Duchenne Dash Diary: Ditchling Beacon on a Penny Farthing

I went for a bike fit this week, in preparation for the Pearson Sportive from London to Brighton. THEY RAISED THE BIKE SEAT AGAIN. Why is it every time you go into a bike shop they want to raise the seat? I feel like I’m riding a penny farthing. They raised the handlebars too which has really helped diminish the shoulder pain I’d been experiencing on one side. I am now balancing on the tip of the nails of my big toes at lights. And as well as raising the handlebars and seat, they tipped the seat back a bit making it even harder to get to get off it and onto the ground. The guy at the shop said I have to learn how to unclip my cleats at the top of the pedal stroke and come off my saddle and step my foot flat on the ground when I stop, leaving the second foot clipped in for a quick getaway. I had a go on the way home and ended up a tangled mess of legs, pedals and bike on the pavement of a mercifully quiet residential street.

Me and CP at start of the Brighton Pearson Sportive

The London to Brighton Pearson sportive set off from Sutton in south London which involved a 5.15 am start as I live nowhere near it. Anything that means I have to be up before 9 am cannot be classified as leisure in my book – but the place was already teeming with people when we got there who clearly enjoy a different definition of leisure time. It was my first experience of an organised bike ride (apart, of course, from the Dash at which I have volunteered for a number of years). We got wristbands to record split times (people take this cycling lark very seriously) and had to ride through an inflatable chequered arch at the beginning and end. CP very kindly agreed to cycle at my pace and guide me through the ride, and we were joined by the lovely Jude, a fellow Dash volunteer and debutante Dash rider. She was wearing arm socks! I’m tempted to get some for the very early start in Dieppe on the Dash, but I’m really trying to resist buying cycling junk I’m never going to use again.

One of the best things about the ride was breakfast. They put on a food stop at Turners Hill. Breakfast consisted of jelly babies, haribo sours, flapjacks, chocolate cake, sausage rolls, crisps, peanuts and fruit!! Awesome. It was like being at a kids birthday party. People ask me if I’ve lost weight training for the Dash. The answer is not really, because every time you set off somewhere someone’s forcing you to eat flapjacks or down a protein shake, and thrusting a handful of sweets at you. Guilt free junk food – amazing.

The worst thing about the ride was without doubt Ditchling Beacon. Brighton is ringed by some very high hills. The road up to DB is roughly the same gradient at Mont Ventoux and is just short of a mile in length. It wiggles and winds, and opens out intermittently to fantastic views which give you the false hope that you might be nearing its apex, before curling away again, round and up, higher and higher. It is a lonely old ride, spinning away in the lowest gear, with only the growl of a prowling impatient car stuck behind you for company. But I made it! And it was like heaven appearing out of the heavily wooded winding narrow road into the bright sunshine of the top and seeing the open rolling hills beyond down to the sea. I think I may have been a little oxygen starved by the time I got to the top because everything looked wonderful – from the verges thick with buttercups and cow parsley, to the fluffy cloud sheep in the verdant fields, to the misty sea in the distance. It was a sweet moment.