This is the first ride on which I had a chance to take photos for the site. As I did the write-up on a Sunday, I just got the page to a working state; it is a work in progress and the images will all soon have a blurb. View a detailed account of the ride..
The route follows the South Downs Way, which is signposted frequently, so isn't too hard to follow.
1. A fairly windy day today; lots of paragliders out. This looks west towards Truleigh Hill from Devils' Dyke.
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2. This is looking back towards the DD pub from after the first descent / ascent.
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3. This looks back from the top of the next furthest hill.
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4. This is looking towards Truleigh Hill from the same hill.
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5. Looking back towards DD from Truleigh Hill.
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6. Looking towards the sea from Truleigh Hill.
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7. The T.V mast at Truleigh Hill. A distinct lack of desire to fry our brains dictated that we move on from here as quick as possible!
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8. This is the path you continue on from the mast, towards the Youth Hostel.
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9. Past the hostel is a long road which heads in the direction of the River Adur. At the bottom of this road, there is a path to your right, and a gate to the left of it. Go through the gate, in to another field. This goes down to another gate, and a long, fairly steep descent down to the road which goes alongside the river.
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10. At the bottom of the hill, turn left, and cross the road, in to the layby. Find the entrance to the path which goes behind some bushes adjacent to the road, and turn right at the end, towards a bridge. (View North from the bridge).
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11. On the other side of the bridge, turn right, and follow the path round next to the river, until you get to a junction.. take the left path, out on to the road. (View on to the road from the end of the path).
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12. Follow the road until you get to a path which goes off to the left. (View of the start of the path from the road).
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13. Follow this path up through the trees. It will go off to the right, with this view.
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14. Go through the gate at the top of the path, to be met by this view.
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15. View North / North West from the top of the hill - follow this path till you get to a gate.
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16. After the gate, head in a straight line across the field, following the faint path.
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17. At the end of the field (by which point you'll have been riding adjacent to a fence), there is a road straight in front of you, and a gate to your right. Go through this gate, and follow the path which runs adjacent to the road. (This is a view looking back down the path to the gate).
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18. This was taken from the same spot, looking in the other direction, towards the next gate you go through. At this point, cross the road and follow the path towards a small concrete building. Turn right at this building, following the well-made path. At the top of the path, there is a stone memorial with a dark-painted barrier going round it.
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19. Follow the path past the memorial (through yet another gate!) and continue roughly northwards on this path.
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20. Erm.. continue further north.. at this point you're heading towards Chanctonbury Ring. There are a few junctions in the path, but stay going roughly straight ahead. This part of the ride, going up to Chanctonbury Ring, is always longer than I remember it to be!
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21. Finally, Chanctonbury Ring in sight.
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22. A closer range picture of Chanctonbury Ring.
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23. Wow, really left it a long time between pictures.. that's partly because at one point I thought we were lost! Continue along the path past Chanctonbury Ring, going over a cattle grid after a few hundred yards. Follow the path down; at one point, it forks.. both forks end up back on the same path. The next fork, you need to take the path to the right. Follow this path till you get to a junction of four bridleways, and take the first on your left. This goes downhill for a while (you can get a fair bit of speed going down here, but a wipe-out would be painful!), then up a smallish hill, then down again. Keep going till you get a path on your right. Take this up to the road, and turn right.
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24. Continue along the road for about 200 yards, and then take the bridleway to your right. Believe it or not, these two pics aren't the same one, mirrored; one is looking up the path, and one looking down. Tried using "Night Mode" on the camera, but didn't improve the pictures.
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25. Follow the path up, past a house / stable. There's often a truck saying "Race Horse Transport" (or something similar) on the side, parked up here. Continue up the path - this was impossible to ride due to the soggy ground - had to make do with walking along the side, pushing the bike along in the mud.
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26. The path opens up after a bit, with the field on the right. The path forks at some point; take the path to the left when this happens (can't remember whether it was before or after this bit!)
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27. This is the view we were greeted with at the top of the path; you turn left here. We ended up riding straight through the puddles, which weren' t actually that deep; it seemed less hassle than trying to ride round them and risking falling in. Riding round them only makes them wider anyway.
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28. This was taken from the same spot, looking out at Cissbury Ring. This is described as a "Roman Fort" on OS maps; i was disappointed to find out that this is just a big hill ; ) Obviously a good defensive position for an army, but otherwise not very interesting..
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29. Turn left, and follow the bridleway for a little while until the junction which veers off to the right (View of the junction from the main path).
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30. Follow this path down until you get to the..
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31. ..carpark. This view is from past the carpark, looking back up. Nice Chelsea Tractor there.. (maybe I'm just jealous - they do have lots of space for MTBs inside, after all!)
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32. There's quite a cool descent down the side of Cissbury Ring.. this can be slightly dangerous, being very slippery at points, with barbed wire fencing to either side of you, and lots of boulders on the dry bits. Leave space betwen yourself and any riding buddies, to leave reaction time if they wipe out ; )
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33. At this point, I'm sure I've left a photo out, but couldn't find it. Basically, you're following the main path, crossing a road at one point, heading towards some telephone masts. Once you get to the one closest to the path, you go through another gate on to a field..
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34. Follow the path around the right hand side of the field.. next to the fence. When you initially start riding across the field, you may see some rabbits scatter as you approach. This is a view closer to the fence on the left hand side of the field.. it was supposed to show Truleigh Hill in the distance.
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35. This is a view up the field. You can just make out the quarry in the background. Cross over the cattle grid at the top of the field, and continue across the next one, staying to the right, close to the fence.
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36. At the bottom of the field, there is a small gate next to a large one. Go through the small gate. Go left (this photo looks left from the gate), and go round the trees that you see here, and look for a steep path on the left which leads down to another gate.
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37. Go through this gate and follow the path down through the trees. It bears slightly right at the bottom, to another gate.
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38. This leads out on to a field which often has geese running around, and cars parked at the bottom. Head for the bottom left corner, to another gate.
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39. There's a barn to your left at this point. Follow the driveway to the bottom, and turn left, on to the road.
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40. This is a view up the road; it's steeper than this photo depicts; this is because, like most of my pictures which show a hill, I was actually angling the camera upwards slightly.
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41. Continue past the sign for the strangely named village of "Botolphs". Follow the road down the hill, and as it bears to the left. The next corner is where you came out earlier in the ride from the River Adur. Follow this path back to the bridge, then across the road..
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42. ..and along to the uphill you came down earlier. This is a killer and a half! We normally aim to ride as far as the trough to the left of the path before we start walking ; )
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43. As you can tell from the picture, we were racing against the sun going down by the time we got back on to the road which leads up to Truleigh Hill. A race we lost..
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44. This is the view looking approximately south west from Truleigh Hill. By this point, it was too dark to take any more photos, but you just follow the path up and down the hills back to Devils' Dyke from here.
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