What a hero, I am miles from any KOM's even with weight and age rankings.
Downhill KOMs, not a great idea
It's a quiet road, good visibility, surface is ok. Theres another, much steeper hill a mile away that I'm keeping away from as the corner at the bottom is a little unsighted and much tighter. At least it all makes me feel alive!
It's a quiet road, good visibility, surface is ok. Theres another, much steeper hill a mile away that I'm keeping away from as the corner at the bottom is a little unsighted and much tighter. At least it all makes me feel alive!
There's a sweeping corner at the bottom of a hill on our local time trial circuit that gives me the willies. I'm usually doing somewhere between 30-35mph, but it's blind and if you were to drift across the center-line you'd be roadkill, since there's often oncoming traffic. Each time I'm approaching it I have the little devil on one shoulder telling me "don't lift off, stay on the tri bars, think of the PR" and the angel on the other telling me "think of your family, burying your crushed remains". I breath a little easier when I'm past that corner.
A fair few in the peaks have been designated dangerous, Winnatts Pass for example. You really would want to go for it down there.
At least it all makes me feel alive!
wouldn't ??
I agree. Until it suddenly doesn't. Plus out here in the colonies there's always the medical bills at the back of your mind. A badly sprained wrist cost me about $800 (x-rays and two office visits) a couple of years back. Dammit - that's nearly the cost of cool aero wheels.
I’ve stopped hurtling through forests off-road. I fell off too often and knew I’d have a big off at some point.
I had a lovely Sunday morning ride today. Went east from Watford across the Chilterns, didn't think it was that hilly as nothing is particularly high but flippin eck, there are a lot of smaller ups and downs including a few 12% and one 14% gradients which is v steep for me, can only get up them grinding out on the lowest gear. Ave speed suffered but I did my first 2000 feet of climbing in a single ride in which I am chuffed about.
I live in Aylesbury and ride there all the time and the hills are indeed deceptive. Clearly we’re not talking the Derbyshire Peaks or C2C but there are enough short sharp hills to get the heart pumping.
If you’ve not done them, Kop Hill and Peters Lane are great which are two sides of the same hill, Whiteleaf. When I say great I mean hard (!) but only very short. Smalldean Lane near Princes Risborough has a wall of tarmac to climb at a 1 in 5 but it's only short. If you do that then there is the Speen hairpin in about half a mile. Another joyous climb. Then there is Wigans Lane up to Bledlow Ridge, and Chinnor Hill, and Ivinghoe Beacon, loads of climbs.
In fact look here for a few https://roadcyclinguk.com/sportive/ten-best-cycling-climbs-chilterns.html
and here https://totalwomenscycling.com/road-cycling/steepest-15-climbs-chilterns-cycleway/2
Perhaps I’ll see you out one day. I'll be the one pushing the bike.
Rob.
Just shy of 56km into this afternoon's ride my right pedal dropped off. It's been a long trip home from Chiswick - a mix of walking and one legged cycling over 3 hours. Just glad I have mtb shoes rather than road ones.