Yesterday I had a day off work to go riding and went for a little xc muni ride round Polegate in Sussex.
So, I got up a little bit late, grabbed the 29er and rode down to the station as fast as a very fast thing. An hour later the train pootles into Polegate, a little down in the middle of nowhere, which seems to be entirely populated by pensioners, several of whom joke that I should ride it over the hills, it’d be quicker than catching the train. After a little chat, they realise that I really am going to ride it over the hills! Anyway, down the road I go, now I’ve walked some of the start of todays route and I didn’t remember the hills being that big. But then I’m coming up to the first hill and I remember that 250 metres is a lot more on a muni, especially a 29" one with short cranks. Half way up I die totally and have to walk the rest, a common theme to several of the hills on this ride. Soon after I was riding next to some woods when I noticed some trails leading into them, these are just irresistable, so I go to explore and discover some silly bombholes and lots of tiny singletrack in perfect condition. We like. Fortunately the track pops me out right back on route, so I pootle onwards. After half an hour or so, I get to the Long Man of Wilmington, which is a big picture of a man painted on a hillside. Pretty underwhelming really. The huge descent that follows isn’t though, it’s pretty wide, but over a rocky chalk trail that has a nasty tendency to turn you in random directions. At the end of it, there’s a section you can drop onto with a smooth grassy descent, which is great as you can ride flat out without worrying about crashing. Now, I pootle down a path by the river to Alfriston, a very stereotypical sleepy little English village, with olde worlde shops and stuff and buy myself lots of Frys Chocolate Cream bars. Mmmm.
By this point I’m right down in a valley, I’m seriously low on gravity karma so I head uphill, up some beautiful singletrack, I make a note to ride this ride the other way sometime. I get to the top of the ridge and then decide that I’d like more sweeties and drinkies so I head right down the other side to Firle, to another little village shop. On the way down, I saw a couple of old men drinking tea out of a thermos, who did really good surprised expressions. Out of Firle, the only way back to the ridge without back-tracking is up a steep road which goes to a carpark to the top where people launch hangliders and go walking from and stuff. The unfortunate thing is that it’s quite a popular place and there are a few cars going up and down, so I just can’t stop and take a rest, so I ride all the way up the road in one go, the can of ginger beer I’m drinking while riding up the road is helping here, mmm sugar. Up the top, a surprised carful of grannies gawps as I head off along my route. I wolf a chocolate cream bar and suddenly find myself invigorated and riding like a very fast thing, the wonders of chocolate and sugar. This next section is downhill for about 4 kms, the first 3 are smooth slight downhill, but then suddenly the valley appears in front of me and the path drops steeply down the side of a hill. By the bottom of this, my handle hand is aching and my legs are knackered and I’m pretty glad to get a flat section. On the way down I’ve seen where I’m going to and it doesn’t look that far so a detour is in order. So up onto some more hills, past a wonderfully tasteful uber-posh house complete with really badly done statues of deer and some lambs which are indeed gambolling as lambs are supposed to. Now, down off the final hill into Lewes, I’m pootling down this as fast as I can, when suddenly, the perfectly normal track turns into a weird moonscape thing of dried up bumps and I’m really getting shaken around. Never seen anything like this, probably because we’ve had lots of really dry weather in the middle of winter. Now I’m really quite dead and I pootle back to Lewes train station and catch the train home.
Mmm, a really good ride and the 29er is better than ever, just love that really fast descending and not as slow on uphills as you’d expect.
Was aching rather this morning and am out to ride trials all day so maybe not such a good idea though!
Joe