White Horse Bank

White Horse Bank was the second climb I tackled on the 1st March. After painfully winching myself up Rosedale Chimney I had a 40 odd minute drive to the climb at White Horse Bank. Just long enough for me to cool down and for the sun to burn off any lingering traces of frost.

The climb at White Horse Bank makes for a fairly intense descent. It is tight and narrow with lots of sharp bends and, in places,  a pretty rough road surface. I parked about a third of the way down the climb at a big car park where a lot of dog walkers and family groups were parking up before going for a stroll through what seems to be a very popular forest park. Be warned, on a nice sunny day the road up White Horse Bank can get very busy which only highlights how tight it is in places.

 The car park is directly underneath the so-called white horse which was created by a local man keen for Yorkshire to have a White Horse of its own to rival those of the South West. The white horse in question is crap. Thankfully it is below the end of a gliding clubs runway and on a sunny day you are treated every few minutes to a plane taking off at full throttle as it tows a glider into the air. This is far more impressive than the chalk decapitated pig/ dishevelled dog/ white horse but I wasn’t able to get my camera out quickly enough to photograph a plane. Sadly the white horse was going nowhere and I felt duty bound to take a photo.

Breathtaking in it's crapness

The descent down to the start of the climb was quite bumpy and on starting my climb back up I seemed to be lacking any form of rhythm.  The lower part of White Horse Bank isn’t too steep but I just couldn’t get the pedals turning with any form of conviction. It was probably a combination of struggling on Rosedale Chimney and then having to drive for 40 minutes. Whatever it was it took me until about halfway up before I finally settled into a riding pace that I was happy with. It was sadly a very slow one but it would have to do.

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The hill itself is actually quite pleasant; in between the increasingly steep corners the gradient backs off a bit and, for an on form cyclist, these straighter sections represent a chance to build momentum for the next steep uphill bend. I didn’t really feel comfortable until near the top and by then I was on the steepest part and by default going slowly. Once finally at the top I had a bit of a cruise along on the flat road that runs alongside the gliding club before turning back to the car and heading off to Boltby Bank which wasn’t far away.

Fear and Loathing on Rosedale Chimney

After driving up the day before and spending the night in a Travelhovel I got up early, scraped the ice from the windscreen of my car and set out across Yorkshire to get to Rosedale Abbey. It had always been my plan to get to the ‘Chimney’ first and get the toughest climb out of the way while I was still fresh and before the road got too busy. I managed to get to Rosedale for just after 8am. Driving up and down  the climb to check it out I felt quite chuffed with myself when I saw that the road was indeed nice and empty. I felt slightly less chuffed when it became clear that there was ice and frost on certain parts of the climb.

It was a beautiful morning in North Yorkshire ruined only by my wheezing and cursing as I struggled uphill

The temperate the night before had been into the minus’s and I had gotten to the climb so early that it hadn’t had a chance to properly thaw. The slippery stuff was only present in randomly distributed patches but after one or two slippery moments my bottle went on the way down; Rosedale Chimney is too steep a climb to be practicing my bike handling skills. Mind you it also proved to be a bit steep to walk on when covered in bits of ice and wearing stiff soled cycling shoes. I stopped at one point to see just how much traction my tyres would have on the frosty sections and it proved to be worryingly little. The descent to the start was tense to say the least. Its strange really as the sun was out and it was shaping up to be a beautiful day but in the patches of shade where the heat of the sun hadn’t had a chance to burn off the frost it was damn scary.

Cyclists dismount? Yeah right...oh hang on, is that ice?!?

Rosedale Chimney is a climb that starts steep and doesn’t ease off. As you reach the White Horse Farm Inn about a third of the way up it dawns on you that this is a climb that doesn’t give you any chance to ease yourself into the effort of getting up it. There is a bit of a slackening off in the gradient as you approach the cattle grid about a third of a way up but this is basically one nasty bit of road from start to finish.

