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@Oliver Schick
Whew, I'm only just back posting. Thanks to all for great company on a memorable ride! I'm feeling a bit better today--yesterday I was only sleeping and being ill all day. It looks as if this is going to be one of my double dip 'flus, with fever and a headache for a day or so, then a bit of clearing up, and then another dip for a few days or so.
Oh well, sorry I couldn't do the last bit. I just couldn't get up any hills in one go--no power at all. I was unexpectedly glad that the ride included the shorter option! Huge thanks to Dropout and balmain for picking up the slack, and balmain for generally excellent backstopping. It is a rather nice bit just north of Brighton, only marred by having to cross the otherwise utterly impermeable A23, and the A273 Clayton Hill Road is way too busy.
The fact that it was such a good, well-prepared group meant that we arrived in Shoreham much too early--I'd factored in at least a couple of puncture repair stops, but no dice. ;) The lack of a full halfway stop also meant that we were earlier than we might otherwise have been. The beauty of this route is that it takes you away from the major conurbations completely--if you look at the map, you can see that it really passes quite closely to Gatwick, Crawley, and Horsham--but you wouldn't notice, partly owing to being under trees for much of the way. This also means, of course, that nothing is open at this time of night, not that I think it should be normal for things to be open at this time of night--that Gatwick is completely open for business is just a reflection of our insane transport excesses.
Still, it was an enjoyable pace with hopefully the right mix of riding and stopping. I made one mistake of not waiting at the left turn towards Leigh and Charlwood, when Des and a couple of others had to play catch-up.
Brighton was pretty wrecked, although I'm sure it's not unusual for them to have their whole beach and most roads covered in litter and broken glass. It must be such a bastard of a clean-up job. Some totally wankered people running around. The barefoot girls picking their way through that area of broken glass while whooping and definitely not looking at the ground were especially worrying.
Thanks to Fox for expert ticket knowledge on the way back, too. I had to chuckle when the guard at the barrier at London Bridge pretended to look at the groupsave ticket that he was presented with, waved Fox through, and then asked me for my ticket, before he had to look at the ticket properly. I'd always suspected that it's impossible to take in all the details of a ticket so quickly if you do it all day long.
Anyway, I'll definitely do this route again. There's plenty of scope for variation on the topic. For instance, I was thinking that it would be quite nice to do it in reverse, by going to Ditchling Beacon first, and instead of riding down on the seaward side, ride down again towards Ditchling, then take Underhill Lane, then up Clayton Hill from the landward side, and up Devil's Dyke from the landward side, too. That might be a good one for a daytime ride, to have a pint or two at the top of Devil's Dyke before dropping down to Brighton.
See you on the next one!