Easy Belles ride - Sunday November 13

Tizzie kindly offered to lead this ride for me today.

Setting off from the start point at 10.08 were myself, Sally, Lynn and three new Belles – Leona, Laura and Denise (very nearly ‘L’s Belles!).  Passing the Spinnaker restaurant, we almost got to the sea lock when I had a call from Nikki who had arrived a little late.  After a few calls to and from, and still no sight of Nikki, we had to push on, it was nice and sunny, but the wind had picked up.  We made a quick de-tour to Dell Quay for a little peek before heading back to the Salterns Way.  We had brief moment of concern when Lynn took a tumble just outside the entrance to Fishbourne church but were quickly able to get going again. 

We went past the front of Chichester College where some of the Belles were surprised to see half an airplane parked up!  Our last ‘hurdle’ before stopping for tea and cakes was crossing the very busy road outside the train station, but as the railway gates were down, we got across easily.  On to the ‘tea shop’ and while we were parking our bikes, I spotted a lonesome cyclist sat outside … Nikki!  We enjoyed a good chatter but despite the sunshine, the wind got through our clothes and we decided to move on. 

We waved goodbye to Sally at this point as this was where she had started from, and Nikki who headed off home as she had more or less done the ride in the opposite direction!  The canal path was not as busy as usual, I would imagine it was the cold wind putting people off.  We stopped by the Selsey Tram crossing point to give a (very brief) history lesson and found myself being heckled by a local who told us that was all rubbish and “no one knows anything ‘cos there was no records”!  

Having decided this was not a good time to mention to the other Belles that the Selsey Tram route could be resurrected as a cycle route, we said a cheerful goodbye to our heckler and bumped our way along the (increasingly muddy) towpath.  On reaching the Donnington crossing, we decided that, as the next section of the towpath was a bit worse, it would be a good idea to do the last leg of our journey on the road via Wophams Lane arriving back at the marina about midday having done about 10 miles.  

After a brief discussion, it was agreed that this had been a very Easy Belles ride, and that we would be keen to do about 20 miles next time.

Maratona Ride - Sunday November 13

This was a good ride and we cycled approx 40 miles!

We all met at Goodwood Hotel - Sandra, Elise, Caroline, Malc and Simon and made our way towards Bosham just to warm ourselves up before the hilly sections of the ride.

From Bosham we made our way along the road towards Compton, which was a long slow climb towards Compton and our cafe! A beautiful crisp morning with lovely blue skies, can't believe its the middle of November! We sat outside and had our tea and cakes.

Here are Sandra's new leggings... which I think we're all going to buy for the colder days ahead.

From Compton we cycled on towards Chilgrove climbing some quite difficult hills, we turned left at The Fish House and cycled the back lanes right on towards The Selsey Arms which is on the Midhurst/Chichester road, crossing over the main road and going along the back lane towards West Dean College. Here we said goodbye to Sandra and Angela as they went home along the Centurion Way and Angela leaves next week for her 400k charity ride in Kenya - good luck to her!

From here, me, Elise, Malc and Caroline went on towards Singleton, towards Charlton (missing out that hill this week) on towards East Dean, turning right at the pond and up East Dean hill - I gather this is the sort of incline we're going to experience on the Maratona, which wasn't too difficult at all.

All along the way Malc kindly gave us some tips on fitness, riding as a group etc which is invaluable - thanks Malc!

Glad to see the nice downhill section from the top of East Dean hill back to Goodwood Hotel.

Next week we're having some indoor training in Portsmouth so this should be very useful.