Club Run to Middle Farm, Firle
Sunday 3rd November by Paget Cohen
Having filled my Friday off with an 80 mile ride in the rain I'd had to pass up Mark Winton's offer of a Saturday MTB taster session in Stanmer Park in order to devote the time to cleaning the Marin again in preparation for Sunday. To my surprise I opened the curtains to not just sunshine, but apparently dry roads and a chance to get back out on the Giant. As I've reported before if I'm up early it almost guarantees I'll leave late and any attempt to make up time on the road was rendered impossible by a stiff headwind that had me churning a small gear just to maintain a sensation of making forward progress.
A large crowd awaited; so much so that I won't name them even if I could, but suffice to say they were all cyclists and all male as an excited female jogger noted. Terry had apparently already been for a ride so only joined us as far as the cinema while we held up traffic en route to Piltdown Pond. Turning left opposite the church in Fletching we crossed the A275 just North of North Chailey, but rather than head downhill towards The Sloop those on the front at the time - Gibbo and Pete Morris (slumming it with the also-rans) had us turn back uphill to rejoin the main road just before the roundabouts.
Whilst it's always good to have such a healthy turnout on a club-run it's rare that a large group stays together for long. If people aren't tailed off due to being differently-able then they can alternatively lose touch at junctions when others pull away ahead of approaching traffic. We experienced the flipsides to these scenarios in the next few miles as crossing Wivelsfield Common those in the vanguard missed Ian's exhortation to take a left and had to double back and make chase; then once together again and galloping South through Plumpton we passed the Winning Post only for Ian to have us hard a left onto a concrete farm track on which we encountered not a concrete cow, but a very much alive and startled horse that some of us thought best to give way to.
My gleaming white Giant may now have gained brown spots for effect (thanks Ian), but as no showers materialised I was happy with my choice to Defy the weather, unlike Brett who'd joined the winter-bike majority, but was consistently struggling to keep up on ill-fitting heavyweight. At least we were now back on tarmac and with the wind supposedly behind us all the way back to the tea stop. Having wended our way down to Cooksbridge we tacked North East to Barcombe then South East to Ringmer; albeit dropping a handful as we pulled out onto the A26. Never fear their loss had been noted and those ahead pulled in to wait once off the main highway. That of course creates it's own hazards as Matt occupied the piece of road Mark L wanted to move into and left him only a muddy verge to bail out onto.
Once all back in the saddle we climbed past the wind turbine, regrouped past the opera house then made our way back to the Laughton Road where Pete bagged the sprint for the sign, although Dom claimed to be riding for a different sign - one for the stewards. Into Middle Farm by the tradesmen's entrance to a further throng of Wombles drawn from far and wide by the mouth-watering morsels on offer. Back on the road we lost some, but briefly gained others for the attempted chain-gang back to Golden Cross. Once over the A22 Brett again started to wane so come Hale Green we let those Uckfield-bound go on and Ian, then Paul + myself took it upon ourselves to escort our comrade home. 54 dry and sunny miles in November - can't be bad.
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