FNRttC Friday Night Ride to Shoreham - 20th May

[Dogtrousers]

Thanks Adam and all the Fridays minions who make things work. A spiffing ride, a great route, amazing brekkie, all topped off with my best ever SMRbtH

When the waiter poured my first coffee I thought "tee hee,, I'll blag one before they realise it's not for us" but it, and much more, was for us.

Many thanks to @User13710 for a really interesting escape route. An old railway up Devil's Dyke, I never knew.

I began my ride home plagued with negative thoughts of rain, physical collapse and bailing early. I finished it on a high, absolutely whizzing over the Downs.

@TimO I'll post a GPX later.

My plans for doing a bit of waymarking came to nought again. Must try harder to get to the front.

 

[Flying Dodo]

As others have said, that was a cracking good route Adam, well done. I'm sure it will become a regular fixture, but maybe with a bit more space between this one and a Brighton ride, as they start out so similarly.

It will be next year. Unfortunately due to the permutations as to who was available and when, it's got shoehorned together. I had been hoping to do a totally different ride to a spiffing brand new destination "somewhere else along the south coast" for this month, as I'd got a lovely restaurant lined up and a really nice route, but just couldn't find a halfway stop, so that's gone on the backburner. And you all had to make do with Shoreham instead.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Here's a GPX @TimO

 

[Fab Foodie]

Aha, so you managed to get home without any completely insane train issues!

As we arrived at East Croydon, the hourly Gatwick train was just arriving and leaving the platform, it was an almost perfectly bad arrival time. They then promptly cancelled the next one, so if that had been the only available route, a two hour wait would have ensued ! Luckily another train proved to be useful.

After eight years of a perfect record of finishing every FNRttC, my last three have all been DNFs or DNSs !

Does anyone have a GPX record of the route? I'm curious to see where Adam chose to go, and see how badly wrong my route guesswork was.

Hi Tim
When I'm rested I'll download the route and post it.
Cheers
FF

Eddy: @Dogtrousers beat me to it!

 

[ianmac62]

A great night in very sociable company - greeting old friends and making new ones.

Many thanks @Flying Dodo & @velovoice for a lovely route and great organisation, for the welcoming sight that is the Cabin and for the superb breakfast at the Art Deco airfield! Many thanks also to all the waymarkers, TECs and the all-up man! Everyone helps to make a simple bike journey so pleasurable.

71 miles door-to-door for me. The train from Clapham Junction to Milton Keynes was full, as far as Wembley Central, of Palace fans. So I shall sit down, beer in hand, in a few minutes to observe how @User's team gets on. Is "London Pride" a suitably named beer for this, @User? I fear that the fans' chanting on the train and on the platform at Wembley Central was half-hearted. Let's hope the team isn't.

 

[Dogtrousers]

It's pronounced "Slaffam"

Wikipedia
Slaugham (pronounced "Slaffam")[2] is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England.

 

[hatler]

Am I alone in finding the new sotto-voce radio-transmitted whisper of "all-up" ever so slightly disconcerting ?

 

[User10571]

I'm sure the people sleeping in their beds alongside the route appreciated it a great deal. Personally I'd like to see much less bellowing all round on night, as well as day, rides really.

Fewer bellows FTW

ETA - I seem to recall from rides gone by, His Leggship would be looking out (from the front) for my raised arm (at the back).
Job done.

EFTA - We never discussed this - it just, sort of, happened. I think.

 

[Tim Hall]

It's pronounced "Slaffam"

Wikipedia
Slaugham (pronounced "Slaffam")[2] is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England.

And Leigh, where we didn't go, is "Lye" @Flying Dodo.

 

[ianrauk]

Well I wasn't going to ride back was I?. I told myself and everyone else that would listen that I just wasn't feeling it.. but I felt guilty...my legs said no, my mind said no and they told me no the whole night. But after 2 of the most excellently cooked and served full brekkies, 4 mugs of tea and the voices of @Tim Hall and @robjh asking if I was riding back. I just couldn't help myself. Doh! But so glad I did, after a little trouble trying to find the road to the Devils Dyke. We were soon zooming along at a wind assisted rate of knots and I was home just after 1.30pm.

So thanks @Flying Dodo and @velovoice for organising such a brilliant ride. Even though you couldn't keep the drizzle away, thanks for keeping the night time temperatures on the nicer side of comfortable.

Just had a couple of hours kip and copious amounts of more tea.
Loved it.. top, top ride. 133 miles on the clock.

 

[User10571]

Chapeau!

 

[ianrauk]

Chapeau!

Cheers Chap..
I just counted.. that was my 45th FNRttC... how time flies.

 

[TimO]

My (very) guessed route was not particularly close to the actual route !

 

[mark st1]

A lovely ride with some glorious roads my first for a few years and my first Fnrttc under the new management and as expected the whole operation is still as slick and trouble free and well run as ever. Nice to catch up with the tattooed messiah @ianrauk coming out of the Clapham badlands I was struggling at the halfway point but a couple of coffees and a doorstep cheese sarnie from the best truck stop in the SE hit the spot. Some of those roads after The Cabin as the sun rose were more than worth the bit of drizzle earlier in the ride An amazing buffet breakfast laid on by the people at the airport in the most glorious surroundings and fantastic value for money with multiple visits to the hot plate encoraged by the staff. Fair play to those that rode home I got a lift on one of the busiest most expensive trains known to mankind with @topcat1 thanks for your company Dave .

 

[jiberjaber]

Cracking ride Adam in more way than one! I'm a bit sore but sure I'll be on the mend, a bit of bike repairing to do, but many thanks @mmmmartin (NBT2 worked well) and one of the Tims for the assistance when the result of my incessant diving off the bike resulted in, on the last hill (!), my chain jumping off the cassette and jamming itself in to the hub/rear of cassette. A good deal of riving on the chain resulted in having to remove 3 links to get the machine going again and in for breakfast...

Disappointing not to make the ride home but both rider and bike were not in a sensible condition to take it on! Chapeau Ian!

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