Photo: The start and finish of the day

A great way to learn a new area is on a bike. You can ride fast enough to cover a good distance but slow enough to spot things as you pass.

In this case it was the Autumn 200km audax on the 7th of September run by the San Ferry Ann Cycling Club. You can read here how they got their intriguing name.

Getting to know the Kent and East Sussex countryside was going to be a bit harder than planned as my bike computer packed up the night before. Navigating using my phone I kept missing junctions and taking wrong turns.

Then I got to know a saviour. Sarah corrected me a few times then we started riding together. In return for navigation I bought her a coffee at the Pevensey Bay control (64km). Not before a quick stop outside somewhere I already knew. I couldn’t resist a photo of where we’d taken Phoebe and Bobby (our Greyhounds) to last year.

After a short section along the coast to Bexhill our roles reversed.

I became the guide as we rode along roads already familiar to me thanks to my two new cycling clubs. Tenterden Cycle Club (TCC) and Rye and District Wheelers (RW), passing close by our house in Beckley heading to Wye.

“Are you Colin Fisher, the YouTube star?” asked Tom as he came alongside. “You’ve got one part right, but definitely not the YouTube bit, just a cycling blog”. We discovered that he, Sarah and I had all spent the night together. OK, we were amongst 1,200 other cyclists. We had all spent the night at the Richmond contriol of London Edinburgh London before heading south to avoid Storm Floris. This prompted Sarah’s memory. “Weren’t you in a Giro for Gino jersey?”

At the Hub Café control in Wye (140km) Tom explained that on LEL he’d ridden with some Italians. They asked him if he knew Colin Fisher. From them he learnt about me living in Italy and returning to the UK.

It seems I’m getting to know the area and some people already know me.

More familiarity as we rode through Tenterden. We passed the place where TCC rides start from. We passed the house we rented for a couple of weeks last year. We passed Silcock’s Farm Shop where we now buy our meat. We passed another place we’d taken the dogs to only a few weeks ago. The Pig and Sty.

Who needs a bike computer when you can navigate by pubs you already know.

Thank you Sarah for the navigation and the company.

Thank you Bob Watts and his team of volunteers from San Ferry Ann for putting on the event, especially for the excellent breakfast.