Jon – tapering ready for a 600km Audax in Wales next weekend. I say in Wales loosely apparently it starts in Chepstow goes to Anglesey then return to Chepstow, so that’s most of Wales then.
Nigel – Looking for a recovery ride after his Sportive last weekend. Apparently it was damp and misty for the first 5 hours, the scenic bit through the Tramuntana mountains, so those of us who stayed at home to do the Pre BBR Brighton Special and enjoy the glorious sunshine on Ditchling Beacon made a wise choice.
Gareth – Training hard to try and get back the 6 seconds that Steve Butcher beat him by in the first Broadoak TT.
Patrick – Avoiding mowing the lawn again.
Some of the more seasoned readers of the blog may have already spotted something unusual – Nigel arriving on time for a morning ride. This however hadn’t been without its tribulations. His bike of choice the S-Works Tarmac was still disassembled in a bike box after it’s travels to the damp & misty continent. So on going to bed he had set his alarm for 5am to allow time to reassemble. Unfortunately not being the most technical chap, and only being a young wiper snapper at this programming electronic devices lark (I think he needs to go old school and get out the paper tape and punched cards) he’d mistakenly set it for 3am, so when he awoke he felt far to tired and switched the phone off without resetting the alarm. But miracles do occur and he re-awoke naturally at 5am so was able to resume Plan A.
Having waited the customary 10 minutes, as if anybody else was going to turn up, we were ready for the off, apart from Nigel who taking on Gareth’s role of faffing decided now would be a good time to spend 5mins fiddling with his Garmin loading the route. Finally we off towards Battle, and in order to be able to offer some comparison to the more famous Surrey hill we plotted a course up Netherfield hill, up Brighling Hill and then up again to Burwash. Meandering through the glorious Sussex Weald we continued on through Mayfield to Crowborough.
At this point not normally a man of great emotion Jon began to quiver. ‘Could we divert just a little off the course and make an unscheduled stop?’ It turns out that Jon is having his dream bike built up near by and it’s heart a Kinesis titanium frame had arrived this week. Oh how he longed , to inspect the tube angles the quality of the welds and the feel that is unique to frames constructed from this unique metal. But alas although the diversion would be small we feared the stop would not, so we pressed on.
It wasn’t long before we were rewarded by the joyous roads through the Ashdown forest and of course more hills.
It’s very noticeable that the further one cycles into the commuter belt the bigger the cars get (a 4x4 being essential for a trip to the Pantiles) and a complete dis-respect for other road users becomes the norm. We continued gamely on giving ‘Creepy’ Crawley a wide berth (people have been known to come out in an unsightly rash just by passing through), and crossed the M23 north of Gatwick. Passing through the flat farmland on the south side of the M25 the imminence of the North Downs was always in the distance and our objective insight.
We arrived at the foot of the famous zig-zag climb at the same time as a group of 20 riders from a Surrey Cycle club. Next time we do this ride, I’ll try and persuaded them to cycle to Hastings and experience the joy of Battery Hill, as it was frustrating to have so many cyclists to pass on the way up. Needless to say it was Nigel who arrived at the café at the top first. It wasn’t until this point that I spotted the similarity in his racing jersey to the livestrong (now rebranded livewrong) colours made famous by a certain Texan cyclist in the 90s. Whilst thier training regimes may have similarities, Nigel has replaced the EPO with his infamous Ricecakes giving similar performance gains. For those who haven’t asked Nigel the recipe for these, my advice is make sure your sitting down, order a coffee, with a refill to follow in 10mins (you’ll have time to drink both), then casually drop in the conversation ‘So Nigel how do you make those rice cakes?’
