Eastbourne 50! West Sussex UK Cycling ride with me leading the ride.
GPX Route here: https://www.komoot.com/tour/1608731056
today I’m leading a ride so we’re heading down to eastborn on the south coast of the UK just getting my tire pressures right got those gravel Kings on there tubus set up normally set my PSI to something between 40 and 50 depending on how much road and how much kind of grally destroyed Tory roads that haven’t been repaired for years like these ones here in Crawley so I headed over to Three Bridges where I was leading the CTC group so we ended up with about eight riders that wanted to head south to eastborne and the idea being to get a train back at the end so want a oneway route which meant we got that sort of 50 Mi out which was nice to get some different terrain on the way and This Is Us heading over to turn this hill we met up with one of our members Ros who comes from me gred so one of the things about our rides is that sometimes we may bump into people well not bump into them but organized to see them on Route uh if they’re coming from different areas so Ros was here at the crown in turnis Hill we’re part of cycling UK which is over 120 years old as a charity club and as a group we meet between Three Bridges and ham alternating between both locations so we’re open to new members and our Riders are of mixed experience and skills but generally we never go faster than the slowest person in the group so newcomers are always welcome and we take our time and it’s about the social and and also the experience of just seeing the sites which is a lot of fun to get around through the countryside and just enjoy it other as company and the surroundings so quick map check that’s the south coast of the UK we’re south of London in a place to Crawley was starting from in fact we started from Three Bridges station in Crawley and the idea was to head out first sort of East and southernly and then eventually head down to eastborn oneway trip so we would cycle out about 80 km and then actually get the train back to make it a sort of fun day trip where we could get some distance in as usual my GPX map link is in the description below and those first roads that we took that headed out to West holey sharpthorne and then up through this area of the ashown forest and towards crowbar before we headed south they were tended to be slightly faster roads just because I wanted to get out east and get get some distance behind us so rather than doing too many windy back roads we uh sort of I waited the ride with the bigger faster roads at the start and then as we started to head south we got a little bit more windy quiet road so it was a a ride where we had quite a lot of cars and traffic initially but they slowly sort of filtered away as we headed further south towards the coast just before we got directly to the South down here at beachy head which is this section before eastborn we had a nice gravel section before West Dean and the climb up towards the beachy had eventually though we had to go to polegate because the trains were canceled out eastborn with a bus replacement between eastborn and polegate so slight adjustment to route to cycle up to polegate before we got that train back so here we have some of those earlier sections as we head out of Crawley towards East grinstead Via turnis Hill and you can just see there’s a lot more traffic at this point some of these uh roads down through West holey and sharpthorne are a little bit on the busier side but eventually it began to open up again and uh get a little bit quiet as we headed off the main roads onto the back Lanes sorry com through I’m being directed around because I was leading the ride and not doing very good from the back but quite often we’re flexible like that anyway we we shift around a little so I might be leading but when people know where we are on the road someone can speed past you you don’t have to be at the front the whole time but obviously as you start to come up to Junctions as a ride leader I need to get out to indicate where people need to go on the route GoPro demonstrating there that it’s not a wildlife camera and a deer that felt like it was an arms length of the way looked like it was about a mile away in the field but it was great to see it in the in the flesh or in the fur so to speak one of our group here had a puncher on the rear I think I even saw the Flint that they accidentally drove over and it was a classic case of the uh instant flat it was a blowout essentially with a very sharp Flint almost like a pyramid on the floor back wheel went over it burst a hole and obviously didn’t leave itself behind but did cause an instant flat so that was 10 minutes where we all got together just to sort out that puncher before we headed on inst two [Music] go woo [Music] [Music] you know you’re winning the poop that’s the wiy the Poo you know you’re wi the Poo the so [Music] first of all he gives the machine the command to switch on oh that one’s a bit shy that one [Music] a little young one at this laboratory in Cambridge very thin transparent sections will be cut from the Moon Rock and examined through a polarizing micros got some beef to e come on yeah we might have beef burgers now we are A’s or B’s c1s c2s D’s or E’s you and I and everyone has his proper place and a letter beside his name [Music] this terminal is linked to a giant brain 10 m away in the heart of London it’s one of two mikers install for experimental purposes because he wants to know if they can run his life and his home for him they’re simple to operate and experts predict that in 20 years time