Re: 2018 London to Brighton Off Road
Finally I can get round to doing a post ride report...
Well after many many months of not doing anywhere near enough training, the day finally arrived!
A very early start for me and the wife to load the car up, a short trek up the motorway to Eastleigh to pick up my friend who was to endure the ride with me and then the hour long drive up to Kempton Park raceourse. We arrived around 6:30 am and were amazed by how many people were already there! The wife chucked us out and left so we got ourselves ready and checked out all the flash bikes that people were using!
A brief toilet stop and we made our way towards the start line for our safety briefing, which allowed groups of riders to leave every 10mins or so.
and then we were off!
the first 30mins or so of riding was on road and a nice gentle warm up to get the blood circulating, then we dipped down onto the Thames towpath for quite some distance, avoiding the occasional dog walker and the rowing clubs! So far, so good, we hit the first official rest stop at 12miles and felt in good shape, having already past many riders dealing with punctures, we were in good spirits. We continued on, going through some lovely trails, both up and fast down, over the motorway and having a good time..
until we hit a bit of a queue just before the 30 mile rest stop at Shere. It seems a water pipe had burst at the top of one of the fields and soaked the path we were all using, so it was single file down a slightly dangerous route then through an underpass and to the rest stop....all was going well till the underpass, pitch black and i chose to go on the righthand side and hit a load of very slippery clay, down i went with a face full of clay! :facepalm: :facepalm: Not a happy camper! although after a clean up and a bacon butty, my spirits lifted somewhat!
As we prepared to leave, the rain started :roll: and just got heavier and heavier for the rest of the ride..we kept spirits up and kept going, once on the downs link, there was mile upon mile of lovely easy riding and i started feeling more posotive about actually completing!, eventually i gave in to the rain and put on my waterproof, and finally got to stans shack rest stop at 55 miles...only 20 to go! This was a low point as we were now at the bottom of Beeding Hill, and thanks to the rain, made riding up it virtually impossible due to the exposed smooth ice like rocks, although we did remount for the photos at the top!
In normal weather, it would have been a very scenic and lovely long downhill towards the finish. however the rain had made this more like a mudbath, so the slog continued, by the time we hit the seafront we were soaked to the skin, covered in mud and freezing cold, but we finished, we set off at 7am and hit the finish line at 4pm, Strava put me at 8hr17min of riding over 75miles, and to top it off i raised £500 in sponsorship! happy days.
I would definitely recommend this ride, not too difficult even considering the distance and a great way to raise some money and see areas that i otherwise wouldnt have ever cycled, and some of the trails will definitely be visited again.
My bike survived unscathed too, no punctures or mechanical failures at all! although it has taken me a good month to get all the mud off everything!! :shock: