South Downs Way 2008 Day 2
Day 2 started with guess what – more rain. But with a forecast for the rain to clear quickly, we left our luggage in the porch for Liz to pick up and set off for – oh a good 5 metres before Andy needed to adjust his disc brakes! We then got ourselves back up the hill to the South Downs Way and set about tackling the many hills of the day.
But it kept raining. And wet chalk makes for pretty slippery riding, and we were slipping all over the place – with quite a few near offs. Rob did fall off, and then proceeded to smack himself in the shin with his (apparently ungrippy) pedal – and then again – same shin – ouch. We all wished we’d kept our winter tyres on, though frankly I’m not sure it would have helped that much on some of the wet chalky descents.
It was still raining at lunch time and we were so covered in mud we ate our pub lunches outside in the rain rather than leave mud all over the seats inside. The weather did clear up in the afternoon though and despite a few more punctures and hard work riding up hills, we did start to enjoy ourselves… Neil: “I may complete the SDW but it may be at the cost of my sanity”. Andy: “I’m actually looking forward to the next hill”. Me: “Andy has lost his already”.
We finished up in the bustling town of Clayton (well ok it’s a village with one pub, though that was bustling by the time we filled it with 4 hungry cyclists, Liz our favourite porter, Kaylee (9) and Dylan (2)!)
