9/10 Friday Night Ride- Jamie's First Ride

Earlier in the week I had been contacted by an Eastbourne  rider who was new to road cycling , named Jamie Shotter. Despite living at Eastbourne Jamie was keen to give the Friday night ride a go.

Welcome To 'The Friday Night Ride'

Having come over on the train, Jamie managed to find his way over to the Fairlight lodge for an early meet up at 7:15. The plan was that he and I would set off at 7:20 to give ourselves a ten minute start over the others. Simon thought that ten minutes would be too much but as it turned out , it wasn't quite enough!

We had warned Jamie how dangerous descending battery hill in the dark would be, and sure enough despite having a 1000 lumen front light Jamie did  find it scary and for the first time ever someone actually descended it significantly slower than myself.

Regrouping along the flat ride into the reserve we came across Mark and Alex They were riding the other way to meet up with the group but we had to inform them we were only the advanced guard and that the others were about ten minutes behind us.

It was a lovely still  but cold night , so I hastily pulled on a pair of 'Ron Hill Trackster's. These immediately warmed up my legs but I had forgotten just how rubbish these are for cycling as they kept slipping down all night requiring me to repeatedly ride one handed while the other hand tried to pull them back up.

Riding through the reserve without any headwind was easy but by now the others had started to catch us up. Fortunately they would have to stop to fix a puncture , allowing myself and jamie to get to the bottom of the Broad-Oak drag first.

The 4.5 mile climb was a bit of a shock for Jamie but he was able to ride steadily throughout. About a third of the way up, the regulars started started riding past us, and disappeared into the distance.

I was a bit worried they would all get too cold waiting for us at Broad-Oak but everyone was very understanding, remembering what it is like to be a newbie and impressed that Jamie was not only doing the ride but would also be riding all the way back to Eastbourne.

The smooth descent down through Brede was much more to Jamie's liking and after a short wait to regroup at the Doleham turn, we informed Jamie (with some mirth) that all that was left to do was a fast flat section and a 'little' hill.

Despite some encouragement from Nigel, the 'little hill' of stonestile was too much for Jamie this time but hopefully in a few weeks time he will have earned the traditional victory photo for the climb?

Steve C