South Downs Way

[Marek]

Oh my Gawd that was a tough day on the bike. Got up early, train to Winchester and then rode up and down and up and down all the way to Brighton. Train back to Three Bridge and a few more miles to get home.

Weather started off with rain, fell off a few times on the chalky ascents, but overall was pretty good route. Thankfully sun came out a bit later.

Cheers

Marek.....

[Dombo]

It's tougher if you go all the way to Eastbourne
BTW how fast did you do the descent of Butser Hill, just before QE country park? I clocked 45, sadly the same as descending Titsey Hill on the road steed

[Marek]

Not sure, no speedo on my bike, and to be honest I have to really concentrate when riding my mountain bike as I am useless on it. That area around the QE Country Park is beautiful, I was thinking that it was a good area to just go for a day out riding as looks like there are some good trails around there. The SDW around that bit was really good as well.

Cheers

Marek....

[higg]

Well done, it's a good route that just keeps on going, and especiallly good when the sun is shining.

[Marek]

Here is the report, sorry did not recover early enough to write it before:
On Saturday Steve Shaw and I got on the early train out of East Grinstead and went up to Clapham Junction to change for the train to Winchester. Winchester is where the start of the South Downs Way is situated. The South Downs Way is a bridleway that takes you across the downs all the way to Eastbourne, our journey was planned to take us to Brighton, approximately 70 miles off road.

I have only had the Mountain Bike for a few months and this was going to be the first epic trip. Having ridden around Tilgate Park a few times with Steve S, I know that he is a good MTBer and can seem to climb up pretty much anything, I am completely the opposite.

As we arrived at the start of the SDW, Steve stopped to check the map, I promptly forgot to take my feet out the pedals, the mixture of very poor nutritional preparation and a load of beers the day before had made me pretty unsteady, I fell on the floor. Steve looked at me writhing around on the floor and must have been wondering whether we were going to get out of Winchester, let alone get to Brighton.

Soon we were up and I let the way down the first bit of track. I was feeling decidedly unsteady, after about 1km I decided to let Steve lead the way, this proved a lot easier for me as I could try to follow his line and make my way through the tracks that he was making. After about 30mins or so the heavens opened and we got a good soaking. At one point we caught up with a couple of other guys who were out on a 20 mile loop. Steve went past them quite quickly on a steep uphill chalk section. I managed to overtake both of the guys, then I literally could not pedal, every time I tried the back wheel would just slip out from under me. The annoying this was that Steve had the exact same tyres as me and he went up this hill like it was not even there. One of the guys I overtook soon came passed me, then I heard the other guy not far behind hit the deck hard. I checked he was ok, but secretly I was quite pleased that it was not just me that was having issues on this slope.

It was not long before the clouds passed away and we had the first proper sunshine of the day. We went through some beautiful areas, Queen Elizabeth Country Park will stick in my mind as a place that is well worth a visit, really beautiful riding area for MTB around there. Good for walker as well. The descent down to QE Park was fantastic, a big wide open field with short grass and not too many bumps, we got up to some good speed going down that beauty.

A lot of the tracks are made of either flint or clay, they are quite tough to ride on in terms of being pretty bumpy, and when it is steep it is hard to get grip, although I was managing to get a bit better towards the end of the ride.

A little later in the day we approached Shoreham where a air festival was taking place. The sight of a Vulcan bomber greeted us as it manoeuvred itself over the coast, this was a truly momentous sight, as we were in line with its manoeuvres as we were high on the downs, awesome. Soon we came out onto a road near Sompting, I was pretty cooked by now so we decided to descend off the downs and take the road to the coast and then ride by the sea the rest of the way to Brighton. This was tough as it was still about 10 miles and into a headwind, thankfully Steve had enough in his legs to sit on the front the whole way whilst I whinged and moaned behind about being hungry enough to stop for fish and chips at a Chinese takeaway.

At Brighton station I devoured 2 baguettes from Upper crust and then we got the train back to Three Bridges. Then it was a ride back to East Grinstead. Thankfully the baguettes had worked their magic and I felt a lot better.

Overall an awesome day on the bike, no idea how far we went, how much climbing, all I know is that it was very hard but good fun. My hands are still tingling from all the bumps though, need some new gloves.

The stats according to Steve are as follows:

76 miles from Winchester station to Brighton Station, of this about 60miles was offroad.
10 miles from 3bridges back home

2624m (8700ft) of climbing
7hr15min of riding
6786calories.

Cheers

Marek....

[Dombo]

That's an average of nearly 10.5 mph - bloody good for an mtb on that route in the wet.
Pedal in circles like you do on the road and you'll have no problem up slippery hills.

[Andrew G]

Sounds like good fun, I'd like to do a SDW ride soonish, SDW in a day is a plan for the future.

Were you practicing for this when I saw you commuting on your MTB, full knobblies and tearing down the road at 20+mph grinning like a big kid .

[Marek]

Yep, that was part of the run up for it, unfortunately the beer the day before kinda scuppered the enjoyment a bit. Would defo like to do it again on a dry sunny day, but have a feeling we may have seen the last of those for a while.

I am stacked up with stuff until October, but if we can do something early October then I might be up for having another go.

Cheers

Marek....

[EdO]

Anyone fancy doing the SDW again (the whole lot - Winchester 2 Eastbourne hard graft) in early October ?

Providing the conditions were good......the downs can be treacherous in the rain.