Piston Problems

After a customary cups of tea and cake Jon and John left Chichester at 18:45, heading past the hospital and then up through summersdale through past East Lavant to the flinty Chalkpit Lane. Jon took the lead with John behind this week's excuses had something to do with running the day before and still recovering from Al's stag weekend in the Peak District. Jon found himself at the top at Trundle having overtaken some hardy runners, with John slowly but steadily riding up the Lane. At the top some lovers in the car park were looking annoyed at sight of us. Quickly leaving the lovers carpark therefore we traversed the trundle for our first downhill. Jon led on and was pleasently happy with himself using no brakes until the bend at the bottom; John continued to be surprisingly slow behind.

Road biking around the race course at Goodwood we then rode downhill through Chalton Park Forest; this time John overtook Jon on the downhill but not before he had been forced into a bumpy gully on the way down. At the Fox goes Free a well deserved pint of Guiness was enjoyed by John and and Betty Stoggs by Jon. After a lengthy chat of the highlights of the weekend past the pair sped off up Town Lane observing lots of Red-legged Partridges and unusual number of of cars. Cutting across the field by Trundle we biked it down chalkpit Lane to the road. Jon's elation at beating John to the bottom quickly evaporated when John indicated that he had a brake problem: His piston on his front disc breaks was not retracting, forcing the brakes to remain on during the descent. Oh well at least he did not have a puncture!

John Struggles up the Trundle

Despite this we got back before 21:00 for a Parson's chilli using up real chillies from Jon's plant. We watched a programme called Tough Guy or Chicken involving supposedly tough guys learning Chagras skills in rounding up cattle on the uplands of Ecuador. Pretty lightweight fare compared to an evening with the TCA.

(Posted by: Jon)