So I'm back home with tired legs....Hats off to people who do epic distances off road, as predominantly a road / light gravel rider it did make a lovely change but you do need to temper your mileage expectations / average speeds.
Ended up getting down to a Booking.com garden flat in Southwick early afternoon on Friday, so did a gentle reccy up the Downs Link to Partridge Green for a pint in the Partridge and back. Nice warm up and very flat, dead easy to navigate and nice variety of scenery.
Day 2 original plan went out of the window with the train strike, so we did a loop out to Arundel, predominantly on the Monarchs Way (MW), although we dived off on a few occasions where the surface was poor or track very narrow, and my garmin indicated a more appealing surface would join back up again. One word of note, there are a lot of kissing gates on the MW so lots of humping bikes over them, which in turn slows progress as you are forever stopping.
Dee Dee's in Findon was a suitable coffee /cake/ bacon sandwich stop, we took
@Shadow 's recommendation to pop into the Black Rabbit pub for a cold drink pre lunch and then cut up to Amberley via South and North Stoke and a gurka bridge, and picked up the SDW to head back to Steyning and back down alongside the Adur to Shoreham & Southwick. We lunched (quite late, on paninis) at the very pleasant Frankland Arms , a short diversion off the SDW at Washington. The SDW was generally a wider / better surface (although some parts of MW were tarmac in places) but bigger lumpier climbs. The whole day gave varied and stunning views, from riding down a 6 inch wide track through a "flowing in the wind" barley field, to the classic top of the downs panorama's.
Day 3
We had planned to ride back up to Steyning and ride the SDW as far as Southease, before dropping back to coast thru Brighton to Southwick. However we decided to treat our legs to one less epic climb, and make a mates "getting home curfew" achievable and we cut back into Brighton from Ditchling Beacon. Coffee / second breakfast was at the wonderful Wildflower cafe at Saddlescombe. Their Poached eggs on toast was a delight to both eyes and taste-buds, you genuinely would have been wow-ed wherever you'd been served it, be that posh hotel or Michelin star restaurant, let alone a humble farm courtyard cafe.
All in all a cracking weekend. The weather was kind, only rain was the odd overnight shower, and whilst breezy, particularity today, it was at our backs / cross tail on the SDW, and only in our faces at the very start of the day and back thru Brighton on NCN 2 / city cycle lanes.
SDW is excellently signed, so whilst the Garmin and Ride with GPS planning was much needed on Day 2, Day 3 it was largely redundant for navigating. Traffic on the M25 back home was quite sticky, so rather glad we didn't do the extra hills and miles...
For the record we were all on classic 26" wheel hardtail MTBs.
