The Coulsdon Experiment: full moon with chances of hills

Ouch. That is a fairly hard route.

👍🏼

Oh dear, if YAL is saying that I am glad I didn't attend!

Hilly hard?

I'm very tired.

And hungry.

Very tired and hungry.

Thanks for the fun/pain last night all.

Well I enjoyed it! We had a pretty good pace from the get-go (as far as I'm concerned) and it's a bit lumpy at the start and very lumpy at the end. There was a tailwind at the flat section so I might have got carried away for a while... Anyway some of the inclines at the end were damn sharp and required a short game of bike wrestling (to quote @upstart ) to get to the top. So combined with the pace it was a tasty ride. Legs are tired today.

It's a fun route, though for me personally I'm not sure about it being added to the regular mix. Road surface has lots of fairly serious potholes and "interesting" descents. I'll definitely be having a go on it during the day, but I think the surface a bit to sketchy for regular night riding (for me).

Thanks all for putting up with my idea (and my missing-the-turns) yesterday evening, it was good fun. I blame @upstart for the spirited pace :)

A hard ride indeed, I had to walk once towards the end. 77 g.i. might be a bit on the high side for this kind of things.

Train was rammed, but not from Victoria weirdly enough. So plenty of space to put bikes, all good from that side.

I can't believe the avg speed was only 16mph 😫

Nice report @youramericanlover

I noticed on the map the route tops 10% on three of the hills and gets close to that a couple more times I guessed it would score high on the Ingatestone-Widowmaker scale, tho that was not the only reason for sitting it out I did guess it would be a bit much for me at the mo. Shame about the road surface as that might be the real killer, otherwise it's no bad thing having a couple of these tougher rides in the quiver for when the moon is full and the loons are abroad.

Yeah if the group is feeling good and up for some hills it would make a good high-summer-lots-of-light route. Not to be discounted as a route at all, but maybe it's not a Party Bus or Chingy level go-to route

As @Rod_Munch put it at the pub, it's the perfect route to ensure any TNRC first-timer won't ever come back again. That gives you an idea.

The idea of going all the way to Brighton and then come back by train was floated as well.

Last train from Brighton is 11:35 so we'd have to get our skates on if we were to get the train back!

@Oliver Schick used to run an overnight ride to Brighton that passed through Coulsdon but it went up Portnalls, down through Redhill and along the wonderful (and wonderfully named) Lonesome Lane. It does share about half a mile stretch of road with this route, just after getting kicked out of Gatwick Airport and before heading up Turners Hill.

Last train from Brighton is 11:35 so we'd have to get our skates on if we were to get the train back!

First train's at 5.10. Breakfast in the 24hr (licenced) cafe (caff) and straight to work.

It's 40 miles / 65 km from Coulsdon South, and after the lumps at the start it rolls nicely until Ditchling Beacon. Definitely doable :)

down through Redhill

Reigate actually, down Reigate Hill (which we'll be doing again on the Murtle ride on Sunday if anyone fancies it).

For completeness' sake, the route is actually @dellzeqq 's. I just stole it.

Great fun out there last night. Particularly enjoyed the two climbs at the end, but then I was riding a 66” gear.

Brighton is a great shout, and definitely doable in the time. And if we miss the train, we ride home!