Pete E had revised the route he'd used the previous time for this ride and completely avoided using Hammerpond Lane. The only trouble was that this added about six miles to the distance and wasn't exactly flat. The three horrible Hammerpond hills were bypassed but the extra miles as we went via Copsale, Maplehurst and Lower Beeding were accompanied by their own lumpy bits! I was struggling a bit as we approached Warninglid but the weather was nice and as we turned to a more southerly direction we had the benefit of a tailwind. One more climb took us over the last Forest Ridge and we fairly shot down to Shaves Thatch corner. Soon after, the South Downs were blocking our path and we turned to the west at Fulking.
The scenery was beautiful and made even better by the iridescent blue sky. By now it was past midday and we were all feeling hungry so we kept to the most direct route (also the most level route) through Bramber, by-passed Steyning and shortly after took the right turn to Wiston.
We sat in the garden but with the sun increasingly being obscured by cloud it wasn't quite warm enough to be perfect - the garden was really pleasant, the food and drink was just right and delivered with a smile, but when the sun was hidden the wind was sending ripples of goosebumps over bare legs and arms.
The route back to Horsham was exactly what appeared on the runslist - as short as we could make it and we arrived safely back at HPP bang on 15:30 hrs with a nice round 45 miles on the speedo.
Next weeks ride is a plain and simple ride to The Plough at Leigh. Meet at Three Bridges Station at 09:30 and Anton will take us on an easy, relatively hill-free journey to this cosy pub and back with a total mileage of only about 30 miles, all on generally quiet lanes and tarmac cyclepaths.
No comments:
Post a Comment