Those of you with long memories may recall me setting out an ambitious, some might say foolhardy, plan at the start of this year to cycle up loads of reet fierce hills (a technical term!). Specifically, I planned to tackle all those climbs listed in the 200 Greatest Cycling Climbs which fell within the compass of the Ordnance Survey Northern England map, east of the Pennines (complicated, innit?). That amounts to 55 reet fierce hills to be knocked off this year. It now being mid-November you might reasonably ask how many have bitten the dust, crumbled away beneath my pedals, been spat out in the dust behind me. Not a one :(. None whatsoever:((. Big fat Zero:( :( :((. Until now. This afternoon Ive knocked off Pea Royd Lane, Stocksbridge, north of Sheffield. You might think it would be prudent to start with a relatively easy hill and build up to the full monty gradually. Pah! Fye on your weakness! Pea Royd Lane (aka Hunshelf Bank) is a bugger. Pea Royd Lane is reet ard. On the Great Cycling Climbs scale of reet ardness it rates 8/10. And last month it hosted the National Hill Climb Championship. But it is now behind me. Im not saying I cycled it in one uninterrupted effort (needed to pause halfway to put my lungs back in) but I did cycle every bit of it, and it was (forgive me if youve heard this before) reet ard. Only another 54 to go. Chances of getting them done this year.? Ask me again next year ;). Coming down it was fun too, especially the bit where I thought the road went straight on and it in fact turned sharp right. Momentary loss of traction and a bit of a side-slide. Such fun!! :)
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 17:20:21 +0000