EG to Brighton and back

[Marek]

What a fantastic ride today. Keith, Steve, Gareth and myself headed off for Brighton from East Grinstead at 8am this morning. The weather was warm but the wind was quite strong. We started the ride off by firstly heading away from Brighton. We went out to Lingfield over to Edenbridge and then headed towards Hartfield. From Hartfield we climbed out towards the heights of Ashdown Forest where we got great views, and a fantastic tailwind.

From here we went over to Chelwood Gate and then over a few bumps eventually ending up in Lindfield. This part of the route was great, lots of lumps and pretty quiet roads. We were keeping the pace steady as Gareth is relatively new to this kind of distance, but he was taking it his own pace up the hills and seemed to be coping well.

From Lindfield we followed the normal L2B route taking in Ditchling Beacon where Keith kindly led me up at a good pace. Then we re-grouped and the wind was behind us and we blasted down the road from Ditchling into Brighton, trying my best to get the speed camera to go off.

A nice full english breakfast and two cups of coffee had at the Regency and then we headed back. Took a similar route home where we saw Paul Tunnell, Sylvain and another couple of ACC riders on their way into Brighton. We were fighting the wind now and they were getting the pleasure of the tail wind, Sylv looked like he was flying.

All the way back was a punishing headwind, but as we had been taking it easy we had plenty left in the tank. At Ardingly we took a slightly different route back to EG taking in a couple more hills and taking us up to the back end of Staplefield. Then it was into Worth, Turners Hill and back to EG.

Did about 80 miles or so, was a fantastic day with lots of hills, we all kept together for the whole ride which is a first for me for a long time, excellent training for the Marmotte.

Cheers

Marek....

[Sylv]

Ah it was you guys, we couldn't tell with our eyes watering at the speed we were going down the hill!

Cheers to Paul for an excellent ride, he'll be able to tell you which routes we took, but it was a good one. And well done to Mark, who completed his first 100+miler (he let go a huge roar as he hit the magic 100 mark). As predicted by Paul, he had a bad patch at about 80 miles on the way back on the climbs into the wind. With a bit of help though he kept going and was chuffed to have made it all the way.

i did 120 miles in 6h30, the last 10 running on empty batteries (I could only think of a toasted granary bagel with pecorino, salad and branston pickle), Paul was still going strongly.

[Andrew G]

[quote="Sylv"]And well done to Mark, who completed his first 100+miler (he let go a huge roar as he hit the magic 100 mark). As predicted by Paul, he had a bad patch at about 80 miles on the way back on the climbs into the wind. With a bit of help though he kept going and was chuffed to have made it all the way.

[Keith]

Thanks Marek for an excellent route. Riding through the Ashdown Forest, make me realise how lucky I am to have such fabulous cycling territory virtually on my doorstep. The early start meant we had bu@@er-all traffic all the way to Brighton.

Had to admit, I was beginning to doubt your navigational skills when on our ride to Brighton we started by heading north, then east. Like you say, the extra hills will help in La Marmotte (only 6 weeks to go now). Nice to have completed a ride together, not once having tried to rip each others legs off!

Got home with just over 100 miles on the clock and weary legs from the hills and the headwind.

[quote="Andrew G"][quote="Sylv"]And well done to Mark, who completed his first 100+miler (he let go a huge roar as he hit the magic 100 mark). As predicted by Paul, he had a bad patch at about 80 miles on the way back on the climbs into the wind. With a bit of help though he kept going and was chuffed to have made it all the way.

[Sylv]

[quote="Marky Mark"][(39ring and hills don't mix).

[Andrew G]

Stick with 53/39 unless you are planning on loads of hilly rides Mark. You're a big fella and getting stronger week by week it seems.

As Sylv says that 12-23 is a bit of a racing cassette so if you switch that then you'll be hunky-dorey. Are you Campag or Shimano?

Campag on a short cage rear mech you can go up to a 26 sprocket, I run a 13-26 cassette on my bike all the time as it gives a reasonably low gear for climbing and 53/13 is big enough for me in 95% of situations. If you've got a medium cage then you can go up to a 29 sprocket I think. 11-21 for TTs. My commuting bike has a compact (50x34) on it as it's the bike I use for real hilly trips (don't care about it as much if an airline smashes it) and run a 12-25 on that.

Not sure you could fit a smaller inner ring and keep the 53 outer due to either the bolt spacing and/or the amount of shift in teeth from small to big ring, even if it could shift up and down the rings it would be fairly graunchy with that much difference.

[Snoop Doug]

[quote="Andrew G"]graunchy

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

16 teeth is generally the maximum recommended for chainring differential.

Larger gaps will work, but not terribly smoothly, and at the same time restrict the range of rear cogs due to the length of the chain.

[Sylv]

Yes Mark has Campag - I know as when I suggested that Paul's puncture was no doubt due to a faulty Campag wheel, he shrugged and told me I was outnumbered.