Saturday 17th March 2012
Distance: 25 miles
Top Speed: 37.5 mph
Average Speed: 14 mph
Altitude Gain: 2365 ft
Avg Gain Per Mile: 94.6ft
Avg Gain Per Mile: 94.6ft
Weather conditions: Cloudy/Sunny Spells (and no snow!)
Hills conquered we headed for base and then onwards for some decent food to restock the calories that we had burnt. Sausages, bacon, eggs, beans and toast in case you were wondering.... (all the essential food groups!).
Starting off from Mark's house the plan today was for a short ride (due to lunchtime commitments at a local all day breakfast establishment), although short it would be very hilly.
Dangerous Dazza was very pleased to hear that I had managed to put together a route that would include the most evil hills I could think of in the immediate area, hills of 10%, 15% and even 20% were to play a part today! Our route:
We started off the ride without the rain which had been forecast (and even better - no snow like last time!) and did a loop of a few miles as a warm up before hitting the first hill of the day towards Fovant. Hill conquered without much bother, Dazza shed one of his many sweaty layers of clothing and we were soon pressing on to the next hill.
Unfortunately for us this time the hill had a sting in its' tail, increasing from 10% near the bottom to 15% half way up, it was very challenging to try and press on up the 15% part when you have already been putting in near maximum effort for several minutes already!
Next couple of hills were short and sharp before hitting the long 12% climb out of Bowerchalke towards Sixpenny Handley, a good hill for making your legs feel like they are on fire. Climbing this hill an impressive large bird flew out of the trees a few feet in front of us, a bird which I was reliably informed by Dazza was a buzzard. Apparently he is always keen to participate in a spot of bird watching...
That hill was tough and seemed to go on for ages! A few more short sharp hills later and we were ready to take on the main obstacle of the day, a 20% incline which we didn't really need to go up but seemed a good idea at the time!
It was a slow grind up that hill in first gear, legs on fire once again - we'd be very happy if we don't have to face many of them hills once we do the big LEJOG ride! My bike computer only registered 19% as the max incline, however 20% sounds better and thats what the road sign said so we'll stick with that!
Positives:
- Very tough training on the hills - do these hills regularly and we will be ready for anything on the actual ride.
- Mark having a compact chainset and wide range cassette giving decent easy gears for the hills.
Negatives:
- Dazza having standard chainset and not a very wide cassette = not very easy gears to tackle the hills!
- Not doing more miles as we ran out of time. Actually we could have done more but we would have then faced angry women folk at home...!
