2010-10-09 - London to Brighton

Thanks for a great day - one of the best forum rides I've been on, and quickest I've ever made it to Brighton!
Was great fun riding with pgm, joe smith, 6pt & benjam. pgm & joe smith - I'm still in awe of your spinning power.
The detour down slugwash lane was lovely, apart from mark's fall - hope you're not hurting too much today mate.
Andy has just announced he wants to go for another ride today?!

That was brilliant. Cheers jonny and g for organising. One of my favourite forum rides to date. Not much to add to that really. Relaxed start time for a Saturday, smooth rolling all the way into Brighton and in the pub at a respectable time. Two thumbs up. :)

Medals and all, brilliant day all round - thought forum rides to Brighton were meant to be 12 hour affairs. Great work pulling that together jonny and pisti - a TNRC style Saturday jaunt. Cheers for the oily chain joining help Gordon and arducius - had the kit, but as ever not the tools to do the job. First time I've ever packed some spare links - last minute thought that they may be useful...

There was definitely an air of TNRC about yesterday. Loved it.

well that was neat

big thanks one and all for making that a lovely little role down to brighton.

38 of us i think in all, spinning away doing the riding a bike thing. lots of good banter and some lovely Gs at the end.

special props to pisti for, well, just being pisti, des (balmain) for the brilliant route alteration out of lindfield, jason (mf) and andy (arducius) for making the trip in from out of town and being top rouleurs.

but really big thanks to everyone for showing that the forum can throw a ride to brighton together and for it to a. not take 24 hours, b. go off without any bad spills and c. no punctures.

really was a pleasure riding with you all. and a great compliment for the comparison to the TNRC - though i fancy that had as much to do with there being so many tnrcers on the ride (fussballclub, wools, shoots, sam, balmain, diapo, damo, etc)

Cheers Jonny for leading a great ride! A lovely route. Will have to do t again soon should there be any nice weekends.

Pink.

That was proper well fun! Despite having not done any riding of late (and having done lots of drinking yesterday), I feel pretty darn good today! Ditchling can f*ck off though. Its just something stupid that shouldn't be there. Thanks to Johnny for organising; that mans got style. It was awesome to have that kind of pace with such a big group. Nice to meet some new peeps and to see some familiar faces. I might get me some gears. Great pics Pisit.

Well that was the quickest large forum ride ever I think. V well organised Jonny. Sweet pics Mr Pisti. The weather today is amazing, might have to go for a casual roll around....

Great ride! That really was the forum at its best!
Cheers Jonny and Graham for organising.

man, what an amazing day, the weather was perfect. The fantastic view and role down in to Brighton made the epic arse ache up Ditchling totaly worth it. Nice to meet some new faces, and thanks to the chaps who stopped to see if I was okay after I tumbled for 10 metres and head butted a tree (I really don't understand how I'm okay, luck was with me on that one).
Thanks to the organisers and to every one else for making it a day to remember.

Can't wait for the next big ride!

Okay, off to take some pain killers................................

Just wanted to say thanks for a great ride, and thanks for everyone who checked in on me. Sorry for making you all wait a few times, but I'm really glad you did, it was a beautiful day and I'm stoked to have made it all the way. Well worth the pain.

well done J + G. lovely day. it really was.

turner's hill < that first one< ditchling.

thanks to everyone.

Beautiful day. Wonderful ride. Thank you Jonny and Graham.

Forgot.....as always, fair play to the fixies skidders on the ride

Mad props and skills to Joe Smith, RAPID! Fair play mate :-)

des (balmain) for the brilliant route alteration out of lindfield

+1 to Slugwash Lane.

Did it today and it was lovely. Weather like this I'm enjoying cycling to the job. Probably doing it again tuesday maybe... but then I only get to ditchling and then have a long break then do the beacon.

Market dinner for the gut buster next time?

Bankers chipy is great and then wander to hove gardens for some amazing ice cream. Burn all the calories on the way back.

Yeah, yeah....what in your van?

Why did you put your name on the list, give it Billy Big Bollocks for 2 weeks then not turn up? Yet you claim to have done it twice this weekend?

LIES

quote of the day. at the top of the beacon checking with graham if he'd made it all the way up

"nah mate, brendan and me wet the bed" - awesome - not that i would expect anything less

Bet wetting is fine in my books.

losers. ditchling is easy. ask lynx.

Ditchling is easy if you adjust your gearing. What isn't easy is if you do adjust your gearing for Ditchling, every fucking downhill hurts like hell. I only gave it some welly the once, that was the final downhill section into Brighton town centre.

Well, it didn't go without a hitch, but thankfully my rear wheel swap-out before I'd even got to the start point was the right thing to have done. What would have been even better was to check the route out of London, so the 10 minutes or so I was trailing at Streatham, wouldn't have turned into about half an hour having detoured around Purley Way. However, thankfully I had my domestique with me (nice 1 Marky), and we charged through the first 30 miles at quite a pace ensuring when we hit the top of Turners, we were greeted by a load of blankets laid out with fine cutlery ; )
From this point on, it was a truly great forum outing, lead masterfully by G n J, and in the best of company. Great to see so many beautiful riders, all more than capable of reaching our final destination in reasonable time. The beacon met the Burls, the Burls met the beacon, and the quote of the day for me, was whilst spinning down into Brighton and turning to introduce myself to Cheesecake. His reply was simply : "Ahhh.. you must be BMMF".
Thanks for the medal Jason. (lovely bike)
Nice one for coming along to the pub and being so friendly Robin.
Good to meet you macca81 (sorry, real names escape me - hope the 30th was worth it).
Cheers to B for making the journey home a fucking funny one (Help the Raged!) : )

All in all a truly awesome way to see out the last of the forum summer rides.

Thanks so much to the organisers and everyone for making my first forum ride so fun.
Special thanks for wools stopping and helping me change my inner tube on the way to brixton, don't think i would have got there on time otherwise.
Next time lower gearing, and i might not give up on ditchling after 2 minutes.

All in all a truly awesome way to see out the last of the forum summer rides.
Rumor has it there might just be one more ride to get under your belt before the real cold weather kicks in. Watch this space...

stop saying i wet the bed, i merely moistened the pillows. Thanks J for the orgs and graham for tryin got draft me up the beacon only to piss his sheets when my legs went pop. Top journey home too shoots. 'the triangle'.
Look forward to see some of the brighton guys this weekend for the polo. Good to meet ben, jason, dan too. Joe smith i gotta try your powerade / mars milk mix up!
B