Devils Dyke to Ditchling Beacon Killer Ride

Today’s ride was attended by seven hardy souls who braved the heavy rain with a view to completing our first ‘killer’ ride, Devils Dyke to Ditchling Beacon without using the South Downs Way.

We set of at 10-30am from Devils Dyke accompanied by driving horizontal rain and a South West breeze. The first ribbon of singletrack was completed without incident although a couple of wheels were swallowed by badger holes with the riders relying on good luck rather than skill to avoid a tumble. The chalky surfaces were very slippery and the top inch was a viscous sticky mud, just the job to test our gears changing and braking abilities. As usual we suffered our first mechanical after 15 minutes as a brake securing circlip came lose, the owner was keen to point out that this was obviously the fault of a major on-line bike retailer. A quick repair and we came to the first steep and stepped descent. The exposed chalk turned the section into an ice-rink and Jim gave us all a demonstration of a dainty pirouette with pike twisting his ankle as he landed, painful. This was followed by the first singletrack climb up a rutted and rooty section that while not difficult demanded concentration and strength. At this stage one of our number decided to cut his loses and headed back. Now we were six.

Mountain Mayhem, a survivors’ tale.

There is an old military saying that goes “no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy”, well the trip to Mountain Mayhem kind of went in a similar fashion.

The plan was that we would aim for 20 laps in 24hrs, each rider doing 5 laps with a double night stint so we could all get about 4-5hrs sleep. Last thursday Ben, the number two rider admited that his training actually had involved going down the pub, drinking and smoking rollies instead of actually spending the last 3 months doing some exercise, Paul “hadnt really had the time” but had done some cycling with his 2 yr old son on a child seat, Steve, was Ok ( hes fit anyway and does loads of cycling and er, golf). I’d started to get a bit concerned, had I done enough running, road cycling, pilates stuff, stretching, off road etc.?