150km or so in fact… set off at 9:30am, didn’t arrive till 8:30pm, mucho knackered. The choice of a SS was both good and bad – good in that it helped/forced us to keep a constant cadence and speed (around 18km/hr or so average) for the whole ride (except for getting over the Downs!) – bad in that on the sections where you can easily build up a bit of speed and chew the miles a bit quicker (along the Downs Link particularly) we couldn’t do so, just had to spin it out at around 20km/hr when we would’ve most likely been on 25km/hr+ with gears. Meant that the ride took about 1.5hrs longer than I expected it to, didn’t get back to my flat till 11pm (missus wasn’t hugely happy about that!)
All in all, it’s a good challenge, nothing particularly technical (though the descent down to the sea off the Downs is pretty fun actually!), it’s definitely a top ride for building endurance and ‘putting miles into your legs’, with interesting enough scenery and countryside to keep you amused as you ride along (apart from the Downs Link, that’s dull as dishwater 😆 ). Might try to organise another of these a bit later in Summer, will give more notice so hopefully a bigger group can turn up 😀
Anyhoo, here are a few pics from yesterday (mostly of Elfin, as I had the camera!):
Check out that architecture!
DSCF4248 by ten_sim, on Flickr
‘Elfinsafety, ’tis very important you know!
DSCF4249 by ten_sim, on Flickr
Riding a ‘skinny’ 😆
DSCF4253 by ten_sim, on Flickr
Please, can we catch this train back to London now?
DSCF4267 by ten_sim, on Flickr
Success! (well, the bikes made it at least, but did we?? 😆 )
DSCF4272 by ten_sim, on Flickr
Who are those handsome chaps? 8)
DSCF4273 by ten_sim, on Flickr