned up but no Malc. Seeing the ticket barrier was open we headed directly to the waiting train . Malc had also arrived by now and we were all safely on board with about two minutes to spare.

Phew what a day. Quite stressful at times but as always good fun and a steep learning experience!

Tough Profile!

Steve C