Wow what a ride today!
http://app.strava.com/activities/36749351
14.5 miles 2245ft or 155ft/mile crazy
SWMBO wanted to go to Ikea, the closest is Leeds but Nottingham is only a few miles further so I combined the shopping with some serious hill climbing in the Matlock area.
In preparation I swapped my road cassette for a MTB one with ratios of 11T to 32T (it shouldn't fit my tiagra groupset but it does)
I got my
100 and Another 100 greatest cycling climb by simon warren books out and plotted a route.
One of my goals for the year is to do 10 of these climbs.
We arrived at Matlock at about 10.45, the mrs headed off towards Costa Coffee armed with her Kindle so I was good for a couple of hours.
Straight from the car park you hit the famous
"Bank road climb" No. 31 in the book. 115m in 1090m, I was very soon onto my 32T cassette cog, thank God I had fitted it, with my 28T I would not have got half way up. It was very hard but I made it without stopping and the sense of achievement was like nothing I have felt before on a bike.
Once I was over the brow the road soon joined a main road which dropped very steeply back into the center of Matlock.
There was not time for a rest I was straight into the second climb of the day
"Riber" No. 32, 162m in 1860m this starts off OK because for the first mile you are not on the actual climb but the lead up to it. When eventually you do turn onto Riber road you can't believe your eye's straight in front is a switchback bend like I have never seen before. I had to ride all the bends on the outside whether or not I was on the right side of the road, the gradient on the inside was just too steep. In places the back wheel was spinning on the damp road because it was so steep!
The Author Simon Warren describes this as his favorite climb and it's not hard to see why.
At this point I have a confession to make after negotiating the 5 hairpin bends and with the summit in sight I had to stop, my HR was 182 and I felt like I was about to die.
After a good rest and several attempts to get my feet clipped back in again (very hard on a narrow steep hill) I was off again.
The next few mile passed without incident thought there was another good climb but OK compared with what had gone before.
We now reach the low point of my ride I get to a junction turned left and my Garmin says I am off track, so I turn round and retrace my step to try and find my route again, after several minutes (and "U" turns) I notice a broken farm track with a dead end and unsuitable for vehicles signs.
OMG my garmin had done it to me again and routed me down God knows where!
Being of an adventurous disposition I pressed ahead anyway, very soon the track gets so bad that I had to unclip my feet, then push the bike and finally carry the bike!
This box you click on Garmin Connect route planner to "stay on road"obviously has a very loose definition of what a road is
After mainly carrying the bike for 2 miles over terrain like the picture I got to an unmade road I at least could ride on.
This after a mile or so then turned back into tarmac again.
This then after another few mile brought me back to the main road and the last challenge of the day
"Slack Hill" No.129, 129m in 1355m not very interesting this one typical A road steep hill with 2 lanes up and 1 lane down.
This was by far the easiest climb of the 3 but after all that had gone before it still took a lot out of me.
For the last 2 miles I was in clover all down hill to the finnish with speeds up to 35mph on the straight bits.
I was totally knackered but felt great, dragged the wife out of costa and about an hour later I was tucking in a large portion of Ikea's Swedish meatballs that I think I thoroughly deserved
P.S. I am also going to post this in the rides section so if you see it there it's the same post so don't bother reading it again.
I have spent all weekend with my nose in books as I had an accountancy exam this morning. Didn't even get a chance to get on the turbo trainer. It went quite well though so I did my training loop this afternoon. I was quite tired and it was quite windy so I was happy just to get over 15 mph to be honest:
That was 47 miles which is still my best ever so far, which isn't great as I've done over 1000 miles now. I'll try and get in a 35-40 mile ride soon just to see if I can still do it and then I need to start thinking about a 50 miler.
I am going out in just a few minutes.
I don't think you'll beat the Triban for the money and after 1000+ miles mine still feels like new.
)