July 18th - Eastbourne

Another week, another coast! And what a contrast. Loved the Dunwich ride, hated the Eastbourne one but it really shouldn't have been like that. Fact is, I was going to go to Eastbourne on the Friday by train for the Eastbourne Extreme festival, by Tanya suggested we get a group together to ride it instead. She'd skated there before and said it was a decent route so I agreed and several others (Christophe, Pam, Luke, Matt, Diego and Ed) decided to come along too.

However, arriving at Paddington with Pam and Christophe for the start, we found that Tanya was nowhere to be seen and wasn't answering her phone. Fortunately Ed had printed some maps but they were OS ones which I hate navigating from.

First stop was Battersea to pick up Simon so I didn't need a map for that bit, and having successfully met him, several people decided they needed a comfort break. While they took care of that, I bought a road atlas from a nearby garage and extracted to 2 pages that covered our route, binning the rest. It wasn't perfect but an improvement. My sense of direction once south of the river is shaky at best, but we made our way across Clapham Common and down through Streatham towards Croydon.

This was new territory for Pam whose previous furthest ride was 15 miles and Luke had only done one of about 40 over 5 years ago, so, combined with Simon whose bike was laden down with skates and luggage, our progress was only at a medium pace.

We also made a couple of wrong turns due to the poor maps and several times we had to wait while we called up Google maps on our phones to get us back on track.

We finally got ourselves back onto the B269 before Warlingham and the plan was to stay on that until we reached Chiddingstone Causeway where Alex would join us.

A nice, though slightly bumpy descent under the M25 saw me hit 46.5mph while I worried about my hat and sunglasses ability to remain attached to my head.

Unfortunately, before reaching Alex and somewhere around Limpsfield, we fell victim to the usual levels of inconsistent signage that this country seems to excel in. One signpost points the direction to a place and then the next junction fails to have any mention of it. As a result many stops were necessary with several Google checks before we regained the B269.

We finally reached Alex around midday and this lead to another issue. As Alex had been waiting for quite a while he was eager to get going, whereas Pam and several of the others were looking forward to a lunch stop and Christophe was having problems with his knee so decided to abandon and get the train back. In the end we compromised and agreed to ride to Penshurst and then eat there. It shouldn't have taken very long. We set off and took a right turn almost immediately which led to a nice downhill and then a reasonable climb. We stopped at the top of the climb to regroup which was just as well as Ed, Luke and Simon failed to appear. After about 10 minutes and fearing a mechanical, I rode back down the hill but they were nowhere to be seen. It took several attempts to contact them by phone and it turned out that they hadn't taken the right turn. It took a while to work out where they were and then how to get them back to us. We finally found them a route that would take them to Penshurst and I set off back up the hill to rejoin the others. I caught up with them in Penshurst at the pub where they were now having lunch.

Luke, Ed and Simon rolled in and Simon decided that he would call it a day at that point.

It was getting on for 2 by the time we set off again (I'd hoped to be in Eastbourne by then and we were still 35 miles short). The route had a lot of long, slow climbs which were pretty tough going and apart from a stretch where I hit 47.5mph on a downhill I was just wanting to get it over and done with.

For the final section of the ride, Alex took us to the start of something called the Cuckoo Trail. It's a Sustrans piece of work which used to be an old railway line and as he left us there he told us it was just a nice straight, slightly downhill route all the way to Eastbourne and it had been great when they had skated it. Well, on skates it might have been nice, but, with a surface that looked extremely conducive to giving punctures, several dog walkers and barriers to slow cyclists down every half a mile or so, it only took about a mile before Matt and I had had enough. The others continued on this route, Matt headed back to find a station and return to London and I made my way via some proper roads on to Eastbourne.

I finally arrived around 5pm to the welcome sight of Quaddie and a can of beer. Definitely not my best ride of the year, hopefully London to Cambridge this weekend will be better.

July 4th - Dunwich Dynamo

Best ride of the year so far. 116 miles plus another 25 back to Andy's in Ipswich make it not only the furthest I've ridden fixed in one go but the furthest I've ridden on any bike in one go. The fact that my backside was feeling it for 2 days after and that as I type this, 5 days later, I've still not regained all the feeling in 2 fingers, is a minor issue.

So to the ride itself. I met up outside Liverpool St with Andy, Christophe, Ray and Matt from LSST and eventually Michelle joined us too. Then we headed to DanB's to pick him up and drop up a bag with some clean clothes for Annabelle to take up to Andy's for the following day. We then headed en masse to the starting point at London Fields.

The Dynamo is a bit different to other rides I've done. For a start, there's no start time. People show up at the park, chill for a bit, maybe grab a beer or 2, and then when the mood takes them, they head off. The leaving starts about 8 and then gradually gains momentum until, all of a sudden, everyone's gone. Of course, I only know this from the reports of others as we set off just after 8.30.

The first 27 miles of the ride out to Leaden Roding were on roads I've ridden many times and, excepting the long drag up to Epping, were pretty flat. Annoyingly my trip computer packed up around the 22 mile mark, and though it wasn't an immediate issue, it would become a pain later in the ride when I was trying to work out where I was.