all new houses will be built with special computer points and the terminals will be cheaper to rent than today’s telephones stuffing so we’re getting well over towards being south of kobra and our easterly Direction began to sort of drop toward towards the South here and some of the roads are fantastic here really were much quieter good quality as well actually for this s area around uh crob to the south of it still had the potholes here and there but generally nice quality roads probably just less frequently used than those around the more Central and West areas of Sussex as we’re heading east Sussex at this point Mr mik says that this helped Nicholas to read and count it’s an expensive way to do sums at least 30 per week a terminal but Rex Malik sees a future world where children could be virtually educated by computer at this point the weather changed as well we went from quite chilly um late May UK weather where it was quite blustery in Chile but then it sort of opened up as we got further south weather definitely improved so that really made for a good day cuz we were warming up as we working way through and again these these nice downhills south of crober fantastic bit of Ro rout so if you’ve not done it check the route out in the description so you can download the GPX file cuz it’s some fantastic roads here south of crpr [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] come [Music] 17 18 19 all I thought about was getting married and having children I thought it was going to be most fantastic thing in the [Music] world we haven’t prepared any script we’re at the moment discussing a list of places that we thought we’d take you to [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] arriving now at our Pub destination so this was about halfway down towards the South Coast when we stopped at a pub a pre-booked kind of estimated the time we’d got there strangely enough we arrived almost dead on time even with the puncher so this is the king’s head it was great pub food and we enjoyed a beer as well while we’re here so it was a a great little stop off point in a nice Village of East holey this stunning motorbike RVE when we were there and the smell of it was just as good as the noise it must be World War I period or you 1920s at most ajs never heard of it before if you know what it is please comment but stunning bike I thought I had a quick look around that motorized version of our own bikes down down [Music] [Music] 3 car oh there’s a [Music] roundabout going around the roundabout oh you broke the rules I will that’s it put reported yeah [Music] this is one of my favorite sections when you get close enough that you can see the South Downs you’re in a kind of a flat Valley area before the South Downs a lot of Farmland sort of nestled up against the edge of the South down Hills some nice little trails to go through here plus that lovely view that sort of opens up so you can see out to the uh the Downs there before we have to finally climb them to get up to the beachy header [Music] carry up [Music] yeah oh yeah this [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so this is the approach to Berlin Gap one of my favorite places on the planet Unfortunately today despite the beautiful weather there was a lot of cars that’s what you get the weekend it’s nice coming down maybe during the week slightly offseason if you get a blue sky and there’s no other vehicles around or just a few cars in the car park it’s not too bad it was a little bit busier today but still quite quiet really still a beautiful place to come and you can see the sea down there and on the left is the climb up fast the lighthouse towards beachy head so that’s beachy head there now that we’re coming up towards past Berlin Gap [Music] [Music] [Music] and of course we stopped for the obligatory ice cream on the top paused the ride and got ready for a sit down very Breezy up here actually it was honly really strong wind so strong you can see those clouds sort of rushing over over the top there and People’s Clothing and things blowing about it did get very Weir very stormy feeling and a little bit cooler as well and you can see here as we heading off the beachy head at this stage it did get cooler again we’re putting our jackets on getting ready for the descent into eastborn and the weather took a slight turn it wasn’t um as bright and sunny as it was on our way up there still Pleasant enough though for a May Day [Music] work [Music] so we ended up diving down there into eastborn at high speed but then I had to head out of eastor to polegate only the next station on the line from eastor and there was bus replacement from eastor up to polegate obviously we just cycled up to polegate dropped our bikes on the train had to take a a train to Brighton is the one that we did otherwise there would have been a longer wait we just thought we’d get on there and this is us back at Three Bridges using our sensible upright bik position to get ourselves down in the lift at Three Bridges and uh that was a bit of fun just at the last moment so really enjoyed leading this ride felt like a fun route and nice to have that steep climb at the end Shame about there not being a train eastn for us right at the end so we had to sort dive off to polegate but we all got back in reasonable time and great to make use of these sort of one route sometimes where you you either get a train out or you get a or you cycle out and then you get the train back and just a lot of fun really to be able to make a longer distance of the day but still feel like you’re traveled somewhere thanks for listening in