That ain't water but it's more slippery cousin

The two hairpins halfway up Rosedale Chimney aren’t actually the worst part of the climb. It may be just me in fact I quite like hairpin bends; they give you a clear visual point of reference to aim at and an opportunity to alter your pace. Yes, the Rosedale Chimney bends are steep but the short straightish section of road that follows them is what really does the damage. After tackling the lower section of slope that passes the White Horse Farm Inn and then pushing on past the two hairpins you are then faced with a simply nasty section of road that just seems to continue the worst gradients of the hairpins but with none of their charm. By the time you reach it you are guaranteed to be on the limit and quite frankly I struggled badly on this little bit of the climb. Having to dodge the patches of shade which where helping the frost to persist only added to the joy of the whole painful experience.



It will come to no surprise to anyone who reads this blog on a semi regular basis that I was probably the slowest moving person in North Yorkshire by the time I reached the upper section of Rosedale Chimney. The gradient does vary a little as you get closer to the top but not enough for you to ease up and have a chance to recover. It was a blessed relief to finally reach the top and be able to stick the bike back in the car. Unfortunately my work for the day was far from over and I had three other climbs to tick off the list before the day was out. Next stop was White Horse Bank.

On the road again...

The winter storms seem to have started to lose their grip on the UK so its about time I got back on the bike and started getting to grips with the remaining climbs. Last year ended badly for several reasons and this had the knock on effect of me not completing all 100 climbs by the end of 2013.  Missing a significant goal like that was really devastating but my personal situation meant that I had to focus on both job hunting and studying for an important exam. I've since taken and passed the exam and a new career beckons so time to sort out the bike riding bits of my life before I get too busy.

So, 2014 is here and it is finally time to get this challenge out of the way once and for all. Because I’m trying to start a business time, and money, are going to be tight as the year progresses and I, hopefully, get busy. Because of time constraints the remaining English climbs are going to be tackled in a series of fairly brutal long weekends.  First up is a return to Yorkshire including a first time trip to the infamous Rosedale Chimney, apparently the steepest road in the UK. Can't say I'm looking forward to that one, although the adventure of getting back in the car and visiting stupidly steep bits of road with my bike is something I'm looking forward to steeping back into.

Answering that age old question of just how many cameras can you charge from one laptop?

The plan for my trip to Yorkshire is fairly simple; drive up on a Friday, take on four climbs on the Saturday and then try and get as many in on the Sunday before I have to head home. Its an ambitious approach, especially as the remaining climbs are all pretty tough ones but it seems to be the most time efficient way of dealing with them. Hopefully I’ll be up to it. The training was going really well in January and then February happened with its strong winds and sideways rain. I lost a fair bit of momentum simply because riding in gale force winds really isn’t actually that safe. Plus I got fed up with cleaning my bikes every couple of days.

Recent training rides have seen me winch my heavy Karate Monkey up and over every steep hill I can find (and through every road surface imaginable including slurry that had washed out of a field over the road; thats a ride I'd rather forget). These rides have been mixed with shorter rides on my single speed in an attempt to build a bit of kick back into my uphill riding.  I’m not entirely sure its worked but as my first hill climb of 2014 is going to be Rosedale Chimney any weaknesses in my preparation will very shortly be exposed. The faithful Uncle John has been cleaned and lubed. The cameras have been charged and my mighty Fiat Qubo has a full tank of fuel...best get on with it I suppose.

An update at last

Its been a while since my last update, sorry about that. Things have been rather busy of late and whilst I’ve been getting out on the bike a fair bit I don’t feel that I’ve had much to report back on. 
2014 started as most years do with a dawn bike ride on the 1^st January complete with a hangover and the effects of a chronic lack of sleep slowing me down. The next days ride went better and that’s kind of been the pattern ever since; each bike ride has gone better than the one before it and I actually seem to have started a year with some decent form for once. I’ve been fairly flying up the hills (well for me anyway, its all relative) and even when the weather has been a bit mucky I’ve been consistently faster over regular training routes. This bodes well for finishing off the remaining 31 climbs that I didn’t get to complete last year.

