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@Fox
Hah, 'relaxed' isn't the word I'd use! And it was more than 85 miles...
When I originally planned the Bradwell-on-Sea ride I was going to make it a series of rides to nuclear power stations called "(Watt) Hour(s) of Power", or something cheesy like that. The thinking behind it was that nuclear power stations tend to be in bleak places, away from population centres, and by the sea. And I like riding to those kind of places...
But then the idea of doing a few rides into 'interesting' places in Essex came up instead, so the Bradwell-on-Sea ride ended up getting rolled into that. It was always the first of a series of rides (in my mind) to nuclear power stations though, so when Bradwell was done Dungeness (with its 'B' reactor still very much used) was the obvious next target.
Spybot kindly supplied a route down into Kent which covered the first 50 miles, then I filled in the rest. We were meant to reccie it the other weekend but I was full of cold so had to pull out at the last minute. The cold had kind of been dragging on last week so laner kindly loaded the route onto his Garmin and spybot handled the chap nav, so I did sod all navigating yesterday. #badcyclist
It was a good ride though. Some beautiful lanes on the way down - a lovely twisty one through a wood with a mini hairpin and a super rough surface called Alder Lane, and Knock Hill (the descent down onto the flat bit before Rye) was great - fast, smooth and twisty with great views.
We spent too long dawdling in the morning and over lunch really, so the second half after the pub stop was none stop, except for a very quick wee stop. This meant we had to push on to make the final train on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch from Dungeness at 4.40. You could see the nuclear power station from about 15 miles away, and most of this section was riding into the wind on the drops, fighting to get closer to our final, seemingly distant destination:
Until finally it got closer:
And we loaded our bikes onto the train for New Romney:
We then had to push on from New Romney to Appledore to get the train back, which was another 10 miles laner forgot about :)
I'd done 110 miles by the end of the day, and with the hills down through Kent and the wind as we got nearer to the sea it was a pretty good workout. So fun, but I'd not call it relaxed!
Next stop Sizewell B, I think.