Many of you will remember that club member Tom Pughe-Morgan completed an Everest Ascent of Ditchling Beacon, accompanied by Lukas Nerurkar, in 2017 at the age of 14 years; 65 continuous ascents on a single day. This seemed a most extraordinary and astounding achievement for anyone, and even more so for someone so young. Well we are again equally astounded by another extraordinary achievement by one of our club members, Bill Balding.
The SDD is the South Downs Way Double; a single SDW is very close to 100 miles of off-road riding with 10,000 feet of climbing [160km and 3000m if you speak Remainese]. The Double is, for the mathematically minded, two singles continuously ridden back to back. A website exists for recording those rides that are completed in under 24 hours and the feat is so difficult it has only been logged by 24 riders in 14 years! The website does not reveal the age of those who have achieved this great Double but, if Bill is not the youngest, by a long way, we would be surprised. What we can confirm is that he has completed the second fastest time of all riders to date.
CHAPEAU
to Bill and urger you to read his comments on the South Downs Double website.
