Central London CTC blog

Arriving at Victoria I thought to myself, “There’s an awful lot of people getting tanked up in the Wetherspoons considering its 8.30am, and they’re all singing and wearing blue shirts.” I’d never considered a Portsmouth cup run as being a significant enough possibility to incorporate into ride planning, but we live and learn.

Once we’d extricated ourselves from this melee and travelled down to Lewes we were found to have a team of seven, and, joyously, nobody had turned up without knobblies.

There’s a brutal climb up a farm track which goes straight up the South Downs ridge at the very start of this ride. I had warned people to psychologically prepare themselves for this, and most importantly not to be demoralised by it, as its the hardest climb of the day by miles and it gives you the best view. Everyone took it on the chin and on we went.

We had a bit of cow encounter shortly afterwards. I suffer from mild cow-phobia, but bravely sheltered behind other riders as we made our way through the bovine hoards, trying not to look like I was scared.

From here on the ride follows the South Downs Way all the way to Alfriston, its up and down and along the ridge. The views were fantastic as billed, which was lucky for me because when I checked out the ride there was thick fog, and I confess I had just assumed they would be there in good visibility. There’s a good variety of tracks, grassy and stony, and nicely dried out by a week of sun and wind.

Lunch at the Smugglers in Alfriston was good. Mike had to wait much too long for his fish and chips, but they delivered when they did arrive.

The route back follows a rolling old coach road all the way along the bottom of the ridge, featuring the only proper muddy bit of the ride. After this there is a road interlude through the village of Glynde before launching into the conundrum of finding Lewes train station, always tricky but not too bad on this occasion.

Thanks to all for making it a great day out.