Mum’s Gale-force Gamble

Spin To Wind

Die Fliegende Ferringer

Back To Brutality

Look After The Meters..and The Miles Will Look After Themselves

Glanced upwards through my glass portal to Great Britain’s Greater outdoors my at menacing swaths of steely grey stratus  scudding East at the snarling behest of  their savage oppressor, which provoked a cacophonous cantata of disapproval from every busking Sparrow trying to earn their broods an honest crust during a Summer of grave austerity and resentful Hisses. From the leafy rostrums upon which they tentatively balanced.

Nature’s request, so I thought to resurrect a route embodying distinctly reptilian characteristics!

Glanced downwards at a Strava Feed replete with Sunday Time Trials and Sabbath Crits complete with heat-ups and warm downs as fast as the races they applied to, “Funday Socials” ridden at a “recovery pace” …of 20 miles per hour, an imperious imperial century completed by the very man who sold me a Giant Defy 8 years ago, and finally a “sensible suburban out and back”  from Sydney’s prized Yorkshire emigrant that, by miraculous coincidence  almost mirrored my itinerary to the mile and meter.😉
 
Set a lofty goal of utilising as much officially allocated “shared space” as possible during my outbound journey, partly because even the most ill -appointed, poorly maintained cycle paths become practical luxuries beneath a bike with plusher shock absorbance than a Range Rover on a waterbed, but mostly because when you’re seeking to ride the elements with the same effortless grace as kite surfers cresting white horses across an untamed sea, there are fewer things more frustrating than being compelled constantly to sacrifice precious momentum stop at traffic lights, yield to buses, grind to a halt behind queues of cars waiting for one cautious learner to commit to a gap, big enough to accommodate a fifty carriage freight train, whilst knowing all along that what could, would and should have been your palpably invisible aid until the point of inevitable return, will spare you not one second of torture throughout a toilsome voyage home. 

After negotiating my way along the Hove Lawns and past Brighton’s Palace pier - now boasting app operated fruit machines and fifty pound note falls - I took the Undercliff path at high tide, savouring the salty spray from every wave that spilled over its concrete defences, whist weaving cautiously around walkers, runners, roller skaters, e-scooters and several articulated prams. 

Assumed I’d have to return to the road at Rottingdean, a quaint architecturally rustic  village lined with idyllic period cottages, traditional shops catering for an abundance of popular cultural pastimes,  and adorned in ornate hanging gardens.  

Then, one fateful day plucked from its tranquil pastoral surroundings and plonked unceremoniously nose first onto a tempestuous traffic-laden Coastline without ever giving official consent and longing ever since to reestablish its rural roots…That’s how I’ve perceived Rottingdean since childhood. And why it continues to fascinate me!

Much to my  pleasant surprise, the promenade extended past Saldean’s sweeping crescents of cozy terraced and alluring Art Deco abodes, eventually expiring at Peacehaven, a post World War One sanctum founded upon the principals of providing affordable accommodation for the hard-working but less privileged within a healthy seaside environment, and exuding an atmosphere well aligned with its name, other than when ravaged by the region’s frequent gale force storms!

Coiled up a steep climb which, in fortuitous keeping with the ride’s theme, is known as “The Saldean Snake”, and tip-tyred my way along a alleged cycle track that soon devolved into what would struggle, by formal definition, to qualify as pavement.

Zig-zagged up, over and into New Haven soon after, a hulking embodiment of industrialised 1970s socialism echoing with Scargilian resentment and the roar of the Hoverspeed SeaCat that used to depart its harbour.  

An evocative setting for numerous crime dramas, both for the big and small screens, an epicentre of trading Estates, retail parks and one UPS collection point where I was once forced to pick up a parcel - travelling on that occasion by bus. 

Beyond that. The A259s famous “Bunny Run” segment linking Denton to Seaford did not yield the velocity I’d anticipated or recalled from long past visits. And looping back along Seaford’s promenade my ill fitting gilet began acting like a parachute tethered to a dragster, though a secluded carbon-free path running parallel to the Ouse Valley, framed on both sides by floral reveries of a bygone Spring  provided novel and  scenic respite, save for one wrong and brief induced by a yapping poodle and lapse in concentration.l loop

The land’s negative incline from Newhaven to Saltdean permitted gravity to partially mitigate the merciless onslaught of what proved every howling gust as “headstrong” a foe as I’d envisaged.  But At the top of the Bannings VaIe, a fleeting 500 yard fast twitch friendly punch up to Saltdean’s Westerly  summit, every pleasant thought was blown out of my brain by a barbaric barrage of blustery uppercuts .. and all my subconscious could contemplate was taking Mystic MET’s crystal ball, hurling it off Beachy Head (with a very long arm) and screaming.  “Does this really feel like 22 degrees….and ONLY 18 miles an hour… well…does it, does it does it, does it???

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Ed "Cleatless" Ray

Seaford Serpent

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Mum’s Gale-force Gamble

Spin To Wind

Die Fliegende Ferringer

Back To Brutality

Look After The Meters..and The Miles Will Look After Themselves

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