Wednesday 11 February 2009

Here comes the pain

Went out last night to try to break myself, didn't have time for a proper night ride but wanted to put a bit of effort in. I went up to barrow bridge with the intention of climbing up to the golf course and riding back down, rinse and repeat 3 or 4 times. Its a third of a mile with 200ft elevation, hard work on a singlespeed, just right for interval training I reckon. Just as I hit the climb I noticed packed down ice all over the trail so what should have been a fast stomp up the hill became a slightly more restrained hover over the saddle and row* to the top. Just about do-able, pretty scary on the way down tho, front end started to slide a couple of times. Made it up ok twice but third time I dabbed, bugger! Then home quick. 1077ft of climbing, 9 miles in 45 minutes not bad.

*for those who haven't tried singlespeeding those loose, steep climbs where you need to hover just over the saddle don't give you enough leverage so you push the bike forward on the dead part of the pedal stroke and then heave the bike backwards and push down with your foot to aid leverage on the power part. It feels a lot like rowing.

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