After a good nights sleep, and breakfast in the bunkhouse we were ready to head off.

The bunkhouse accommodation is perfect for cyclists, with a big bike store room and is only a 100 metres off the south downs way, and a pub 2 minutes walk away. The bunkhouse had another group of cyclists – about 12 “green shirts” who had been in the pub the evening before, they were also regaling stories of how hard the first day had been.

Based on the effort required yesterday, we thought it important to get some more food and a quick google showed Amberley Stores nearby. We cycled to where I thought it was, and then back to where we started, the google reviews mention the tomato display and we weren’t disappointed.

So after a bit of faffing around we got started, which obviously required climbing a massive hill back up to the downs. Amberley is at river level, and I had become used to climbing from 30-40 m above sea level, up to 200-250 m. Having altitude displayed on my watch was useful as at least I knew we were halfway up – or whatever. On the first climb, one or two of the faster groups of the “green shirts” caught us, and being a saturday there were more people and bikes out and about. The route was less “up and down” that the day before, but was made up of fewer big climbs. While the climbs were bigger, they seemed to be on better paths or wider tracks which made them easier to attack – at the bottom anyway.

The route took us past Chanctonbury Ring, which I thought I’d been to before, as its quite local, but seeing the quite marvellous prehistoric hill fort with trees inside, it was clear I haven’t. It’s only as I’ve been writing this blog, I investigated, and I was confusing Cissbury Ring, a large iron age hill fort with no trees. They are quite close so I’ll visit both to clear up the confusion.

I mentioned yesterday that I had lost the sole off one of my shoes, and had a few near crashes where my foot had slipped off the pedals, and was becoming very uncomfortable and potentially dangerous. Luckily our route passes within a few miles of my house, and Liz was able to bring a spare pair of cycling shoes out, and convince a local pub to hold onto them for us. It was just as well, as during the afternoon the weather started to change for the worse, and when we stopped at the pub in Pyecombe the wind and rain started. We had a quick drink, packet of crisps and I dumped my old shoes. I wouldn’t have stood a chance of staying on the pedals with wet feet in the rain.

We pushed on and the weather worsened, gradually at first as we passed along familar trails and hills above Brighton. Andy and I had ridden this route one evening a week before as a test, and it seemed much easier now. We crossed over the top of Ditchling Beacon, there seemed to be some form of cycle hill climb up the beacon road. There were bikes everywhere, and they were most inconsiderate – I think they thought they had cycled up the beacon the hard way, however I challenge that – cycling from Winchester is the hard way!

Anyway, as we were approaching Lewes, and traversing the downs towards Falmer, the heavens opened. A massive summer storm hit us and we were quickly drenched, and pushed on until the South Downs Way meets the A27 at Housedean. Andy and Andy had a quick discussion, and came to me with the proposal that we take the cycle way to Lewes and then onto Firle where we were staying. I think they were expecting further discussion and while I was obviously bitterly disappointed to be bailing out of the route (not), I did my best to hide it and went along with their proposal. We were only missing two hills, and easy ones to get back to.

It was very wet cycling along the the A27, and through Lewes – a good indication being there was no proposal to stop for a pint – we just wanted to finish for the day. We were all really tired – again. No wonder, as we had cycled 63 km off road, with 1,250 metres of climbing. We had to delay the table booking to 7:30 again, mainly as we had plenty of stuff that needed drying, but we fully justified a top pub meal and a few pints of local ale.

In the pub, we solemnly undertook to cycle the South Downs between Housedean and Firle Beacon one Sunday morning so we can say we cycled the whole way.