Training ride 3 (Day 1) : Brighton

I didn't get a chance to train again prior to the training ride on Saturday. Actually thats not strictly true - I could have done some training on Friday morning, but decided it would be prudent to conserve my strength for the weekend.

This training ride would not see the full-compliment of riders; Henry was busy in a rowing event, and Tim & John are both injured/ill. Also, Rich could only make Sunday.

However, on Saturday morning the remaining four set of from Guildford for Brighton. The weather was miserable, but the good news was it was miserable everywhere we went. It would have been really disappointing to hear that we had had a ride in a particular area only to find that the weather was much better somewhere else, but it really didn't seem to matter where we went, there was a constant damp demoralising drizzle. I have shamelessly used alliteration there so I can now mention my foaming friend Paul. After a couple of hours in the damp demoralising drizzle, foam flowed from friends cycling shorts!!! None of us could work out why (nor did we really want to think too hard about it), but plenty of theories were put forward. It was a great way to pass the time, and before we knew it we were in a place called Ditchling.

For those of you who have ever cycled the London to Brighton ride, the word "Ditchling" will probably be giving you some bad memories. Ditchling beacon is a hill which cuts Brighton off from the rest of the country. The one time I did London to Brighton, I had to walk a part of Ditchling, and I was actually quite looking forward to seeing if I could get up it after all this training! Ditchling is the third highest peak in the South Downs at 814ft, and the route we took rises 550ft in around 1 mile. It was (surprisingly) easier than I thought it was going to be; Leith Hill is harder....

In Brighton, we took the cycle lanes along the sea-front headed towards Worthing. It has to be said at this point that the cycle lanes are fantastic in Brighton. Unlike the ones in Guildford, the Brighton ones seem to be designed for people that are on bikes. This ought to be a design requirement for all cycle lanes.

Here we were lucky with the weather, as the wind was coming from the East, so we went quite
quickly across to Chichester. Then we turned up the A285 back to Guildford. This required us to go over Duncton Hill in the opposite direction to what we had done previously.

We were travelling a little slower than normal, but still managed nearly 110 miles in 7 hours which is not too bad. My first time properly over 100, and I felt strong afterwards.