2010-04-03 - Egg run to the sun - London to Brighton night ride

3rd April 2010

I had a magical time on Oliver's last night ride. Fond memories of changing Mc Nebula's puncture and then drafting with Fred and Brycelyall up to turners hill. I was backstop last time, in times it was slow but great fun none the less. This time I will be riding at the front. No I'm not jumping on Mr Schicks bandwagon here, Oliver has stated that he's busy with his Audax program and is more than willing for someone else to organise the ride. I say organise, I'm cutting and pasting an old thread!

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.

We'll meet at 10pm at Hyde Park Corner on Saturday 3rd April. 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 Lonesome Lane 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 they still haven't fixed properly!--, 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).

Backstops. We will need a two volunteers to be the backstops. 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 a free breakfast in Brighton and an easter egg. 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 gear 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.

Fitness. There's no need for legs of hoy for this ride, even my mum has ridden the distance on a Raleigh Max mtb. One thing I do ask is don't sign up for the ride if you have only been cycling for a few weeks, the last ride we did was just that bit too slow due to somebody falling asleep up a hill. I don't want to discourage anyone from riding, if you have been commuting or regularly riding around on your bike from week to week you will be fine.

Useful links--please have a look at these:

Route here:

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path...ght-rides-2009

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

http://southwarkcyclists.org.uk/soci...chfaqs09.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 as you'll need less food than you think , little and often is the key. You will also need plenty of water to wash the food down, this will keep you hydrated and avoid any cramps.

PS.

Thanks Oliver Schick for guiding many of us on this route, hope you can make it to this one