A lot of the regulars are away on bank holiday tours to Wales and Scotland but I said I’d slip in a ride for the weekend for those who can’t get away for several days.

This ride goes along the south coast from Eastbourne to Bexhill-on-Sea before turning inland to Hooe and Wartling, then comes back to the coast at Pevensey and returns to Eastbourne. Highlights of the ride are the Eastbourne Redoubt, Martello Towers, the 1066 landing point at Norman’s Bay, the De La War Pavilion, Herstmonceaux Castle and Pevensey Castle as well as some by the sea riding.

Pub lunch.

An all day ride and only 40 miles so it’s perfect for riders looking to get out of London but aren’t sure what kind of distance they can manage. Some hills in the middle of the ride but nothing over 150 feet
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Suitable for all bikes.

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Gary, Ian, Nick and Hai-Yen got on the train at London Bridge. Mick, Kim, Helen and Cem boarded at East Croydon and Andrij met the train at Eastbourne after riding an overnighter to Brighton. Andrij is a cycling Vampire like Jurec!

It was another fabulously sunny day and for another ride by the beach. Brilliant!

The route took us east out of Eastbourne past the Eastbourne Redoubt which is now a military museum and the tank outside makes the point graphically. No one wanted to stop this early in the ride so a visit to the redoubt military museum is just going to have to wait for another time. East of Eastbourne is Sovereign Harbour and as I tried to keep the ride as close as possible to the coast the ride became an imitation of a well known London ride. The words Locks and Docks come to mind and the similarities were not lost on today’s participants as I heard the L+D phrase several time s in the next half hour. Sovereign Harbour seemed to be a major housing regeneration which was spreading eastwards along the coast not unlike the housing developments which are spreading eastwards along the Thames. Hopefully some of the coastline between Eastbourne and Hastings will remain unaffected in the future.

From Sovereign Harbour we passed several Martello Towers before making our way down to the beach at Norman’s Bay. I had thought that Norman’s Bay was the site of the 1066 Norman landings but the ordnance survey map helpfully shows us that the invasion landed at Pevensey which 1000 years ago was on the coast. We spent 15 minutes or so relaxing and admiring the view to the west with Eastbourne on the coast and Beachy Head and the South Downs rising behind the town. Kim had discovered that his chain ring gear cable was alarmingly frayed and was maybe only holding together by a couple of strands. A plan was made to find a bike shop in Bexhill-on-Sea, buy a cable and to fit it if his cable broke.

Into Bexhill-on-Sea and we spent a few minutes looking around the exterior of the De War Pavilion before finding a bike shop called Wheelies and buying a cable. Over the road from Wheelies was an amusing little shop that offered bagpipe tuition and kilt hire. We followed NCN r2 out of Bexhill-on-Sea over Galley Hill and made a stop for lunch at the Café on the Beach. Everyone ordered takeaways, burgers, fish and chips, paninis and settled down on the rocks with a sign on top instructing you to stay away from the rocks. Service was slow at the Café on the Beach. I estimate it took 30-45 minutes for the nine of us to receive our orders. My big burger and chips cost £6.50. A very pleasant hour or so was spent eating lunch on the beach and admiring the scenery.

From our lunch stop we headed inland to Hooe. A wrong turn meant that 4 miles was added to the ride. However it meant that we saw one rather peculiar hedge and had a second chance to stop and take a look at the topiary at Grove Lodge just out of Hooe. From Hooe we went to Wartling and on to Herstmonceaux Castle. Our planned route on the access road to the castle was blocked by a medieval pageant but we were able to take to a bridleway which ran just to the south of the castle and as luck would have it was nice and dry and easily ridden. It also gave us a very nice view of the main observatory above the trees. You can’t come on a ride with me without riding some of the rough stuff even if it wasn’t originally intended. Herstmonceaux Castle was the home of the Greenwich Observatory but this has now moved to Cambridge and the larger of the telescopes is now in the Canary Islands at Las Palmas.

The route from Herstmonceaux Castle to Pevensey via Rickney was on a very narrow road and it was amusing to see how vehicles coped when they met each other head to head. With no passing places some people were spending a lot of time going backwards.

At Pevensey we had a break at The Royal Oak and spent time looking around the castle ruins.

We were back at Eastbourne station at 18:00. The journey back to London on a packed train was kind of unpleasant. Changing onto a train heading for London Bridge at East Croydon alleviated the problem but a fire to a train at London Bridge meant that we went straight through to Blackfriars.

This is a great little ride and I recommend anyone to give it a try. It’s gone straight into the top ten of my favourites.