New training tool

Since I stripped down my faithful Surly Cross Check and got it resprayed ahead of a rather bling rebuild I’ve been lacking a suitable bike for slogging away on during the winter. My Thorn Sherpa touring bike is in desperate need of a refurb and my single speed Macinato just isn’t flexible enough. Step forward my old Surly Karate Monkey.

                                 

Not a traditional winter training road bike but a lot more versatile

Now the Karate Monkey is a 29er mountain bike rather than a road bike but it fits the bill quite well (its tough and can be built with lots of gears). I’ve struggled to come up with a suitable build for the bike ever since I bought the frame. I did run it as a drop handle bar monster cross abomination for a while but could never really get to grips with it. After rooting around in the garage (some of the parts were found rolling around on the garage floor and I seem to remember using the handle bar as a head set removal tool at one point) I’ve come up with a fairly decent heavy duty build that should allow me to use it as a hybrid or a mountain bike. It can also take studded tyres if the rain ever stops and we get a proper winter. The only expensive parts I had to buy to get the Karate Monkey rolling were some Pauls Components Thumbies which allow me to run traditional bar end shifters as old school flat handle bar thumb shifters. I’ve been wanting an excuse to buy some for a while and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity.

                                       

  Pauls Thumbies - for when being a luddite is the only option

For the first time since I bought the frame back in 2010 I’m actually looking forward to sticking in the miles on the Karate Monkey and the extra heft should provide some training benefits. Initial rides suggest that I’m going to have a lot of fun with the bike on some interesting all terrain training rides.

In between the floods and awful weather there have been a few decent training days 

The Final 31


Things really didn’t go as planned towards the end of last year. After the wheels came off my attempt to bag the Scottish climbs any plans to tackle the rest of the remaining climbs failed to take shape. A mixture of studying and job hunting got in the way of planning any time away from home and before I knew it 2013 had drawn to a close. I was also feeling pretty exhausted towards the end of what had been a busy and stressful year.

This year has to be the year when I finally close the book on this thing. Depending on whether or not I need to take a re-sit in a technical exam I’m either going to be going to be able to start applying for new jobs at either the end of February or the end of March. I'm going to need to focus on developing my career when I do finally get another job and once things do start moving I’m not going to have much chance to take trips away. As a result normal service will be resumed at the end of February when I start wheezing and cursing my way up some of the steepest roads in Britain before I get too busy.

I’m planning a series of frankly brutal long weekends in the North of England where the target will be to tackle between 8 or 10 rides in the space of a couple of days. Plans like this have never worked out for me before but I don’t have a choice in the matter. I’m not going to have the time for these planned trips not to be successful and so they will need to work. My recent training rides have focussed more on how much I can hurt myself on successive climbs than on honing technique and fitness. Each training ride now features at least 2 steep climbs as a result. The climbs in Scotland will need to be taken on a little later in the Spring when I should hopefully have some more time available to deal with the extra time I‘ll need to spend away from home.

So that was 2013

Its traditional, well for me anyway, to give cycling a miss during December. It is always a busy time of year and with the low sun, short days, bad weather and the psychotic pre-Christmas/ New Years Eve behaviour of most car drivers I find it is best to hang the bike up and focus on other things. I’ve also had a professional exam to study for which was major focus for me so cycling had to take a back seat anyway.

My last ride of the year was on the 30^th November and was a chance for me to take the single speed out for a spin along the Tarka Trail and generally take it easy. After riding up numerous steep bits of Britain in the last few months it was nice to take in some flat terrain for once. Taking my single speed road bike out for a run along a trail strewn with fallen branches wasn’t without its challenges, especially as it only has 25mm wide tyres. By the end of the ride I had smashed the back wheel nicely out of true.

 

Final ride of the year and the weather was perfect

In other news I have purchased yet another action/ sports/ rugged/ strap to your bike camera that isn’t a Gro Pro. My favourite bargain shop Lidl was selling a 1080p HD sports video camera for only £90 and it was too good a deal to miss out on. First impressions of the camera are good and I intend using it for lots of unusual camera angles and time delay filming when I return to the remaining climbs next year. I had intended Ass Cam^TM to be used in all sorts of different positions on the bike but for some reason I couldn’t find the right sort of mounting brackets. My Lidl camera should hopefully be a bit more adaptable although it is no lightweight and quite bulky.

