Hill Climbing, why is it so attractive?

In the lull between the road race season and the track and cross season sits hill climbing where all those guys who don't feel they've had enough punishment during the year give themselves some more.

For those who don't know what hill climbing is it basically a race from the bottom of a climb to the top, the winner is who ever does it in the quickest time. The climbs can vary in length from 1min 20 secs up to the big ones of 15mins.

I'm not the fastest and won't win a race anytime soon, but it's the enjoyment (if you can call it that) of pushing your body to the limit, using all your energy to the point that some one has to help you off the bike at the top, the pain you feel and ultimately the satisfaction of knowing you've done everything you can in pursuit of that time.

This year I'm limiting my hill climbs to just a few, Monsall (short, and just gets steeper), Beeley Moor (long, steep for the first 2thirds turning in to a drag at the top), Riber (super steep and hair pinned), Banks Road (short and steep) and Corbar Gap (new one to me but it's super steep). There is a theme to the hill climbs (except Beeley) they're all short and steep. Others describe me as a climber others a sprinter, me I see myself as a general all rounder, not the best but not too bad either. The short steeper hill climbs suit me more as they play to my attributes being fairly tall and lightweight I can use my power to climb without losing too much because of excess weight (spare tyre).

Not everyone sees the attraction but you ask a cyclist what's the best piece of road to ride on and I'll guarantee a majority of the time it will be a hill.

I'll post again to let you know how I get on.

Track League

According to some people I'm too fast for group 1 on a monday night track league, but I disagree. I feel that I animated the races, I don't win everything but I have my moments.  When I say animate I mean when they were a bit slow or people were taking their "half lap" on the front waiting for the sprint at the end I would hit the front do a big hard turn and make those "sprinters" suffer before being dropped therefore letting some of the other stronger riders (who don't have a sprint on them) contest a win, I'm obviously talking about the scratch race I always wanted to win it but never wanted to win it at the cost of moving up a group, so I animate.  I have won the scratch race once and it got me moved up a group, now I'm getting a beating, more of that in other blogs.


On the track the madison what I like and is where I can excell, first night riding it my partner, an experienced gentleman, said to take it easy and see how it goes (seeing as it was my first night of track racing as well) I had other ideas and he soon got the idea and we managed third place.  I've performed well in the madison couple of thirds, a second and a win.  The second place was with Mick Browne, top madison rider, in that race I learnt a lot. We weren't the fastest team but technically one of the best on the night, only beaten by 2 kids who lapped everyone on their own.  However the win was by far the best in terms of how it happened...

A few weeks before I was paired with Lisa Daley, nothing wrong with that except that she is around 5ft in height and I'm 6ft 1", and on that night we came last, neither of us could do anything right apart from a 3rd place in a sprint, not good.  So when we were paired together for a second night, everyone looked at the little and large paring, remembered our last outing and wrote us off, how wrong they were. We were right on form and coming in to the last sprint we were a point down on the leaders with them just in front of us at the head of the race, very apt the top 2 team battling it out for the win on the last laps.  Mark Soden (my girlfriends dad), threw his partner in - Big Mike "Sprinter" Farwell - as Lisa threw me in with 2 laps to go. My only instruction to Lisa was to get me on his wheel, no mean feat when your throwing someone a foot bigger and 3 stone heavier than yourself, with which she threw me up to his wheel where I hung on for the next lap and a half before pulling out the sprint of my life to take the final lap sprint and the overall win in the process. I think my finest moment on the track, not only had I won, we had won as a team, played it sensible, took no risks saved the legs until the right moment.

I was looking forward to racing with Nicola Soden, my girlfriend, this winter but she went a broke her collarbone, in August.  Madison with her would have been fun, win or lose.  Maybe we can team up next year.