Sunday, March 20

We met at my place in Tangmere at 9.30 on Sunday morning and had decided to head towards Duncton, Heyshott, Cocking and then back home.

It was a lovely morning, with plenty of other cyclists in the area. Elise, Karen, Victoria, Angela, Caroline and myself made the ride. We headed towards Goodwood Hotel and cycled up New Barn Hill, as we approached the Goodwood Sculpture Park Angela had a puncture....

We've been here before.......where was Gawd??

Karen very kindly called her husband, Tony, who drove to meet us with another wheel for Angela as we thought if we replaced the inner tube the same thing may happen further along the ride, as it did last week....many thanks to Tony for his help with this.

Tony

Wheel replaced we carried on up the hill towards East Dean, turning right at the pond and headed towards Droke.

East Dean pond

There were plenty of cyclists and walkers about today as the weather was dry and sunny at times. Cycling along the length of this road we came out on the Upwaltham road. Most of the traffic was heading towards Chichester so our side of the road wasn't too busy. We cycled down Duncton Hill, along through the village and turned left towards Graffham, heading towards  Heyshott passing some lovely cottages along  the way.

At the turning towards Graffham village shop Karen unfortunately fell off and dislodged her seat - as above. She wasn't hurt and quickly remounted.

From here we made our way to Cocking via Heyshott.

Arriving in Cocking we stopped off at the Moonlight Cottage which is at the bottom of the Cocking Hill for tea. As it was such a lovely morning we sat outside, Karen and Elise had scrambled eggs, smoked salmon on toast which looked very delicious and the rest of us had tea/coffee and cakes.



All the china was blue and white designs, all mismatched and very pretty. The food was excellent also.











After a much needed break we cycled up the Cocking Hill which was tough, but not as bad as I thought it might be. We all survived and met at West Dean and made our way towards Goodwood via the Centurion Way and Lavant and we eventually got back to Tangmere at approx 2pm.

The approximate mileage was 35 miles - well done to everyone.... I said it would be a challenge!

Looking forward to seeing as many Belles as possible next Sunday where we're meeting at the start of the Centurion Way in Chichester at 10am.