Bank Holiday Weekend Recap

That was a fantastically fun, and painful, ride - all at the same time. I had some great weather on the way down, and the whole weekend. Once I made it to the castle and to the beach I had a very relaxing weekend of doing nothing much at all aside from recovering.

The “beach” term is a bit of a misnomer, since it’s basically 30 meters of rocks between the ocean and the road. There is a tiny sliver of sand right where the water laps up against the shore, but that’s about it.

Here’s the route I stuck to for the ride.

I managed to follow it just about perfectly the whole way down. There was maybe half a kilometer of extra distance added on, but other than that, it was a marvel of directional know-how.

There were two distinct points where I was planning on turning in my wheels for a train ticket. First, around km 80 or so, I was biking through Buxted and travelling up a hill for what seemed like forever. Both of my quads cramped up on the climb and I was not a happy camper. I stopped for a bit and stretched out, got some water, then I kept climbing… and climbing… and climbing. I finally crested the top of the hill and was glad I only had 2 hours left in the saddle.

The other main I’m-about-to-get-off-this-bike-and-just-take-a-damn-train-home moment was about 15 km from the end. My left leg managed to get the infamous and dreaded simultaneous hamstring/quad cramp. There’s nothing you can do to make it go away. If you keep your leg strait your quad goes crazy, and if you bend your knee the hamstring locks up. After another few minutes of agonizing riding, it managed to work itself out and the rest of the ride went on without incident.

All in all, I made it to the castle 30 minutes ahead of schedule (5:28 of ride time), then managed to find my way to the hotel a few miles away and enjoy a much needed shower and rest.

The ride home was much easier and a lot quicker… possibly due to the fact that I was “riding” home on a train. Oh well, I think the 150ish km of the weekend was quite enough for me.

I’ll put up some pictures in a few hours once I get home and sort through them all.