COLD!

COLD!!
Cold, cold, cold! In spite of pulling on several layers of clothes, I was still reluctant to venture outside so, as ever, I was running late. Keeping a high cadence, I was hoping to keep warm through exercise and had got about a mile from home when I noticed I’d forgotten todays route plan. Doh! Turn round and back home, now I’m even later!
Minutes later, route instructions now firmly fixed on my handlebars, I was nearing the top of Pease Pottage Hill when I heard a large-engined vehicle behind me. Looking over my shoulder I saw a massive blue tractor with big, cyclist-unfriendly wheels front and back. I found it slightly scary but the driver gave me plenty of room and went safely past. As he disappeared in the direction of Handcross it struck me what an unusual sight it was – I’ve been riding on Sunday mornings for about 5 years now and I can’t recall ever seeing a tractor on the road at that time, especially not one coming from an urban environment such as Crawley. In fact, it struck me as being so unusual that I stopped and made a call to the West Sussex Police non-emergency phone line and mentioned my concern that maybe something wasn’t right. Stopping to make this call and waiting in their telephone queue “Your call is important to us” cost me another few minutes making me even later than usual. As I rode along The Forest Road I noticed that the area that had been cleared of rhododendron that I commented on a few months back is not being used for houses, it has actually been planted with small saplings. Good.
Arriving at Horsham Pavilions in the Park just a couple of minutes after ten, I was met by Barbara and Pete E. By ten past no-one else had turned up so todays ride would just be a committee affair.
Turning left onto Hurst Road we went past Collyers school before turning right onto Richmond Road. There were great big drifts of leaves covering the pavement along parts of this road. Turning right at the end, we crossed the railway and then headed down North Heath Lane. At the roundabout we headed left along Pondtail Road and then took Pondtail Drive before emerging at the side of the A264. Carefully crossing this fast and busy A-road we then climbed up Langhurstwood Road. This road goes past a landfill site and through the trees we could see that it must be the best part of 100 feet high – from the bottom of the pit to the top of the (current) crust. That’s a lot of rubbish gone into that landfill!
We then took the first right onto Green Lane and encountered our first patch of ice. It caused us no problems as we rode smoothly over it. At the end of Green Lane we turned left onto the Horsham Road and followed it all the way up into the centre of Rusper. Here we decided that, as it was so cold, we’d cut the ride short and just make it a morning ride. The revised route took us out of Rusper on East Street and then down Faygate Lane to Faygate. Just to show that we weren’t completely copping-out, we then took on the challenge of the mile and a half ascent of Tower Road to Colgate. Pausing at the top to say goodbye, Barbara also managed to find out that the newly reopened pub (The Dragon) does sandwiches, baguettes and other light meals on a Sunday lunchtime ( as well as the usual roast dinners). This is useful to know and should see us paying a visit sometime soon.
Barbara and Pete then headed off on the mainly downhill route back to Horsham and I took on the two minor lumps to Pease Pottage before arriving home with barely 30 miles on my speedo. That was more than enough on such a cold day, and allowed me the chance to go out for lunch and stroll around Nymans Gardens with my dad.
Next weeks ride will be led by Anton and will start from Three Bridges Station at 10:00hrs and have a lunch stop at Warninglid (weather permitting).