Coming back was easier

The sunshine was our reward. We had assembled in Forest Row, the nearby village, on a foggy morning. We had time to admire one of our members, in cycling kit, with his bicycle, who was carrying a bicycle frame. It turned out that he had bought it at the local tip and that he was not intending to ride with us; he was, however, intending to ride home with it. From the village we cycled briskly, and the elderly gentleman, already at the back, sensed he was in for a trying ride. We were led to Kidd's Hill, what to the cycling cognoscenti is a long, steep, steepening hill. And so it was today. For the elderly gentleman it was a slow, slowing ascent. But he, like the others, was rewarded as, close to the top, the fog, insofar as the elderly gentleman was aware of it, was replaced by bright, warm sun.

We cycled along the top of the Forest, then swooped down, and followed familiar roads into deepest East Sussex. What was also familiar was the up and down, the up and down. And so we continued, up and down, to Buxted and beyond. Deep into East Sussex. In fact, it was possible that we had reached Kent. It was hard to tell where we were, when the concentration, whilst moving, is upon the the hill or, whilst stopped, on the rest. East Hoathly, our destination, appeared on a signpost and then on another. We rode proudly into town, the gentleman at the back arriving in time to discern, without being told, that the cafe was closed. It would have to be a pub.

Fuelled, rested, the cyclists continued. The sun still shone, warm on the back. We passed the (steam) railway station where we have often breakfasted by the fire. No time, the drive is now to return. The return was easier. All the roads were familiar; none was steep. So we pedalled up Down Street, as we have done before, and sped down from the Forest to the village. Forty or so miles. For those who cycled from East Grinstead, close to 50.

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