London 2 Brighton

Week 24
21/06/09 - London to Brighton 54miles (86km). I was the first finisher out of our group, in 3hrs 26min. The start is so slow, you can't get anywhere until you get out of London and even then when you hit the first two little hills on narrow lanes, there are loads of people pushing and you can't get past, it's a bit like driving on the motorway in rush hour. You also have to be so careful of people just pulling across the road or stopping for no apparent reason right in front of you. It's quite slow when you get back into Brighton again as well as there are loads of traffic lights and you're sharing the roads with the cars again. So the ride was slow for an hour, I nailed it for the next 2 hours and a bit with a good climb up Ditching Beacon 900+ft at the 50mile point and then took it steady into Brighton for the last few mins. I then spent 5 hours on the beach waiting for all of our riders to come in......there was a BBQ and beer, so it wasn't too bad. Had a swim in the sea to cool off as well, not quite an ice bath.