Having gorged ourselves on a mixture of Bacon Baps, Sausage Rolls, Treacle Tart, Cakes, Pepsi, Coffee and of course the obligatory Ricecake for Nigel, we were ready to start the Homewood journey. Greeted by glorious views from the Top of the Downs we were disappointed to find ourselves shortly afterwards ridding for five miles down a dual carriage way (the A217 if anyone is interested – Note to self redo this part of the route) for several miles to the top of Reigate hill. From here we headed east to join up with Sam’s London to Hastings route which conveniently delivered us at the Velo Café in Tonbridge Wells as our Garmin’s clocked up 100miles (Note: shorter routes to the Velo Café are available at other outlets). There was a difference of opinion on how to refuel at this point with Jon and Nigel opting for coffee, Patrick beer and Gareth sitting on the fence with one of each. We watched the end of stage two of the Giro, is it just me or does Marcel Kittel look lie a younger blond haired version of Nigel?
Sticking with Sam’s route we carried on through Wadhurst and Stonegate before heading further east to go through Robertsbridge. Poppinghole lane was next, and I mused if this was the inspiration for one of the features on Assos’ Cento shorts. KuKu Penthouse for those not familiar with Assos speak I’ll quote there description: ‘The front part of the insert features a round-shaped pattern insert made of skin contact textile, no foam. Not only does it create a "nest" into which the male's genitals are properly "stored", but also keeps them "cooler". It's the evolution of "kuKuDeluxe". You only got 3, protect them!’. It was during my musings that Nigel decided enough of this gentle recovery ride and went on a mission to set some PBs the rest of the way home.
The remainder of the group joined the Tubby Tuesday route at Sedlescombe , before Jon diverted to his house just shy of Westfield. Gareth and I then had a brief conversation about the merits of Westfield Lane v Stonstile, before Gareth let slip that he’d neglected to swap out his time trialling cassette (26t max), and so it was set, it had to be Stonestile after all it was Sadistic Saturday after all.
Patrick
Box Hill – Epilogue by Nigel Tamplin
Some weeks earlier...
Someone had mentioned about a bike ride to somewhere some day of some weekend, but with a planned 0800 start time, I'd ignored the rest of the details.
Some weeks later...
Scanning my emails on a Friday night I realised it was Patrick's ride was to box hill and it started tomorrow morning. I liked the sound of box hill, but getting up in time seemed like a pipe dream, it was a long shot but I decided to bite the bullet, and that maybe, just maybe, I could get up in time.
I set my alarm for 0700, then remembering my bike was dismantled and still in it's aeroplane hard case from a few days earlier, I set my alarm for 0500, allowing me an additional 2 hours to build my bike. It doesn't take that long but I was compensating for the early-morning correction factor, the phenomenon whereby everything takes longer than expected (presumably as most brain cells are still asleep which alters the perception of passing time)
At 0500 my alarm went off, a few minutes later Lucy shook me awake, “turn that annoying alarm off its the middle of the night!”. I was so tired I immediately gave up on the idea of riding to box hill and went back to sleep.
Later in the night, I awoke feeling ill and with cold sweats, to my surprise it was 0500. Hang on, this doesn't make sense I thought, double checking my alarm it turns out I'd set my alarm for 0300 by mistake. I attributed Friday's evening's late night binge of 3 chicken burgers and wine to coincidentally having disturbed my sleep at the correct time. “Game on” I thought and set to assembling my bike. 2 hours to fit rear dérailleur, wheels, chain and seat post, fix slow puncture , inflate tyres, change brake pads should be ok. I made myself a coffee and looked for my tools, blimey 30 minutes gone already, ok 1h30 should be plenty of time. After a buzz of bike building activity reminiscent of an A-team montage it was ready, I even had time to sponge off the worst of the dirt and eat a bowl of porridge. I informed Lucy I was “popping out for a ride”, SMS'd Patrick, and set off for the Harrow where I surprised the already assembled motley crew, and myself, by arriving on time.
5 hours later we were sat at the cafe at the top of box hill, my phone rang, I'd forgotten my mother was visiting “was I nearly home?”, er, “I'll be back in 5 hours”, she wasn't there by the time I returned home.
Nigel T
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