I had wanted to do a ride to replace the Rule 5 Summer Send Off I did last year and enjoyed thoroughly. But I was busy on the likely candidates for weekends and then was lucky enough to escape this frigid isle for a little while.
So the Summer Send Off became a Halloween ride, welcoming the dark Autumn. Halloween was a Saturday and in the morning the news broke that Lockdown 2 was on it’s way. It truly would be a send off and a dark, dark Autumn.
I plotted a route that took in some of my favourite “true gravel” paths nearby that also included stop offs at churchyards and one castle, to try and keep to the theme.
The morning began and continued with heavy rain, the first that we’d had in a while. The forecast indicated sun and 14 degrees would arrive around 1400, and with a planned start time of 1530 I held the faith that the sun would dry out some of the trials.
Sure enough, the storm passed and sun came out and we started on the loop by climbing up to Lancing Ring, then the hill overlooking Steyning from the West. There the sun stated to say goodbye and the darkness deliberately folded over us.
With lights now on we hit the Downslink to take us to a turn off to follow the river south of Henfield. We were joined there by our third and amongst much protest set off into what looked like and turned out to be a very wet field.
Testing the maximum grip of my 47c tyres we rolled on past the river. I startled some swans with my light. A large group of them together in the cloying darkness, pierced.
Just now the moon rose, an angry dark yellow which belayed it’s name for today only, a Blue Moon.
y now it was pitch black, and we saw children and parents in costumes scattering before our lights through Henfield.
The Moon continued to aid us in our navigation, it casting it’s ghostly white light over the foliage surrounding our bikes.
We were making slow progress so at Henfield decided to skip our most northerly section and head due East out of Henfield to our path taking us back south. The reservation at the pub was calling, after all.
Our route took us into a thick wood, with signs on various trees for beer barrels indicating a party we had not been invited to. We plugged back South.
Despite the very strong south westerly winds, we were under the impression that the storm had abated, as by now we felt very little head or tailwinds.
We made it to one of my favourite gravel bridleways that takes us to Edburton church, which now appears to have been turned into an expensive residence. The bridleway wasn’t as much fun as it sometimes is in the daylight, but we came across a torrent of a river, feeding away to the Adur.
After a short section of road, fully lit by the moon, we came to our steep chalk climb back up to the South Downs Way and eventually Devil’s Dyke.
This was a strange experience, as steep white chalk sides to the slippery white chalk mud mixed with the pure white of the moonlight. Hiking our bikes at times we made it slowly back to the Dyke.
From now we had a downhill, following the path of the old Dyke Railway, back to pure gravel. We left our most recent companion and arrived the pub, who very kindly allowed us to stash our muddy bikes in the closed beer garden.
A great ride. I’ll start earlier next time, though.
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