The Railway Touring Club - Downs Link Ride

This reminds me that I should post to say that I had quite a lot of fun. Disappointed that I didn't make it to the beach (was there a beach at the end?) but time and tide wait not for kiddie bedtime.

Great course! The way out of Nunhead was obviously curated by someone who knows darkest south London by the back of their hand. It's always fun to go someplace crap a fun new way (aka The Outliers Way®). Mitcham area had a couple of top drawer industrial estates full English breakfast vans, burnt out cars, terrifying driving and more gammons than an Iberian meat market. The nearby cyclepath had some cool bridges and an absolutely ancient guy recently back from his holiday in Australia. Sadly it might be the last time he sees those fair shores because he looked about 118. We also got lost in a kiddie park about 10:30ish which was not a great look for the group IMO.

Anyway the path was a little rowdy on the way to the Carry On Camping In Surrey which was stretching out our arrival time. Fortunately for everyone I put in a couple of huge attacks across Epsom Downs which brought down the gap and we made better progress. A couple of the front-loader bros nearly shat themselves on the bridleway downhills afterwards but I figured they must have packed their bikes like that on purpose for rear wheel lols. @jaeyukdapbap also managed to find some DIY spackle on the path to pack into his mudguard because I basically had to chisel that shit out. The wheel was seized.

I recognised some of the Surrey lanes from TNRC routes, and we had a Co-op sponsored lunch in some village with a babbling stream. Felt like we had to get through a bit more road before shit got pastoral for real tho, finally cruising across fields and chunky paths on the way to the railway thingy. The railway track it was fun! Nearly the whole group wiped out on the hike-a-bike section where there was a closed tunnel (or it was blocked by a private landowner unsure on the deets), and I think I slid out twice. Woo! Tho the path is downright genteel it must be full of gnarly thorns and flint because we had a lot of punctures. Myself included, although the upside to this was the invention of a possible hashtag on insta displaying tubeless fails as #tubelessorporn. Sadly some other influencer will have to have the courage to post content from both categories.

While the railway track was ace - and it was ace - it was also a funny thing. We got on and and I was thinking "I am going to smash this shit" and then it just goes and goes and it was long tree tunnel going ever so slightly uphill or downhill. Overly harsh to call it samey, but it didn't exactly have 'views'. Cycling car-free for that long freaked me out a bit, too. Either way it was great fun, and the bail at Horsham meant I got to have three cans of beer in 45 mins which is quick for me so I felt baked and woozy when we jumped off at Victoria.

Thanks for the company and patience and route leading and route planning. 7.3/10 would RTC again in the future