South Downs Way in the wet … will I die?

I’m visiting family in Brighton and planning to head out on the SDW tomorrow (Tuesday). It’s been dang damp today and the family have been feeding me horror stories about how slippery the chalk is in the wet. Is it as bad as they say or will “she be right”? I’ve got a magic Mary trailstar on the front and a Hans Dampf pacestar on the back, so I reckon I’ll be fine but …

It’ll be a might greasy in places, yep.

No tyre in the world can save you from wet southdowns chalk!

Fortunately most of the ‘SDW’ near Brighton is very grassy so you’ll be fine.

Friend of mine came off at pretty high speed on a stretch of chalk. Fortunately he was wearing a crash helmet, and he was fine after about 6 months or so….

It’s not the wet that’s the issue, it’s the green chalk you need to avoid. Properly washed out white wet chalk is ok, beware the slightly greeny stuff. It’s worth putting a front wheel on it to test, just so you can experience the world slippiest substance.

I put my bike down on a patch the other night and it gently slid down the hill on its side.

Head over to Stanmer park. There are loads of trails there, the roots will be sketchy in the wet but the trails will ride just fine.

pictonroad speaks the truth. Once your on it it’s too late, all you can do is not turn and definitely not touch the brakes. This will give you up to 10% chance of staying upright depending on how long the green chalk stretch is. I’ve landed directly on top of my head and then gone backwards into a barbed wire fence in the past.

But yeah, she’ll be right….

You’re dead already thinking about it mate. Good luck

There’ll be places where it’s impossible to walk (upright), let alone cycle. There’ll be other places where there’s a thin layer of greasy clay. And even some places where you might have some grip. I’m sure you’ll be fine.

I came off on Graffam Common when I was doing the SDW a few weeks back. It’s an innocuous flat part of the route and I was just barrelling along thinking I was making up a bit of time when *WHAM!* the front wheel went on a slightly off-camber tyre rut and I was smacking along a flinty road on my face. Rear mech and hanger were twisted like fusilli and it nearly wrecked my ride.

Take care.

Possibly safer than the alternative A27.

As someone said brighton part of sdw isnt too bad for the greasy stuff, but you might have more fun in stanmer and falmer woods.

Stanmer and Falmer woods? Will have a look at that. Cheers.

if you get to Stanmer Village and the tea rooms go through the village and strait on, past a couple of large barns on your left after a gate and straight up a flinty climb to a crossroads by a pylon. The stuff at that end of the park will be a bit drier.

Either have a quick look on strava for ideas on where trails start or ride the fire roads and keep an eye out for entrances to singletrack – the place is riddled with them.

You could try a post on our Facebook page :

https://www.facebook.com/groups/brightonmtb/%5B/url%5D

there may be someone heading out that way today who could show you around a bit.

There’s a group ride this evening that’ll be doing some SDW xc if you’re around. It’s the faster ride that we do so you need to be able to ride for a couple of hours at pace. Details on Facebook.