Useful info

Weather

• BBC Weather – 5day and 24hour forecasts
• Met office rain radar
• Dutch rain radar  – fascinating to watch!
• Raintoday radar
• Xcweather.co.uk
• theweatheroutlook.com

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Route planning

• Cyclestreets.net – Good for planning cycle journeys, displays levels of traffic and hillyness
• Cycleroutes.com – Useful where your journey involves using public transport
• Train timetables, Maps, and Engineering works (South Eastern trains)
• Notes about taking bikes on trains
• OS Maps
• We’ll soon have our own ‘how to’ leaflet, which will based around the ride planning workshop in March 2020

Still stuck for ideas? How about basing a route around a coffee stop? There are maps of recommended stops here (Cafe Network) and  here (CTC)

Routes we’ve done before

We are starting to put together a list of ‘ready to ride’ routes, see here. Although in it’s infancy these should prove useful if you fancy a ride but don’t have time to plan it (working out timings, coffee stops, ride gradings, etc). Choose one that someone has already done 🙂

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Other clubs & groups in the area

• East Sussex CTC – Regular rides
• Hastings Urban Bikes (HUB) – Campaign group for Hastings area, do a few unusual rides
• Bexhill Wheelers – Regular rides
• Bexhill Classic cycle group – Local club in Bexhill, with an Edwardian theme. Have an excellent history page!
• Bespoke (Eastbourne) – Mainly campaign group, do occasional rides
• Rye Wheelers – Road riding club, long distance rides
• Robertsbridge rough riders – Cross-country riding in the Robertsbridge area
• Boars on Bikes based at Bedgebury Forest. Offroad club, with track building opportunities
• Cycle East Sussex – Campaign group for whole of East Sussex

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Local bike shops that club members have used

To avoid disappointment always contact the shops before visiting them. If you’re looking to get replacement parts it’s often a good idea to take the old part(s) with you. Neither the club not it’s members endorse any organisations, products, websites, or services mentioned.

Location	Name	What they do
Battle	Stiles Garage	New bikes, some basic parts/accessories, bike servicing/repair
Battle	Bytes, Bolts and Leaves	Servicing, repairs, and modifications
Bexhill	Zigi Bicycles TN40 1HN	Bike sales, repair, servicing and hire
Bodiam	E-bikes direct	Electric bikes, plus bike parts. Basic items such as tyres, gears, pedals etc are always in stock, anything else needs to be ordered in specially. Please note this isn’t like a conventional bike shop, it’s mainly a warehouse for their e-bay shop
Bulverhythe (Hasings/Bexhill)	Halfords	New bikes, servicing, acessories, tools, parts, clothing
Hastings	Handsome Bicycles 1 Harold Place, TN34 1JA	New bikes, parts, acessories, and servicing
Hastings	Hastings Cycles St Andrews market	Bike hire, new & second hand bikes for sale
Hastings	High Tide Cycles	Bikes for sale, parts, servicing
Polegate	Kontour Cycles	New & used bikes for sale, parts, servicing

Please help us keep this list up to date! Let us know if you find anything which has changed, or is wrong

Or if you fancy fixing it yourself…

• Basic bike maintenance courses occasionally crop up at Bedgebury
• The Labyrinth runs bike maintenance sessions in Hastings on Wednesday evenings
• Ask around in the club, we have quite a few mechanics who will help you out
• For quick bike checks, the M-Check by Sustrans is a good starting point
• Some good repair guides here and here

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Getting things put right…

• Report pot holes (also see iPhone app)
• ESCC pot holes and other road problems
• Roads/pavements/lighting at East Sussex Highways
• Problems with rights-of-way
• Bad driving CTC
• …or Operation Crackdown (reporting mobile phone use, for example)

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Where to Cycle

• Bedgebury forest & forum
• ESCC Rides & walks Summer brochure
• Other tracks in Sussex from cycle-route.com
• SUSTRANS NCN app for iPad & iPhone
• Google Maps has recently started to mark some routes as being cycle-friendly

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Miscellaneous Cycling resources

• Cycle training with CycleSafe (see their facebook page also)
• Sections of the Highway Code relating to cyclists
• Visit the Sheldon Brown website for technical tips
• The great CycleChat forum. Today’s topics usually good
• The Sustrans guide to choosing a bike
• Help protect your bike, register it with the police database
• Become a Sustrans ranger. Sue/Sheena/Bernie can tell you more!
• Black Cyclists Network and Diversity In Cycling

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Help the environment

• Foster Motors in station road Battle can take old bike tyres; they are sent for recycling into tennis courts !
• If you’re travelling by car to the start point of a ride, please consider car-sharing. If you are a passenger in someone’s vehicle then we suggest you donate 10p per mile to the driver, although this is optional.