The other week Tom went out for a bike ride with a friend, a good 12 miles or so. I asked if he fancied going on a long ride with me at the weekend and he said yes. I suggested breakfast off the Downslink at some point, either Steyning, Henfield or Partridge Green – but we would have to leave early’ish otherwise there would be no breakfast left. Tom’s not the best person for mornings, so I was surprised when he agreed.
I haven’t done much biking over the last six months or so, apart from daily commute to Brighton and back on the eBike. I got up half an hour earlier than Tom to uncover the Raleigh Royal and get it ready from it’s extended rest – not much to do apart from pump the tires up.
Tom was up and we set off, hoping it would get a little bit warmer during the morning. This would be the first time I have gone along the Shoreham part of the Downslink since they did the flood defenses, you now ride up quite high on the top of the bank on a nice smooth surface.
Within no time we had reached Shoreham cement works where I was surprised to see the results of a massive fire last year was still very present. A load of buses were set alight resulting in them being completely burnt out in a massive inferno, I don’t know what started it but expect it was arson. It is still all there, the shells of burnt out coaches and buses make the cement works that little bit more spooky. As it happens, some of the vehicles that look like they survived were a number of old fire engines…
Being April and a wet one so far, the path was pretty muddy in places and washed away resulting in either muddy or bumpy ride. Normally I’m going a lot faster and so that might smooth out the bumps a bit too.
I get Steyning and Henfield mixed up. I had visualised the cafe we were going to go to for breakfast which was a pity that I had visualised a Steyning cafe in Henfield. It seems Henfield does not have that many easy cafes open on a Sunday morning, infact the only one was a small coffee shop. With locked our bikes up and ordered sausage rolls and toasted cheese sandwich, with a black coffee and an apple juice. The talk of the village was the overnight activity at the bank where someone had driven away with the ATM along with the wall it was attached to. They had driven over a flower bed to get to it, which was just as upsetting.
We set off back home, which I thought would be against a small but cold wind but turned out to be fine. We got back in no time at all it seemed, although looking at the GPS it was only slightly quicker than our trip up. The way home always seems quicker.
A bit of a success and the agreement to do it again but to go a bit further. Maybe by the summer we will be having breakfast at Stan’s Bike Shake and lunch at Southwater, maybe an early afternoon snack in Henfield on the way home. After a long period of time of no biking for myself (apart from commuting) it was nice to be out and pedalling under my own power. The Royal seemed very light after the heavy battery and motor of my daily bike. Off to plan some further trips for 2018.
Number of miles: 24
Number of bank ram raids: 1
Number of holes trying to swallow you up: 1
