I woke up to some pretty hard rain in Brighton. I fiddled around with my computer and had a slow breakfast hoping the weather would change. Just about at checkout time the rain just about stopped and so I started pedaling. The roads ahead looked busy so I rode along the beachfront. Very slow going dodging all the people walking along but entertaining and of course beautiful to be riding along the seaside. 

The people thinned out and some construction diversions started to appear. I followed a few older folks who were riding slowly but seemed to know where they were going. One of the women told me she wasn’t a crazy English man out riding in the rain thinking it was great, it was just that next weekend she had to work. I never did ask them if they were going the direction I was hoping to go and just rode with them for a while. Luckily they were headed east along the coast and took me to a section where you ride at the bottom of a white chalky cliff with the sea on the other side of the trail. It wasn’t the famous White Cliffs of Dover, I think it was more like the “Slightly Grayish Cliffs Outside Brighton” but it was awesome. Again I was riding very slowly enjoying the views. I didn’t have far to go today but I could tell it was going to take me all day. 

Eventually the coast path ran out and I got kicked onto a busy road. About this time it started to rain hard again. Looking for cover I found myself at the New Haven train station and decided to hop on. Well, the touch screen on the ticket machine absolutely would not register my fingers for some reason so I had a kid sitting on the platform order up my ticket… what am I vampire or something? 

I jumped up to Lewes, transferred and then over to Polegate. The rain had stopped now so I wheeled my bike off the train and started riding some more. By sheer luck I found a “Bridal Way’ path that ran all the way from Polegate to Bexhill. I assumed Bridal Way had something to do with horses but as it was paved the entire way perhaps it is a wedding thing? Whatever the case I didn’t see any Brides or horses, just a few other cyclists, 15 minutes of hard rain, and an occasional car squeezing down the narrow path. Again it was very peaceful and calm rolling through small wooded areas and open green pastures. The sky was bright blue but full of small patches of dark clouds and the air was crisp and clean after the recent rains. I meandered along soaking in the views and the air riding at a pace that I felt no effort maintaining. 

Eventually I hit the sea front again and followed the tourist and carnival filled way through Bexhill and into Hastings. Hastings was my first ever pro BMX trip and I’ve visited the town many times for other BMX events. It is one of the BMX hubs of the world like Austin or Cologne and it was fun to be back. 

Ian Morris and family put me up for the night and Ian took me out for Thai food. We talked deeply about BMX and reading glasses and it was awesome. We both mentioned how easy it is to slip back into conversations as if we had seen each other in the last 10 years (which we hadn’t). It really is a great part of bikes for me that I was able to make friends all over the world. Ian filled me in on the lives of a lot of other friends I haven’t kept in touch with or had forgotten to even wonder about. Good to see how the world moves. And even better to see Ian’s passion and desire to make BMX great still so strong.

Thanks again to Jo and Ian for the comfortable night’s stay!