I will not die on this hill
I was looking for my cycling photos folder to store the one I wanted to save from my phone for my last post, riding out today
In doing so I saw I still had the ones below, which I recognised from the first ride I did when we first moved to where we live now. I had wanted to get out on the bike and explore my new locale as soon as I could.
Flashback! (Wavy lines and spookywoooo sound effect here)
I only went by Google maps to plot my route (we still believed they weren't evil ten years ago). I didn't street map my whole 70km route, and besides, those were the fit days—I wasn't afraid of anything really.
Oops.
Going along the lane on the coast, with it's views out over the sea and clifftop fields in quite glorious weather was all good. Then I was approaching the point where I'd go down to sea level from the 130-140 meter coastal plateau the lane was on.
So it was that I found myself trying not to hurtle out of control down a steep twisting cliff descent on a small single track coastal lane, hanging on and trying not to have all my weight feeling so forward on my forearms and wrists. It felt like I was going over the handlebars soon. The switchbacks heading towards four or five meters from the cliff edge that didn't have any barriers were also particularly exciting, giving a great view of the vertical drop to the beach below before they turned back sharply inland.
I was wondering if my brake discs were glowing red à la dramatic Formula One footage yet, and had the thought I should have checked the pads for wear before I headed out today.
After taking a good few minutes to regather myself at the bottom—which I must have arrived at with an expression of fear frozen on my face—I took the scene in. There were the dramatic layered cliffs, ocean, and the pebbled beach with just a small boathouse/shack on it at the narrow cove entrance at the bottom of the hill. Very picturesque.
No ice cream stand or coffee shop though, so after a fifteen minute rest stop to enjoy the view, I looked up at the signs for the upcoming road again.
30% it said.
So did the one for the road I'd just come down.
So now I was here, it was a 30% climb out, backwards or forwards. This was going to be either a tough ride, or a tough push.
From memory, I don't think the climb was very long, maybe 6-700 meters, but it probably doesn't need to be to be very long to be a pretty stern test at that sort of grade.
I didn't bother trying to push any higher gears than my lowest one right from the start. The only hope of making it I had was to pace it, keep it steady, and not expend all my energy trying to go too quickly at first.
I got beyond half way—at which point my heart rate was I don't know what because I didn't have a monitoring device at that time—and spotted a track leading off the road to the right.
I needed the rest at that stage. I was desperate to stop at that stage. I had to stop and steady my breathing, which had become... well, desperate, and let my heart slow down, not be so loud in my ears and stop bashing at my rib cage so hard. I felt a bit sick too. So I pulled across and stopped to have a little cry and regain my composure.
This, genuinely, is not tipped up to exaggerate the bend. We have since driven up this hill, and when you get to this corner, it looks for all the world like you're about to hit a vertical grey wall in front of you as you round it. It's a first gear corner, hoping you keep grip, don't stall and roll back down it again with the acrid smell of burning clutch.
On a bike, it's mad. Certainly for a steady bimbler anyway. Another mad thing is this route is on the official NCN 3 (National Cycle Network) coastal route, so I imagine unsuspecting fully-loaded tourist bikes have been pushed and struggled with up this hill, or the other one, many times.
As it happens, this bend is not too far from the top. When I started off again after taking this picture and having my heart rate return to normal, I wasn't going for too much longer before the glorious effects of gravity pulling me forwards from my front wheel, instead of clawing at my back wheel trying to drag me back into its grip, were felt at last.
I haven't ridden this route again since—after all, I know it's there now and I've avoided it, physically and mentally—but having found the pictures and recalled the ride, and if they can get this heart problem of mine sorted, it's a masochistic challenge I would look forward to trying again.
All I need is the fitness of a man half my age without any chronic illness, a £15,000, 6kg lightweight climbing bike instead of my 12kg clunker, and a few appointments with a psychologist to be ready for it.
Written by a real person who completely ignores red wavy underlining and uses perfectly legitimate brand new words that just haven't made it to a dictionary yet.
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