Sunday afternoon ride

Went out for a quick ride today, all on-road unfortunately, due to time constraints. Rode up to and then around Hangleton, then down to the bottom of King George IV Avenue (Snakey Hill), up to the top of Dyke Road, then down to the seafront, along to Southwick and then back home.

Just a quick one, Distance: 12.45 miles, Average: 9.1mph (stopped to talk to an ex-colleague for about 20 mins), Max: 28mph.

I installed my GPS before leaving (had to move the bracket to the Primo), hence the stats. Also took advantage of the Pro Pedal feature of the rear shock, which works really well!

Downhilling at Wild Park

Duncan and I had been discussing doing a bit of downhilling locally for quite a while - it's not normally my thing, but I thought I'd give it a go - so, we arranged about two weeks ago to meet at Wild Park to ride the downhill course there.

Will also said he'd be up the ride too, so we agreed to meet at 9:00, to ride to the park.

We made it there in about 40 minutes from Hove Park, and accidentally ended up at Stamner Park instead - it only took 5 minutes to correct that mistake, and we were along the road at Wild Park, where Duncan was getting changed in to his Robocop Suit body armour ; )

There are two main courses at Wild Park; one is quite open, enabling you to improvise your route each time - there are berms and jumps aplenty. Needless to say, I chose the "chicken runs" - I prefer my wheels to stay firmly on the ground, especially when it's as soggy as it was, but still had great fun riding the berms. The second consisted of mainly singletrack through the trees, again with plenty of jumps, and then quite an extensive section of North Shore. I found the singletrack difficult going, because I'm very tall and quite broad, and the gaps between the trees were a bit too small for me to ride without ducking an awful lot. As for the North Shore, I chickened out of that too, but enjoyed watching the others ride it.

After riding for a while on each of the trails, we went back to the first; on one my descents, I found myself dodging round a tree to avoid a jump, and completely lost the back end of the bike - I hit the deck at about 20 miles an hour, but once I'd confirmed that my bike was fine, I decided it'd been quite good fun! I haven't crashed for quite a while.. we went for another run after this, but I'd lost what confidence I had with hurtling downhill on soggy ground, so went down pretty slowly.

After a few hours we decided to call it a day, so Will and I rode down to Brighton seafront and rode along in what was staggering heeat considering the time of year - there were loads of people out on Brighton beach! We stopped off for a Coke first, and then went along to the Texaco garage, where we used the free water on tap to clean the majority of the crap off of our bikes.. I also gave the bike a good wash when I got home, but it was good to have given it it the initial wash with running water.

I'll be doing the course again soon, when the ground's a bit drier, and will get some photos for the site when I do!

Devils Dyke to Brighton - the long way round

Last Saturday, Will and I did a ride from Devils Dyke, heading east, aiming to take it pretty easy, and see where we got to. Friday night for me had turned in to a "get home at 5:30 in the morning" drinking session, yet somehow I managed to fit my rear Crud Catcher and my DMR V8s on my new Dawg Primo and be at Devils Dyke for about 11:50 (OK, so we'd agreed to meet at 11:30, but hey).

I still have a few housekeeping tasks related to the Primo, including removing the reflectors, removing the bell, and installing my GPS bracket, but I didn't have time to do those.

I could definately feel the effects of my late night drinking session, but I'd stopped to buy plenty of water, and some delicious Fruesli bar type things on the way, which definitely helped.

We got to the Lewes turnoff of the South Downs Way, and both decided that we'd rather go on than go to Lewes, this being due to the fact that it was only 2:30 in the afternoon. This track was a complete quagmire, and very difficult to get through. Having negotiated that, we made our way on, crossing the A27 in fairly good time. It was shortly after this, however, that the effect of all the vodka from the night before really started taking its' toll.. we rode up the long continuous hill after the forest on the south side of the A27, having basically decided to go on. However, what looked like storm clouds were looming to the east, and the thought of going on to Southease, where they may be a considerable wait for a train, was too much. We cut the ride short, turning west towards Bear Road and descending down in to Brighton.

I'd started the GPS (which sat in my pocket for the whole time) at the beginning of the ride, and it read about 30 miles by the end, with a top speed of 32mph, which I was pretty surprised at, considering how sloppy the ground was. The Dawg behaved flawlessly (I'd put more pressure in to the rear shock, and let some out of the fork), but it did attract a hell of a lot of mud around the pivot area. The drivetrain was also caked, and I did have a few cases of skipping gears, but overall everything was cool.

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