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            Dear Sponsors,

Thanks for your recent donations (Bike4Hospice £397 and Capital To Coast £278). Much appreciated.

The bike4hospice was an interesting day, as Bradley Wiggins says, it was bloody hard, well it was for me but almost certainly not for Wiggo, unlike the capital to coast which was a walk in the park in comparison, or should that be ride in the park. Anyway, we, that is Jim, and I started around 8:15 thinking we’d be home for a late lunch. Well it turns out 42 mills off road up and down dale (surely Downs, ed) takes a good deal longer, about a half a day and several energy bars longer as it turned out.

It was an amazing journey. After we left Lewes we hardly passed any civilisation which is remarkable considering we are supposed to live in one of the most crowded countries in the world. There were a few buildings around Pyecombe, Botolphs and Washington but other than that it was 42 miles of glorious English countryside including a bit of a Roman road around Bignor which was very unpleasant as it was made from flint (what have the Roman’s ever done for us, well they didn’t use tarmac for a start, but pretty impressive its still here). There were a few inglorious moments, we got lost about three times, despite modern technology, it rained cats and dogs and a few pigs around Botolphs (there was a very smelly pig farm there and we hadn’t ordered rain) luckily the rain stopped around Chanctonbury Ring, and I came a cropper at the bottom of a steep descent (Jim didn’t stop laughing for several hours), but no major harm done, other than pride. Oddly I expected the hills to get smaller as we nearer Goodwood, but they didn’t, in fact they seemed to get bigger. The wind of course was against us all the way, but then who would organise a bike trip along the Downs agains the prevailing wind. Doh!

Overall we climbed 1400m which given the average Down is about 200m that’s seven times up and down. And why are the Downs called the Downs when clearly they are the Ups (I don’t think I’ll ever understand the English). The descents were pretty hair raising, you couldn’t just let go for fear of a wipe out, so while we got some benefit from the climb it wasn’t as good as I hoped for. Although for some reason Jim managed to sit on the descents but I rode out of my saddle down hill as it was way too bumpy. Maybe next year I need to get a mountain bike (ignore that Sharon).

So a cracking day out, especially the last 3 miles which were flat and on a road and there was beer and cake at the end. Can’t think of a better way to finish.

Peter

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Bike4hospice

            Back in February or there a bouts the idea of riding 42 miles and climbing 1400 seemed like a good idea. There would be plenty of time to buy a bike and get fit. Well the bike was relatively easy, a cyclo cross XLS from Planet-X but getting fit was a bit harder. Simply finding the time was hard what with work and life pressure. In the week leading up to the ride I didn't get a chance to do any riding apart from the daily commute, a massive 3 miles.