It was warm and wet when I arrived at the free car park in the centre of sleepy Hailsham, Sussex. A snooze was in order as the Google Maps travel time advice had quoted 2h:15m and was out by 25 minutes, and so with my ‘buffer time’ I had a good hour to watch the rain dribble down the windscreen before the kickoff.
Gradually other riders arrived about 40 minutes later and woke me up! Dave Clarke (Digger) and Bill Martin were the first to arrive and mercifully the heavy rain had stopped. Then Trevor Kite and Tracy Caudle. Just after that the Sussex contingent arrived in the form of Caroline Harrison, Baz and their cycling friends Trevor and Sally.
We set off just after 10am, onto National Route 21, the ‘Cuckoo Trail’, an old railway line trackbed for a couple of miles and then turned east onto National Route 2. Route 2 is a mix of minor roads, bridleways, beachside cycle ways and in Bexhill and Hastings part designated cycle way and shared sections. All today reasonably quiet due to the less than inviting weather conditions.
The weather behaved itself for the most part. It stayed overcast for the whole ride to Hastings and co-operated by raining heavily for a few minutes just as we’d parked up and had headed into a cafe for lunch, so none of us got wet. The really good thing about the weather was there was very little wind, five to six miles per hour from the west. This bode well for our return journey – if you’ve ever ridden a coastal route you’ll know how bad it can get with a westerly headwind!
A quick trip on to the pier was called for, and photos were taken to prove we made it!
The route back was just retracing our steps with a tea stop at a farm shop about five miles from the finish line. Digger was low on energy and had to have a ‘small’ piece of cake to get him the last five miles, and the rest of us had tea and various other liquids.
Some strange local size, ‘weights and measures’ were encountered regarding, ‘A small slice of cake’ and ‘A large beer!’
We encountered the local ducklings off with mum to get their evening meal from a local gentleman.
Whilst at the farm shop the sun finally came out and so at least the final five miles back were very sunny and bright.
Good ride folks, just shy of forty miles at 39.4.