Hillclimbs, meh!

Saturday morning, it's early and I'm woefully underdressed as I set off to ride down to Leith Hill where my cousin Will is organising the London Dynamo Hillclimb. Despite my build and relative fast-twitch make up, I've never gone up hills well but I thought I'd show some support for the event. Within a mile I had to stop and pull more clothes out of my bag and even contemplated going back home to change completely!

I felt dead in the legs long before I arrived at the sign-on which I did with 9 minutes to spare (it was at least a 5 minute ride back to the start).

Rolling away from the start, I was well aware of keeping my effort below my anaerobic threshold as I didn't want to feel like I was breathing razor blades for the rest of the week, let alone in the cross race the next day. Needless to say, I was slow. Dead slow. The Ridley Noah with original Mavic Cosmic Carbones (1800g) is probably not the ideal hillclimb weapon. Two out of the three girls beat me and guys who I regularly lap in the cross gave me a sound thrashing.

I got cold. Real cold and then rode home. 5hrs all in. Already dead legs were now thoroughly deadened in advance of Sunday's cross...