Like everyone else, I found myself with a lot of time savings after the COVID-19 lockdown forced fulltime WFH. I'm not complaining, I was luckily enough to have a decent setup at home for music-making, so I was able to use that for daily work too.

With the extra time on my hands, I decided to build a quick website for an Individual Time Trial (ITT) that I've been pondering for the past few months - the Downs Link Double. Mostly on disused railways, apart from the first 5km or so, the Downs Link (as the name suggests) links up the North Downs and the South Downs, starting on a hill outside Guildford and finishing up on the seafront at Shoreham. I've ridden a lot of it before, but with so little elevation change in it, there's no real challenge beyond a slightly sketchy starting descent (It's a borderline red MTB route).

I decided to encourage an ITT/FKT type event in the Self Supported UK style, that people could attempt solo, and in a day. By running the route as an out-and-back double, starting and finishing at the Downs Link start point,you get a solid day out of about 120km, almost all on gravelly doubletrack, with little elevation change.

A quick Materialize CSS website allowed me to create all the necessary pages and give riders necessary information to complete it, without stopping off and breaking social-distancing.

I've also been plotting the routes on Komoot - having been struggling to find an alternative to Strava's fairly ropey route mapping, I was recommended Komoot to try. Seems to be good so far, especially in rating trail grade/surface types - it's helpfully pointed out that the start/finish descent/ascent is nigh-on impossible to ride up... Not for want of trying tho!

Unfortunately, I've not been able to get out and put down a time for either the single or double yet as my gravel bike's been out of action, but I'm hoping to get one in before winter slows things down too much.

Check it out here - and if you have a bash at it, please let me know!