Being the hare

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BY: George Budd

Published: 20th September, 2014

Last year, I was approached to ride as the 'hare' in front of the 3000-strong field of riders at the BHF London to Brighton off road charity ride. The idea was I'd check the signs were all still there and make sure the route was ok. This year, I did it again. It's a very early start - departing Richmond at 6am - and after a mental week at work followed by a farcical dinner at the Premier Inn (the waitress didn't know what a pineapple was... That was just the beginning) I was pretty tired... Thankfully McDs was open for coffee :)

The 74 mile route is pretty straightforward - Thames path, then my usual way over to the Downs via Wisley and them the Downs link to the South Downs. The sting in the tail is the climb up to the YHA atop the South Downs, before diving down to Shoreham and along to Brighton. Last year, I'd ridden my mountain bike and found 25 miles of downs link pretty soul destroying, so this year I went with the Salsa Warbird as it's really designed for this kind of ride - a long day on gravel/made paths etc. This also gave me the chance to give my new CX1 hydro disc transmission a good workout. I'm totally sold on hydro discs on cross bikes - already versatile, the brakes allow you to attack the trails like you can on a mountain bike. Brilliant fun. The 1x11 gearing is fine for all situations and the clutch mech works just as well as on a mountain bike. Now I'm not normally one for the sickening product promo in event reports, but seeing as I paid for this lot I think it's ok :)

The ride didn't exactly go to plan... An early detour thanks to an arrow which had been turned round led to a stinging nettle tingle I can still feel. Having to ride back through the nettles once I'd realised it was wrong was just wonderful. That's my job at this event though! Arrow corrected, I was making good progress until just outside Horsham on the downs link, where I picked up a flat and them discovered my spare tube also had a hole in. Brilliant. My only option was a 7 mile detour to a shop in Horsham which turned out to be a brand new venture by an old friend of mine - The Bike Room is worth a visit.

Tyre mended, I made it back to the downs link having lost about 45mins, and so realised I wasn't in the lead any more. Doing the decent thing as I didn't want anyone to get lost, I put the hammer down and beasted the last 30 miles to Brighton; apparently a few people had finished ahead but given my detour I was quite happy with my time of 5hrs 25; without the detour it would have been 20mins ahead of last year.

It's really worth doing this event - it's a great route and you get to raise money for a good cause.

GB

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