eastbourne

Yesterday was our first jaunt to Eastbourne off-road for several years. I was a bit doubtful, because the forecast was for a strong north-easterly. But Jane had set her mind on a train journey home over the Balcombe viaduct, so we had to go!

We reached the bottom of the Downs Link in well under 3 hours and were feeling pretty good after racing in Ibiza last week. As we turned east, the wind came head on. And the first climb up to Truleigh Barn was spiteful and joined forces with the wind to destroy my legs. We had to pedal down the next couple hills just to continue maintenance of headway :) To make things worse everyone travelling toward us was moving at a good pace, smiling and cheerfully bidding us good day. I began to hate them :)



The water tap at Truleigh had been broken and so I had run out of water by Ditchling, but I felt ok. At South Ease railway crossing I held the gate for a chap coming the other way and he said Raymond? It was Jerome, looking fit and getting a few miles in. I think we last met at one of the 24hr races. Just up the trail we got some water at the farm, and I drank my fill.

The next climb was where I thought that I would meet my maker, just as we crested I almost came to a stop as the man jumped out and hit me with the big hammer. Hammer Time!! Swathed in a cloak of zero sugar, self loathing and hate for the whole world I struggled to turn the pedals as I gurned into the wind. Payback time for not drinking earlier - with interest..... compound interest!!



I ate two orange torq bars, one banana flavoured, one gel and a full bottle of water, and almost immediately felt much worse! 15 minutes later, I was smiling as we rode down toward Alfriston :) I felt so good, that we decided not to stop here like we usually do for a coca cola. We attacked the next climb up to the Fort pretty hard and enjoyed it. We got a little bit lost dropping into Jevington, because Jane was hooliganing the descent and took a slight wrong turn which brought us out north of the church. Next, was the last hill, Wilmington hill a long,long drag to the top over looking Eastbourne. We rode to the trig point and then did the lovely swoopy descent through the golf course into Eastbourne. A fabulous but tough seven and a half hours and 122 km's.