Shortly after this we approached a roundabout where, although I thought we were supposed to go straight over, it looked like people were turning right. We turned right and immediately stopped to check, when someone shouted that it was straight on like I had thought. However, by the time I'd put my route sheet back in my pocket, the rest of the group on their geared bikes had already headed off, which meant that I was on my own. No big deal, I'd expected to get separated at some point as there was no way I'd be able to match their pace for the whole ride. I continued to the 30 mile point where I decided to stop at a pub, the Axe and Compasses in Aythorpe Roding. Nice pub, and while the enthusiastic landlady cheered on the passing riders outside, I grabbed a pint and a J2O and made a couple of calls to locate the others. The fast group were in Great Dunmow (having a Chinese!) and Michelle was just behind me, so I waited for her. I wouldn't normally stop that early into a ride but I was a bit food and drink limited. My plug has no water bottle mounts so I had 1 water bottle in my jersey pocket and I had only one power bar and 1 gel with me as I'd forgotten to get any others in. I also thought that it would be unlikely that there would be many places to stop for supplies out in the country in the middle of the night. This definitely proved to be true.

Anyway, refreshed and with last orders being rung, we headed back out into the night. I rode with Michelle for a while but I think I lost her as we climbed the hill out of Finchingfield (for some reason I seem to climb better on my fixed than I do on my road bike) and then I was alone for the next 19 miles and we entered Suffolk and finally came across the mass of red lights that was obviously the halfway stop in Great Waldingfield. The LSST group were inside having pasta but I took one look at the queue and decided that I'd be there for ever if I joined it, so sat outside and had half my powerbar instead. It was around 1am at this point and Michelle arrived at about 1.30. She kindly gave me one of her sandwiches and I ate that while Christophe went and refilled several people's waterbottles, mine included. According to Ray, they'd started off at a 19.8mph pace before slowing to 17.6. Andy said he wasn't going to be able to stay at that as did Christophe so I was looking forward to having company. Apart from Michelle who wanted a bit more rest before continuing, we set off again at about 2am. I tried to stay with everyone but very slowly the gap grew until Ray, Matt, Dan and Andy were just another red light blending in with many others in the distance. At least this time I had Christophe for company. There's something I really like about cycling at night. I'm not sure if it's the challenge of maintaining concentration in order to avoid potholes, other riders etc in the low light or if it's the lack of motorised traffic or if it's just the way that everything is quieter and looks different at night but I'm definitely getting hooked on it.

Around 3.30 the dawn chorus of birdsong was starting up and then later, around 4.15, I got to see my second Sunday morning dawn in 2 weeks (Last week was the 24 Roller in Le Mans) and I stopped to take a couple of photos for myself and then a few more for some other riders.

By now we were around 95 miles into the ride, somewhere near Kettleburgh, and with the improving light the rest of the route should have been easy. The numbers on the roads had thinned out so it was no longer possible to just blindly follow and somewhere around the 106 mile point we made our first mistake. We missed a turning signposted "By Road" and were several miles further on before we realised this. Fortunately, along with the direction sheets, I had printed out some maps so I figured out a detour through Yoxford. As it turned out, this was a good decision as, even though it was still before 6am, we found a newsagent's open and were able to grab some more sustenance. We rejoined those that were on the right route as we climbed up by the green in Westleton and then it was an easy 4 miles down to the beach and another, far too long for my liking, queue for breakfast. Arrival time 6.20am.

The LSST lot had had breakfast, while I just had 10 minutes kip on the beach admiring the bravery/stupidity of those that took the opportunity of a dip in the sea.

Just before 7, we set off again. This time we were headed the 25 miles to Andy's. This was tough and about to get tougher. We waited in Westleton to find out what Michelle was doing. Finally making phone contact, we found that she was OK and not far off the finish, but she decided that she would make her own way back, hopefully on one of the coaches that the organisers laid on.

By now it was raining, and as we failed to come up with an alternative solution for getting to Ipswich, we headed off into the rain. I was regretting not including a spare pair of trainers in the stuff I had given to Bella, but the pain my backside was giving me forced such trivialities from my mind. We'd decided that this bit of the ride would be done at whatever pace we could manage. This was definitely uncharted distance for Christophe and myself and I suspect too for Andy, who was vying with me for the title of most painful arse. DanB must have been suffering too. He'd ridden half of the Friday Night Skate on the music bike AND done the FNRttC to Brighton on Friday so by now was at around the 200 mile mark. To add to our difficulties both Ray and I suffered punctures on this leg of the ride and I was less than impressed with my new Crank Brother's pump.

Finally, after several nasty climbs and around 10am, we arrived at Andy's house. Bikes safely ensconced in his garage, we started on his supply of food and beer. I had a shower and donned my welcome change of clothes and then I spent the afternoon on his sofa watching the Men's final at Wimbledon before heading home on the train, a tired but very happy bunny.