A tough road.

A tough road.

Riding a bit of a tough route today. Can I manage it?

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Well here we go it’s my first ride in February about time I tested myself a Little well there we go 3 km from my front door and there’s the first road closure need to find another route they’re obviously working on the road there now that road is always prone to flooding and this time of year I expect it’s pretty bad so about

Time at least that road will be pretty good in this summer now but what that means for me right now is this once Quiet Road is now quite Busy the plan today is not to try and be too heroic so I’m not going to try for any PRS or anything like that all I’m going to try do is just my Longest Ride of the Year again I went out a couple of days ago and did 50

Km so today’s ride is going to be more or less that I’ve got a route planned out but unlike the ride I did the other day this one’s going to be a fair bit Hillier the other day I did about 400 m of climbing and I think today is going

To be 600 maybe even 700 M of climbing so pretty tough The reason I want to test myself today is of course my upcoming trip to ride the cake Town cycle tour that’s rapidly approaching I’ve only got 4 weeks today until I fly out and when I get there I’m going to have to be able to

Ride 110 kilm and climb 1600 M so it’s kind of double what I’m going to do today well blindy wearing shorts in this weather that’s Brave today’s route’s a little bit dramatic I’m currently cycling through a village called World’s End and very soon I’ll be riding up past Cutthroat lane and then after that I’m going to start climbing up to the top of Beacon Hill down wheelie down and then up old Winchester Hill

They’re both kind of local toughy climbs so wish me Lu back on the quieter roads now and with it being a Saturday morning these roads are very popular with uh local cyclist because they are so quiet no that’s not a cycle Lane on my left there that’s just a wide Verge trying to keep people out of the potholes including me [Applause] Just cycling up out of new town now on another little short sharp climb at the moment it’s 7% but in in a few seconds it’s going to kick up to about 12 can see it looming up ahead of me and there I am at the top piece of

Cake as you can probably imagine the weather this time of year isn’t great so getting out actually on the road isn’t that easy but I have been doing quite a lot of indoor cycling on my Turbo trainer and that seems to be doing me a

Lot of good I seem to remember last year for instance the longest ride to date that I did kind of early March was 40 km and I’ve already beaten that but really there’s only so much you can do on a turbo trainer I’ve been doing 4y 5 minute sessions and they’re

They’re sort of equating to about 20 km but there’s no real substitute for getting out on the road and actually building up your [Applause] endurance here we are on the infamous Cutthroat Lane climb that’s actually Cutthroat Lane there it’s not marked on the road for obvious reasons but uh it’s on maps as

Cutthroat Lane and uh this is kind of a little starter for the main course of Beacon Hill uh 1.8 km long with an average gradient of about 4% not Mega tough but Tough Enough believe Me That climb takes us to the top of core Hampton down which is one of the highest points here in Hampshire but now just a hop skip and a jump away is Beacon Hill probably the highest point in Hampshire this boys and girls is the climb of Beacon

Hill uh according to the kuu it’s 2.5 km long with an average gradient of about 5% so again not massively tough but Tough Enough starts off fairly gently here at like 1% and uh I can see it just kicking up in front fronted me so again just take

It nice and easy just let the pedals almost turn themselves over oh that Hill’s always tough at least I’ve done it [Applause] now I can almost have a bit of a breather now because it’s pretty much downhill for a couple of kilometers to the bottom of old Winchester Hill [Applause] In all my years of cycling I’ve never ridden up wheelie down I’ve only ever ridden down it I really should do the opposite direction one of these [Applause] Days right this is where the fun starts old Winchester Hill ooh 10% 11% 12% 13% fortunately this steep bit doesn’t go on for long might briefly turned into the busiest Road in the world again normally this is very very quiet so I’ve just done the tough bit and now I’ve just got the 2 kilm 5% slug Yeah this is the top of old Winchester Hill and I think I may have made a mistake about Beacon Hill being the uh highest point in Hampshire according to the kuu that was an altitude of about 190 M and right now I’m at 210 M and still climbing a little bit On a clear day you can see all the way to the Y white from this Ridge but needless to say today is not a clear day Just descending from the top of mercury now and I did notice when I was up there the altitude was 216 M and Mercury is actually the site of the royal World Navy Communications school and there are radio mkks up there to this day so I suppose they chose it because it was pretty

High they’ve recently cut the trees down on the right hand side here making this descent just feel completely different hardly recognize it I think they might have resurfaced as well which is just as well because that was a shocking Surface there we go that’s me more or less home now and by the time I get back that will be 48 km in the Bank of Fitness okay it’s not 51 that I was aiming for and yes I could extend it by a couple of kilometers but can I really be bothered

Time’s getting on I need to be getting back so I’m going to have to be happy with 48 km today but it was 540 meters of climbing which is the the the most climbing I’ve done on a single ride so far this year so I’m really pleased with

That hopefully that will uh stand me in good stead for my ride in Cape Town but it’s very clear that I do still have quite a lot of work to do let’s hope I can do it in the month that I’ve got left