 

New toy. I've been very impressed with it so far.

My main goal for next year is pretty obvious; to finally finish off the 100 climbs. I had a great start to the year and some very productive trips away but, frustratingly, September marked a point when the wheels started to come off. My trip to Scotland didn’t exactly end well and from then on dealing with the fall out from my redundancy and searching for a new job took up a lot of the time and energy I had intended to devote towards finishing off the remaining 31 climbs. I was hoping to have them all finished by now but never mind, far worse things can happen and I’m intending to start wheezing and swearing my way up the first of the remaining hills by the end of January (weather permitting). I’ll get there in the end, just a little later than planned.

After seeing off the remaining climbs I’m tempted to give the Single Speed UK Championships a bash in September. I have no intention of being even vaguely competitive (in fact I think that sort of thing is actively discouraged) but it will be a good laugh and will be a post 100 climbs goal to aim for. It is also a good excuse to bling up my Singular Swift which has been languishing in pieces in the garage for a few months.

My first training ride in 2014 will be on New Years day, at dawn, most likely on a single speed road bike and almost certainly with a raging hangover. After nearly a month off the bike I‘m counting down the days…

Return to Jiggers Bank

Just over a year ago I attempted to ride Jiggers Bank on the way back from a meeting in the Midlands. Because of extensive road works that had only just started on the day I tried to ride the climb (timing never has been one of my strong points) I was unable to ride the ‘official’ 100 climbs route. The road out of the gorge has suffered from a few land slips in recent years and a lot of work was needed to stabilise the banks that loom over the road on the upper part of the hill out of Ironbridge.

 

Regulation photo of bike in front of local landmark

A trip to a trade show in early November gave me the opportunity to have another crack at Jiggers Bank and actually ride the whole hill. Last time around I had to take the alternative and steeper route out of Ironbridge and whilst it was a good challenge it did annoy me that I hadn’t taken the proper route.

Exactly a year to the day ( I didn’t plan it that way) after I first attempted to ride the road out of Ironbridge I found myself back in the town and trying to warm up after a 4 hour drive up in the car. After a brief spin around a car park I thought it was better to just get on with things and start riding uphill. I knew that the lower part of the climb has a gentle gradient and was able to make decent progress even with cold legs. I got stopped at the traffic lights a third of the way up the hill and once underway found myself riding the section of the climb I wasn’t able to last year. The gradient isn’t too bad and the road signs suggest the average gradient is around 8%. I got a bit slower towards the top, mainly because I wanted to get a good look at the work that had been done to stabilise the banks, but generally found the ride quite easy. It is only ranked as a 3/10 and is more a pleasant uphill meander than a serious hill climb. I had toyed with the idea of taking my single speed up the hill and would have been forced into riding faster if I did. If I’m ever in the area again I may well do just that, it isn’t a hill that requires gears.

 

 

After reaching the top it was time for a fast descent back into Ironbridge, a place that looks very pretty but always seems very quiet whenever I’ve been there. After spinning along the river for a closer look it was back into the car and off to a my overnight stop before a trade show the following day, job done at last.

 

End of the Road (well for 2013)

After suffering a collapse in form in September it has been hard to find the energy and time to tackle the remaining climbs in 2013. An over ambitious schedule for tackling the Scottish climbs combined with the stress and activity that surrounds being made redundant meant that my energy levels took a serious dive and it wasn’t until October that I was starting to ride the bike with anything resembling good form. Job hunting and trying to set up my own business have also taken up a lot of my time and, frustratingly, just as I’ve started riding well the time left to complete everything in 2013 or even just get a couple more rides completed has ebbed away.

