2009-06-27 Sat Midnight - Overnight to Brighton

[Sorry, loooong OP, I know, but please read all of this, especially if you're not that experienced at night rides. This ride is a good opportunity to sample your first taste at night riding, too. This ride waits for everyone, so don't be shy about joining in even if you're slow. Night riding is to be enjoyed and savoured, not rushed through. That's how we'll roll.]

OK, I've been meaning to do another night ride but haven't had time for it for quite a while. I hear from gormley that there's a bit of demand going for a Brighton ride, although not necessarily a night ride. I'm keen to do this overnight again, though. Here goes.

We'll meet at midnight at Hyde Park Corner on Saturday the 27th, so technically the date is Sunday, but hey. We'll then take the Friday Night Ride to the Coast route, with some very slight modifications, going out via Chelsea Bridge, Battersea, Clapham Common, Tooting, Mitcham, lanes to Reigate Hill (fast downhill) and Reigate, then either Lonesome Lane or Richard Cheese's Leigh-Charlwood route, then a stop at Gatwick Airport, before continuing along the B3026 and the B3027, then Effingham Lane, Turner's Hill, Ardingly, Lindfield, Slugwash Lane, Ditchling, and then the lovely Ditchling Beacon, before we enjoy the fabulous run into Brighton.

There are a few hills--notably Portnalls Road (goes on for a lot longer than you realise at first), Reigate Hill is a fast downhill but quite easy to ride on fixed, as it's a well-built A-road at that point--just watch out for some nasty potholes at the bottom, which with any luck they should really have fixed by now--, and then Turner's Hill and finally Ditchling Beacon. There's no shame in walking up Ditchling, which at night is easily possible, as there'll be next to no motor traffic.

This is only about 50-60 miles, so don't worry too much about distance. The first time around, it'll seem a lot longer to you than if you've done it a few times, but the magic of a night ride doesn't really disappear. Ever.

Barring excessive numbers of punctures, we should see the sunrise, probably shortly before 5am, as we're approaching the coast. This will be a fairly moonless night (night ride etiquette sometimes stipulates doing it on full moon nights, but the FNRttC already do that every month, so I'm not too fussed about that--moonless nights can be great, too).

This is the week-end before the Dunwich Dynamo, so a good opportunity to practise your night riding if you're nervous about tackling the DD for the first time. There is a slight clash with Plagiarist's slow math geeks ride to Oxford in the daytime, so apologies for that to Plagiarist, but at the time of writing I'm still intending to do both, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Backstop. We will need a volunteer to be the backstop. This isn't a particularly arduous job and simply involves being the last rider on the road, so that we know we're complete when you arrive. If someone has a puncture near the back, the front of the ride may not notice, and you should then be in phone contact with the front to alert us that we have to stop. This is a worthy and essential job and the reward will be all the food you want from Gatwick and a free breakfast in Brighton. So get in there and snap it up.
Gear inches. This route is doable on fixed, and you should be absolutely fine at around 70 inches. Not everybody can get up Ditchling Beacon on 70gi, but it's a very small part of the route. I'll be geared as unfortunately my knees don't allow me to be fixed on hilly rides. Geared is fine, but of course going fixed gives you the usual benefits of fixed riding over a longer distance, so don't miss out if you can.

Useful links--please have a look at these:

Approximate route (as I said, there'll be some slight modifications):

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/FNRttC-May-2008-Brighton

Southwark Cyclists' Dunwich FAQ, with good advice on night riding:

http://southwarkcyclists.org.uk/social/dunwichfaqs09.shtml

Please make sure that your bike is in roadworthy condition and that we won't suffer too many mechanicals on the way. This could be quite a large group, and if you have a bike failure, you might keep a lot of people waiting.

Check your tyres before riding, e.g. for embedded glass or flints, and replace them if they're too worn--a night ride is a pretty good opportunity to have more of an incentive to do that than normally. Bring one or two spare inner tubes for your tyre size, especially if you have an unusual tyre size, like 27s. Prepare to quickly change the inner tube to get over a puncture rather than trying to patch the inner tube. We'll get going again more quickly this way.

Take good lights--again, this is a good test run for Dunwich. In practice, there'll be quite a few people on the ride with the equivalent of car headlights, but you could find yourself in a smaller group off the back or descending with some distance between riders. You don't need to go overboard on this--a lot of people do these days, but lighting is now so good that quite a large range of lights will do. Plenty of threads around, so UTFS.

Take some savoury food (sandwiches or samosas or something like that) and sickly sweet energy food like Go Bars or flapjacks, and keep drinking and eating in small sips and morsels during the ride. Try not to stuff your face too much in one go, especially at Gatwick, as you'll need less food than you think, but pack some more food for the remainder of the ride.

OK! List:

1. Oliver Schick
   
2. gormley