Amazing, for this August anyway, the weather decided it was going to play ball and a day of *gasp* actual sunshine was forecast!
Keen to take advantage of that the turnout was high, despite the promise of a long slog in the saddle, albeit with cake and ice cream at the end 
We started out from the shop and met Jo at Cissbury Ring before heading up the the top of the Steyning singletrack to meet Bobster. It seems autumn has started early and all the leaves have decided to start jumping off the trees causing a few to miss the turning on the way down! Back tracking we all went down the usual run, finding to our surprise the local ‘trailbuilders’ had added a drop off on one of the really steep sections! Amazingly I got the correct run out for once, did the smaller jump at the bottom and then followed off down a new line which has a drop off at the bottom back on to the main track. I messed it up the first time, but went up and did it again and got it sorted.
After that we headed along the South Downs Way to Ditchling Beacon. At Devil’s Dyke the Downs music festival was on and they’d handily decided to use the SDW field as the car park!!
After that we did the lush singletrack down the right hand side of the dyke.
We eventually made our way to the top of Ditchling Beacon where most opted for the double 99 and two flakes! Then we made our way down through the university using their sweet singletrack round the edge of the campus.
Once into Stanmer Park it was time to stop for a proper re-fuelling!
Most were feeling a little jaded by now and with a large feed and lying in the sun after there was no sense of urgency to get riding again! However we had to sample some of Stanmer’s sweet trails, which we did albeit with reduced gusto!
A Quick spin down to the station and we were off home.
A good ride, cheers everyone
A few more photos here.
Jimbo
