Chris G’s cycling blogs. They’re for me, not you!

  After we dragged our sorry arse’s in after 10pm last night, Jo, Kieran’s long suffering other half, had left some pasta bolognaise in the pan ready for us to heat up which was a god send, and as Kieran started his stretching regime (he just lay on the floor not moving) I had one of the best showers of my life in the bathroom I had only seen as a derelict shell 3 years earlier, the last time I’d stayed at Kieran’s.In my tiredness then proceeded to flood new bathroom completely as I hadn’t closed the door, then get changed to only find Kieran still motionless on the floor…he did manage to get himself up in a Tin Man from Wizard of Oz fashion and a quick shower later joined me for tea at gone 11pm then bed. Plan for today was get up 8ish so we could be ready and out the door for 9.30, climb back up to where we left the South Downs Way last night, picking up KC’s pal on the way. 35 miles to Eastbourne, we’d be done for 3, get the train back to Hove, watch the final days stage of the Tour

 It’s back! After the eventual success of the John Muir way earlier in the year as the first long distance off road/gravel route I’d cycled, work in Southampton coincided with a spare weekend for me and with Kieran living in Hove around half way along the route (or so he said, we’ll come to that…) plans were hatched to tackle the South Downs Way. I did ask Dec as he lives close by, but his famous distain for anything but tarmac put paid to that (he’s also doing a long distance bike ride for a Parkinson’s charity in Norway soon so some excuse!) Pretty much a completely off road route through the South Downs from Winchester to Eastbourne it’s around 100 miles but with a whopping 12,000 feet of vertical ascent. After Kieran suggested we could do it in one day were laughed off, we’d arranged for him to come up on the Friday night to Winchester, stay over there and get an early start on Saturday. Now I had the gpx file of the route but left it to KC to split it up into 2 days. When he sent