I’m not even sure of what I’m showing in that picture above, quite honestly. Today was a new one on me. Heading out to a climb I expected to be harder than it ultimately ended up being – Cow Ark.
I’ve never been to this area, whether by bike, car, or on foot. I might have flown over it when coming back from holidays, but that’s about it.
Anyway, I was expecting this one to be a fairly intensive effort. But it turned out to be much harder than that.
Right from the get go, pretty much after turning right at the end of my street, I was feeling like my legs were tired.
And that feeling didn’t go away for the entire ride.
I knew it was going to be a hot one today – at least, by British Summer standards. As I left the house at around 9:10, it was already 23c. Pretty crazy. Normal riding conditions for me would be 12-18c.
Knowing that it was due to be a hot one, I’d lathered both arms and legs (and head) in sun cream, and stuffed the bottle in my jersey for good measure. I’d also nicked my wive’s water bottle, taking both a sugary cordial and separate water bottle for good measure.
Food-wise, all I had to hand was a 200 calorie protein bar. Normally I’d take a banana, too, but my kids had scoffed them all. Bloody gannets, I tell you.
The hardest parts of this ride turned out to be two fold:
- Heat
- Non-stop climbing
I’d really misjudged the intensity of the heat. Putting out a 60km ride in this weather was a bad idea. When I went to the Trough of Bowland it wasn’t this hot, and I came back with a ridiculous amount of sun burn for my troubles.
I was determined not to make that mistake today.
But sun cream or no, the other killer was the grinding up hill struggle. It just never seemed to end.
I’d figured this was a ride of two halves – as in the first half being up hill, then largely back down hill after the Cow Ark climb.
Not so.
Not so at all.
What this ride did turn out to be was lots of grinding up hills, with a few staggered, steep descents thrown in for good measure.
Frankly the constant sight of little climbs ahead, seemingly around every bend, was a real morale sapper. About 40km in, I just wanted to be back home with a nice cup of tea. Unfortunately sights like this kept greeting me:
Anyway, this was supposed to be a VLOG’d ride. But yet again the damn Google Pixel 3 cut out tons of the audio, so I couldn’t make a video. No major loss, I suppose, unless you enjoy listening to me moan about how knackered I am. Rather than just reading about it, I guess.
So really, with all the constant grind-y climb elements to this ride, the actual Cow Ark climb turned out to be a total anti-climax.
The Garmin Edge 530 didn’t even register it / display it on the climb pro, for whatever reason. It had done, all ride, but when I hit the segment, nothing seemed to happen. Kinda odd.
I kept expecting the climb to suddenly get steep, as the Veloviewer had shown. But nope. Before I knew it, I was on the descent. Maybe if all the riding up to that point hadn’t been up hill, it would have had a bit more oomph to it. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
Right, anyway, I might take both weekend days off at this point. I really don’t know. What I do know is, most likely, my next several rides are now all going to be indoors again. Lovely.
