Reach your Peak
Reach your Peak
What an amazing successful weekend of events!
The last weekend in April saw us running our Reach your Peak events.
At the beginning of the year the trustees came up with an idea to run a variety of events over one weekend - across all the main disciplines and of a mixture of different levels so each person could reach their peak - whatever that looked like and giving people a specific event to train up for, build up to which meant more activities leading up to the big day(s).
Our volunteers started planning events and creating the schedule of events.
Mountain biking
The mountain bike group decided on the peaks being hills in Surrey that are regularly part of the MTB rides. There were 3 different routes a 3, 5 and 7 peaks challenge, including trails on the routes; some more challenging than others, so even on the 5 there were some different options.
All the riders started and finished at Denbies Vineyard Estate in Dorking and took in a variety of Surrey hills with trails.
The 7 were Box, Juniper, Ranmore, Pitch, Winterfold, Holmbury and Leith (47miles/75km and 6047ft/1800m in 6:33 hrs moving time).
5 was as above bar but no Pitch or Winterfold (30.75 miles/50km and 3498ft/1066m in 5hrs moving time)
3 were Box, Holmbury and Leith (25.97miles/42km and 2904ft/885m in 4hrs of moving time).
With the majority of the MTB group doing the 5 peaks as that was a good stretch for most people, 15 completed it. Keryn's husband Mike was supporting in a van, having water, snacks and items required in the event of any mechanicals, meeting the group at strategic points along the route which helped hugely! Big thanks to Mike.
Many had been doing training rides building up their bike time, trying some of the trails ahead of the event so they knew what to expect.
The volunteers had been planning routes using Komoot so people can use this to navigate or to try them at a later date if for example having done the 5 people want to try the 7!
Zoe made a reel of the 7 peaks day you can watch that here
The road cycle crew had a couple of options for Reach Your Peak. The first on our usual Friday morning slot saw 6 green and 8 green/blue riders off to Leith Hill. The green group took the direct route from Tanhouse Farm Shop while the blue/green took a slightly longer scenic route. We rode the hill at our own pace, and both groups met at the top of Bromehall Lane where we collectively celebrated reaching our peak!
On Saturday, 5 riders led by Elen headed off to Shoreham. The weather held fine for us, and some quiet roads allowed us to practice some of the bike handling skills learnt at the recent Intro to Bike Handling course
After a pit stop at Camelia Botnar garden centre, we headed off and arrived in Shoreham around lunchtime. We were very lucky to have Erica as support, who looked after us admirably and brought Elen, Karen and MP back to Dorking. Julie and Ali headed off to Brighton to catch the train back home.
A very enjoyable morning ride. We definitely reached our peak!
"Great ride, loved it. Thank you to Elen and Erica (best support ever) and big respect to Ali and Karen who did two RYP in a row!"
"Thoroughly enjoyed our ride today, and good to see the sun and sea. Great company and of course excellent support car/photographer/refreshment organiser and driver home "Erica"! Thanks Elen for leading and I look forward to our next outing!
"Thank you for helping me to reach my peak! Lovely morning ride and great to meet you all!"
"Great ride thank you everyone, lovely to meet you all. See you again in a few weeks for sure!"
"I had a brilliant day. Enjoyed trying the different start location/coffee stop. Thank you Ali and Karen for leading - great route."
Our 15 three peaks hikers were up bright and early for an 8.15am meet in Peaslake on Saturday 27 April - apologies to those of us who we know know are less keen on an early start but we had lots of miles to cover, and needed to bag spaces at our start point - Hurtwood car park no.2 aka Walking Bottom which gets super busy on a Saturday!
We left Greensand way at Burnthouse Copse and headed down through Great Foxmoor Wood to gorgeous Upfolds Farm. After a slightly busy stretch along the B2126 we began our climb winding up towards Holmbury Hill Road, past UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory and the final steep push - where the contour lines on the map got quite close together! It was a short and sharp climb, passing a couple of school groups coming down the steep bit (on their bottoms!), and then an unexpected and lovely rendezvous with our MTB three peaks group on the top of Holmbury Hill, at 261m/856ft, the fourth highest point in Surrey.
Holmbury Hill trig point pics taken, we moved on to our third peak - Pitch Hill. Back on the Greensand Way, a sharp descent through Coverwood, more fabulous bluebells, across the valley through sheep and horse fields and we were up to the Duke of Kent school and back in the forest for our final climb. We came out on the plateau to bright sunshine, meeting up with Ailsa and Christine, our Thursday morning Holmwood Common hikers, who had hiked up from Peaslake, at the top (257m/843ft) and enjoyed superb views back across to Holmbury and Leith, and south towards Sussex and the South Downs.
We had a final few miles to go back through Hurt Wood into Peaslake. Even the more experienced hikers among us were feeling the miles by this point, and we were all very happy to reach the Peaslake Village Stores and the Hurtwood Inn for a well-deserved cup of tea, slice of cake, sausage roll, glass of wine, pint of beer/cider, bottle of ginger beer…!
Huge congratulations to all our hikers, and Spud who ran rings around us all day so must have clocked up at least double the mileage! A big thanks to Esther and Tracey for planning a wonderful route, and Cathy, Lex & Kate for route testing with them a few weeks before. It was a really fantastic achievement by everyone, 12.5 miles / 20 kms, 538m / 1765ft of climbing and three Surrey peaks - well done! Let’s do it again soon… :-)
What some of our hikers said...
“This was a wonderful hike!”
“Thanks so much for an awesome day and route.”
“Loved the hike to bits!”
“Loved every minute of it! Fabulous route.”
Sea Swimming
The weather was unkind, with torrential rain throughout the night, BUT four intrepid swimmers braced the biting winds, potential sewerage and rolling waves for a sea swim!
Beth, Esther, Julie & Rachel met on Brighton beach at 10am.
Esther ran through a safety briefing which confirmed that the tide was coming in, the waves were 3-4ft, water temperature 11 or 12 degrees, with strong and chilly winds. There had been sewerage dumps at locations along the coastline, so we prepped with some charcoal tablets, just in case.
It was agreed that we’d swim for around 20 minutes, starting off towards the pier (West) then returning towards the marina (East).
Julie was the first into the water, she bravely marched ahead and was quickly bobbing, enjoying the relief from the wind. The others followed quickly, the large waves meant there was no time for faffing… 1,2,3 and IN!
Soon we realised that the tide was very strong and we were pushed 100m in the wrong direction. No time for relaxing, it was a case of head down and start pumping those arms and legs to avoid ending up in Eastbourne!
The giant washing machine waves meant that it was hard to keep sight of each other. Now and then you’d be swept to the crest of a wave and you’d glimpse a luminous tow float (and smiling swimmer).
We literally swam on the spot for the whole time, Rachel likened it to Olympic swimmers training in an infinity pool, we’ll take that
After 25 minutes we agreed to get out but that wasn’t so easy. Timing was key so that we could be whooshed out elegantly with a wave cycle, rather than the sea unceremoniously dumping us violently onto the pebbles. I think we cracked it, although we hope nobody was watching on the live webcam LOL!
We quickly dressed ourselves, smiling the whole time, and headed to the cafe for a well deserved flapjack and excited chatter about how much fun we’d had.
An exhilarating end to an amazing weekend.
Looking forward to our Reach your Peak away events in October!
