I'm still on my 250cc loan bike (and also I'm a rubbish rider) so I volunteered to take the back marker position. The ride down to Hove in my Joe Rocket mesh jacket and Hein Gericke Air Lady trousers was the coolest I'd been all day, giving me the last laugh over everyone at the office who's said "Aren't you hot in all that gear?" over the past week.
I love the sea. One of the worst things about living in London is not having easy access to a beach, so it's good to be reminded that the Sussex coast is well within reach - even if that means pebble beaches rather than the sand I grew up with. The journey to Hove took an hour and a half along pleasant, almost empty country roads, at the end of which we had a swim, hunted unsuccessfully for fish n'chips, and came home using a back roads route through Croydon which took about the same time as the motorway journey would have done.
