While riding with people who are significantly better than you may increase the learning curve and push you harder than riding on your own or with similarly inexperienced riders... it does mean that you rarely have a wholly enjoyable ride until it’s over.
However, Dave (co-founding member of the half a dozen or so cyclists that I join every other week or so) excelled himself this time. Ordinarily we’ll start out a ride in the lowlands of the Vale of York before heading West of North to slightly bumpier ground. But Dave was concerned that this would not prepare me and Al for our forthcoming challenge in the Alps or the more immediate one of the Etape du Dales. ... you couldn’t really argue with that.
So, four of us decided that we’d head over to the North Yorkshire Moors and tackle the best (?) hills it has to offer. While this does nothing to replicate the long, steady inclines of the Alps it did give us a good flavour of the hills we’d face in the Yorkshire Dales in 5 weeks time. Dave’s Big Bumpy one was a 70+ mile ride incorporating 3 the significant climbs of: Boltby Bank (1 in 4), Blakey Bank (1 in 5) and the notorious Rosedale Chimney (1 in 3).
We were blessed with unseasonably warm weather which enabled us to dispense with the almost obligatory water proofs and don shorts and our Sunday Best lycra.
A short discussion regarding the pros and cons of shaved legs and in particular where you actually stop (somewhere in between an inch above the short line and the back of your neck I understand dependent on your personal preference) was rudely interrupted by our arrival at Boltby Bank. Having had so much climbing practice in the Spanish hills I set off confidently only to come to a grinding halt about ¾ of the way up. I had made the mistake of overestimating my ability and set off too quickly starving my leg muscles of oxygen.
Here I learnt my first important lesson of the day: Don’t stop on a really steep hill as if you want to restart it’s rather tricky.
Determined to pedal every inch of at least this hill I managed to get going again at the third attempt not once taking my left foot out of the pedal cleat. The rest of the way up I was hard on myself at my poor performance and vowed to do better on the next hill.
Blakey Bank, the longest but shallowest of our three “classified” climbs was preceeded by a coffee stop. The smell of bacon sizzling away in the kitchen was too much for at least three of us to resist and I was shortly to learn the second important lesson of the day: While bacon butties taste a whole load better than energy bars / gels, they aren’t quite as good on the performance front... note, Brian, the rider in front of me in this photograph did NOT have a bacon butty and Dave (who took the photo) doesn't count!
Although the (more deliberately, but not all entirely by choice) slow climb up the 3km hill was lacking in any great tale of intrigue I can’t help but think it would have been a little easier without a bacon butty as fuel. The views where spectacular but my mind drifted towards the final major challenge: Rosedale Chimney.....
Before we arrived at the village of Rosedale we enjoyed the fruits of our labours with a beautifully long descent (with no scary bits) and some stunning scenery. As we entered the village, we turned right and without a second thought it was upon us. Here’s the blurb:-
“Almost certainly the steepest section of road in Britain, Rosedale Chimney Bank is often included in the Tour of Britain as it is a true 1 in 3 climb at one point. The climb is immediately steep – a sign tells you that you’re about to tackle a 1 in 3 hill. You encounter a cattle grid which doesn’t help matters, after which the road hits 25% on the first corner of a switchback, followed by the steepest part of the climb (33%) – a very steep second corner and unforgiving section after it. The climb then relents to about 20% before easing off at the top”.
Not much more to say other than that I made it ... whoopee. It may have taken me 11 ½ minutes to ride a single kilometre, but I made it..... I saw this picture on the t’interweb afterwards and Maurice stepped a few steps closer towards the summit of Alpe d’Huez. Third important lesson of the day: If you want to stop, just shout at yourself and you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve... not sure whether it helped me but it certainly annoyed my pals (which is something that always brings a small sense of pleasure).Overall it was a great ride and only made better by the weather and the company ... oh yes and the fact that our lead rider, Dave, failed to complete the ride. Unfortunately, this was not due to the fact that the we’d tired him out but he was hit by mechanical failure 5 miles from home.
Stats for this week vs new training regime:-
Mileage: 102 miles, ascent 2,920m ride time just under 6 hours... PLUS one big ride... acceptable
Marmometer moment: Successful ascent of Rosedale Chimney!
