May Day Bank Holiday, which means a day off work and as it was a nice enough day, outdoors I went.
The plan was to stay out into the countryside, away from as many main roads as possible. And the other part of the plan was to build up a decent start to the week as this one’s an odd one.
I will be away with work on Wednesday and Thursday this week, which are two regularly scheduled riding days.
Therefore I needed to put something in the bank to get through that lull. This was therefore always going to be a ~2 hour ride, which is a little outside my comfort zone. But that’s no bad thing.
Heading out, I figured I’d loop around at a tempo pace, before heading back to Jeffrey Hill. The original idea was to go through Longridge and take the long and gradual ascent, again somewhere around the tempo pace all the way up.
But as I got closer, my plans changed.
I figured why not hit the steepest climb?
I’ve struggled with this previously, but today I wanted another shot at it. It is a very challenging ascent, coming in as a Category 3 climb for 3.14km / 197m at a 6.1% average gradient.
Unsurprisingly, the nerves were making themselves known on the ride up. Around the point of the photo above, I was already starting to doubt myself. So I came up with the plan to contain the pace a little riding up there. Making sure to keep around the 3.3 w/kg mark, not going into the red before the effort had begun.
I feel I did alright on this. Even on the steeper parts of the approach, I was sensible.
But once we got onto the harder parts, it still didn’t feel like I’d eased off enough.
Even in the very easiest gear, I had to get out of the saddle to climb the first of the three step ups. That is truly savage in places.
Fortunately road traffic, though present, was very light. That gave me plenty of room to move around.
I’d made sure to get the spec’s off before starting. Nothing worse than sweat dripping all over them and fumbling with them as you push.
Beyond that, it didn’t feel amazing honestly. I was very slow in parts. 195bpm registered on the old ticker, always fun. But I made it up. Somehow.
And rather than stop at the top, I just carried on through.
Boy, is that descent worth it. Hitting 70kph is wild on the bike. All that sweat built up, it soon turns super cold. It’s such a long descent though. Sometimes those climbs feel like they last far longer than the short but sharp descent. This is the other way round. It’s hard, brutally so, but the descent lasts for aaaaages – must be a good 5km, compared to that 3km going up. A good trade off.
After that it was a slog back up from Ribchester to Longridge, before schlepping it home at a much more reserved pace.
I didn’t hit the 50km target, nor the 2 hours out.
But I still feel like I’ve done enough. Ready for my tea now.