Don’t worry, I’m not through with the 100 climbs. It just seems that, for me at least, the best time to make any progress tackling them is at the start of the year. I’m back to riding well again and so in late January I’ll be back on the road ticking off the remaining climbs. I’ll be back.



Back with a vengeance/ bang/ whimper (delete as appropriate)

 After returning from an ultimately unsuccessful trip to Scotland I was determined to keep banging out the miles in training. I had a vague notion to do a couple of long weekends in the North of England and after writing my last blog post I decided not to sit around feeling sorry for myself but to try and get back on top of the situation. The thing is my body really wasn’t too keen on that idea. My legs were feeling increasingly stiff and tired after training rides and whilst the motivation has been there the body has been distinctly lacking. I think after such a busy and at times stressful year something in the back of my mind decided it was time to go into shut down mode and have a break. I must admit I’ve been going flat out with studying and writing job applications since being made redundant and it feels like my body has decided a change of pace is needed.

To further complicate things I’ve been feeling a under the weather which has knocked my form back even further. It all started with a tooth breaking and needing to be removed. Having a tooth pulled is unpleasant enough (trust me, having a burly Australian elbow deep in your mouth apparently removing a tooth with the same sort of force I normally reserve for removing car wheel nuts is not something I would recommend) but what followed afterwards really knocked me back. Once the anaesthetic wore off I was in agony for a couple of days. I was sort of expecting that but what I wasn’t expecting was that three nights of badly disturbed sleep because of the pain would combine with the fatigue I was already suffering from and leave me open to a viral infection. I guess it left my body’s defences run too low to fight off infection and the virus found itself pushing at a open door. This wasn’t a normal ‘feel bad for two days and then get back into the swing of things’ virus but a ‘niggle away in the background and sap your strength for more than a week’ sort of virus. Riding with any kind of purpose was out of the question.

 

Feeling unwell has meant I've had to train on relatively flat routes. Using the worlds heaviest bike (AKA the Thorn Sherpa) has compensated for the lack of steep stuff.

After about a week of feeling under the weather I managed to get out for a few training rides thinking that I was over the worst of it but the going was tough with my legs reluctant to turn the pedals; even a short ride left me feeling totally wiped out and the hills were pure, slow speed, agony. Cue a further week off the bike and, despite having lost of whatever meagre form I had, I‘m now feeling back to full health and back to riding with some form of purpose.
　


Time to stop moping about…

Its just as well I’m finally back on the bike because at the start of November I’m going to be getting back into the 100 climbs frame of mind. I’m attending an exhibition in the Midlands and I intend to use the opportunity of being just over an hour away to finally ride up Jiggers Bank in Ironbridge the correct way. It has always bugged me that a road closure last year forced me to ride an alternative, albeit steeper, route. I intend to put that situation right. If my legs are turning the pedals more smoothly I may even do it on my fixie but I’ll wait and see nearer the time if that is a sensible idea. In fact I know now it isn’t a sensible idea but something just makes me want to try it on at least one of the climbs. And yes, I will be checking the Highways Agency website before attempting it this time. Not making that mistake again.

This book, like me, is looking and feeling a bit battered but I'm not finished with it yet

Before the year is out I also want to ride the Cat and Fiddle and Shibden Wall. For some reason I have the urge to tick those two climbs off the list before the end of the year and so, weather and potential work commitments permitting, I’ve roughly planned out the mother of all overnight hill bagging raids. It is a stupid idea for many reasons, not least because of the mileage involved for just two climbs and I suspect a steep cobbled climb in winter conditions will be difficult to drive up, let alone ride up. In fact the Cat and Fiddle in bad weather won’t be much fun either. The thing is they could be the last two climbs I have the time and energy to complete in 2013 and as I was hoping to have finished all of the remaining climbs by the end of November I feel I need to see the year out with a last big stupid road trip style hurrah before restarting again in January. My plans for the Autumn have gone completely off the rails and I stand no chance of completing the 100 climbs within the timescale I was originally aiming for but that doesn’t mean I can’t be stubborn and keep chipping away a the climbs that remain. I may even break my rule of not riding through December. Watch this space…