Today was the London to Brighton bike ride. A 54 mile trek with 27,000 of my closet friends. You read that right… 27 THOUSAND riders! Most of you know I’ve ridden in several of the MS150 rides from Houston to Austin, and to give you a benchmark, they capped that ride for safety reasons at 14,000. To alleviate some of the congestion they had staggered start times from 6:00 to 9:00. You guessed it… I chose the 6:00 AM start predicating a 4:00 wake-up. Remember… as Amy needs to be reminded as well, I do this for fun.
My riding partner, David and I made it through unscathed in a decent time even after dealing with a few crowded climbs on some narrow country lanes, and a 41mph descent on a rain dampened asphalt road with just a little bit of a cross wind.
Oh yeah… about that “hill”? For several weeks leading up to this ride, I had several people mention to me about the “hill” at the end.“Oh… are you ready for that hill at the end?”
“Think you’ll make it all the way up that hill at the end?”
At lunch on Friday I inquired about said “hill” to a co-worker. “Oh?? You mean Ditchling Beacon?” came his reply.
So now….
This “hill”… Has a name.
Not only does it have a name, but upon further research it also has a 12% grade on its northern face of just over a mile in duration. While David stayed on his bike the entire way up I made it to within 400m of the top where I encountered an increase in grade that didn’t seems to agree with my quadriceps, as they immediately let me know. I did finish up the climb once the grade eased a bit.
Photos don't do it justice so I've included a route profile that the organizers chose to hand out on the morning OF the ride.
1 comment:
I have not been diligent in following your activites for a while. It is always pleasant to read your work, it is clear you missed your calling. Thanks for keeping us current, and glad to hear you survived "the hill".
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