The plan was a simple one; a week of driving and camping throughout the south of the UK, hitting up some bowls and trails along the way, then finishing at the Boyley Jam in Hastings with myself, Emerson Morgan, Chase Quantrill and Andrew Lazaruk. A small crew, but a fun one nonetheless. Sometimes though, things don’t turn out quite as you hoped they might...

It’s an early morning drive to Eastbourne as the sun is trying to break through an unusually clouded sky. A heatwave had been widespread through the UK and our summer had until now at least, well and truly been in full swing. The winding roads and diversions add minutes to each mile and the clouds have multiplied, shifting from a watered down grey to a blanket of blackness! The reports are looking bleak and the weather was finally on the turn. ‘Normal’ service was about to resume.

This of course makes perfect sense having organised a camping trip throughout the south of the UK - fly over a team rider from the States and It’ll pretty much mean guaranteed rain.

Myself and Chase loaded the freshly collected rental van with our camping goods. Chase had even managed to bring along two camping stoves which turned out to be lifesavers!

Tell tell signs appeared pretty quickly as to how this trip would go though. Not only had the sky opened up, but the weather report showed that it was going to rain every day. Thirty miles down the road the rental van had developed a grinding noise when the brakes were applied, progressively getting worse and worse on our way to Heathrow Airport to meet Andrew. My phone pinged to let me know he had landed so we still tactically navigated a route with brake failure, which would involve the least start stop traffic.

My phone pinged again and this time it was to tell me that Virgin Atlantic had lost Andrew’s bike bag, and claimed that the bag was not only “still in California”, but wouldn’t be arriving until the next day. It was an infuriating and frustrating start to a trip start but there was nothing that could be done other than roll with the punches, and roll with the punches we did.

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