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Cheers. Guess I'll have to give it a go at some stage and find out for myself. I've ridden to Brighton and back a few times so I know roughly what to expect though I tended to ride back on busier roads because me+navigation=fail.
hippy-
It's definitely one of the better London>Brighton>London routes. Particularly the route down, which seems to get out of London quite quickly compared to some. The bit coming into London on the way back always seems a bit of a drag, but I think that's just the way with the last hour of most rides.
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I love the DD route. About 2300m climbing is about perfect for fat unfit me.
To make a LBL route at least 200k you've got to add one some miles somewhere. I did a DIY 200 down to Brighton and back with Paul (DD organiser) near the end of the 2009 season as we both needed one more ride to bring up 50 points, I think he was also using the ride to scope out ideas for the DD.
Luckily he used his ideas and not my idea of making the route down longer by going via Royal Tunbridge Wells (https://www.strava.com/activities/162786543) and back over the North Downs via Pebblehill Road (I had wanted to go up via Box Hill but that was vetoed). The A217 back towards London is a quite speedy road though.
On the DD (https://www.strava.com/activities/320907609) the hills are done with 30k to go, it's a reasonably steady descent all the way from the top of Coombe Lane back to Londonton via Esher and Kingston.
It starts and finishes a few miles from my house so I try and do it every year.
ad441
Greenbank
Ditchling Devil is great. Though that's more in relation to the actual event and the cake, organisation, etc. But it's also a really nice route. There's a slightly tedious bit of main road somewhere on the way back, but other than that is almost all nice quiet roads once you're out of London. Quite a few hills as well - the loop that takes you over the South Downs in and out of Brighton is a little punishing... I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy that without being able to look forwards to the catering at the control that comes after that.
DD was my first ever audax - I joined audax uk the next day I think.