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Cuckoo Trail, Pevensey Levels & Eastbourne Ride
25 October 2009

We originally planned this ride to take place a few weeks earlier, but noticed that the Eastbourne Airshow was on, and thought this might cause problems with the train journey home. As it turned out, that was probably a wise precaution, but we nearly came unstuck even so.

We met at Victoria station, with an excellent turn out of 15 (including one who jumped ship from a CTC ride that was also starting from there - a wise move we thought), and all took the train (the same train!) to Polegate. From there, in warm sunshine, we cycled north along the Cuckoo trail. This is an excellent shared-use traffic free path, with a good surface almost all the way, and we followed it to Horam, where we stopped for lunch at the equally excellent Wessons cafe.

Then, we turned south east and with the wind behind us rode to Herstmonceux. This part of the ride was along pleasant lanes, with a few small hills. The next stage is across the Pevensey levels, which for me was the highlight of the ride - a narrow lane winds between the reeds under huge skies on this flat, open land, which feels like nothing has changed in centuries. I've ridden this road before, and I really think it's one of the best in the south of England.

From Pevensey, down to Normans Bay for our first sight of the sea, and a bit of an incident. One of our riders suffered a sheared seat clamp bolt, which isn't easy to fix in the middle of nowhere. Normans Bay station was right there, and trains were passing regularly - but they don't stop on Sundays. A bodge was done, but as expected didn't last (there's a lot of stress on those saddle bolts) and so John unfortunately ended up walking a lot of the way to Pevensey Bay, where the trains did stop. And then we were fourteen...

After refreshments at Eastbourne Marina, there's a good seafront cycle path most of the way into Eastbourne, and we arrived at the pier, which strangely was labelled Brighton pier. We weren't lost - they were filming a new version of Brighton Rock. And then on to the station, for which Colin Wing (who wasn't on the ride, but heard the story) has composed the following:

An excerpt from 'Alice in Southernland':

"You're not taking your bike on that train," said the dung-beetle.
"Why ever not?" asked Alice.
"Because we have a limit of four bikes per train," the dung-beetle replied grumpily.
"But," retorted Alice, "fourteen of us came from London this morning on the same train with our bikes."
"You couldn't possibly have done that," said the dung-beetle. "Our cycle policy wouldn't allow it. And since you couldn't have come from London with your bikes, you won't need to go home with them."
"But your cycle policy applies only on Monday to Friday," Alice interjected.
"The fact that we have a policy to limit bikes Monday to Friday," the dung-beetle concluded with a triumphant smirk, "doesn't mean that we can accept any number of them at the weekend."

So, we were stuck. But then, our saviour arrived. The guard of the next train north wandered over, and showed (a) common sense and (b) an understanding of customer service. The dung-beetle was over-ruled, and we all boarded - our thanks go to Guard Phil, who restored our faith in the railways. And we've written to Southern to thank him.

Dave

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