l2b and back.

Yukirin

first time on an organised event.
first time using energy gels (vom!)
first time up ditchling (loved that!)
first time I've done over 100 miles
first time over 35mph (38.1)
lovely ride down there. Shame coming back was hell! No gps left me "just heading north" trying to avoid the A roads as much as possible. Got lost in crawly! Thats a long way off Surbiton and somewhere near gatwick!
Quite tempted to write up a full ride report after all that.
Oh, and answer to the question "whats so hard about 100 miles?" =boredom. Once I was lost, endless A road cycling (last 20 odd miles?)on my own bored me to tears!

mtb-idle

well done, get a gps, map or some friends

ste_

Shame as there are some lovely routes North out of Sussex that stay well clear of Crawley.

tgotb

ste_ wrote:

Shame as there are some lovely routes North out of Sussex that stay well clear of Crawley.

The Horsham/Crawley gap looks quite hard to negotiate without getting spat into one town or the other. There's only one decent route as far as I can see, and it wouldn't be obvious without a map.

I'm surprised everyone doesn't carry some sort of map with them on unfamiliar territory. I have my phone now, but used to carry a wad of A4 printouts from the web.

I came across a guy just North of Devil's Dyke yesterday, asking the way to Brighton (though he was really just looking for confirmation). Can't rely on signposts on minor roads, i got to Rusper and found a bunch had been turned round to point the wrong way!

Kieran_Burns

TGOTB wrote:

ste_ wrote:

Shame as there are some lovely routes North out of Sussex that stay well clear of Crawley.

The Horsham/Crawley gap looks quite hard to negotiate without getting spat into one town or the other. There's only one decent route as far as I can see, and it wouldn't be obvious without a map.

I'm surprised everyone doesn't carry some sort of map with them on unfamiliar territory. I have my phone now, but used to carry a wad of A4 printouts from the web.

I came across a guy just North of Devil's Dyke yesterday, asking the way to Brighton (though he was really just looking for confirmation). Can't rely on signposts on minor roads, i got to Rusper and found a bunch had been turned round to point the wrong way!

I've found EVERY one of my longer rides by just heading out and seeing where I end up. Admittedly it's always been in the local area and the longest has been 100K.

I've gone down the 'wrong' road a few times and not known where the hell I was but that turned out to be half the fun: you just keep going until you get to a road sign and play "guess the village".

Bit of a bugger when you come to a road sign that says Ashbourne and Ashbourne on 2 of the 3 arrows.

I do also study google maps and rely on my memory as well... that actually has caused more "where the hell am I?" moments than just winging it but again it's part of the fun.

Yukirin

MTB-Idle wrote:

well done, get a gps, map or some friends

nah, socially awkward, I'll have to settle with a garmin for xmas instead.