Dartmoor says "meet pain!!". Jon takes back the broken token.
Posted by Jon on Sunday, March 1, 2009
180 miles last week. A steady week of good work topped off by what was my hardest training ride so far.
Travelled down to Plymouth to visit home and took the bike planning to do two rides over the weekend. Ride number 2 didn't happen though after I got myself well and truly broken by the Dartmoor hills. Strange, from my childhood memories of Dartmoor I would have described it as undulating. Damn those childhood memories! My planned 4 hour ride turned into about 5 1/2 hours as I slogged my way round a 70 mile loop spending half of the time in bottom gear and out of the saddle. It went something like this... climb for 20 minutes (often 20% inclines), descend for two minutes, back into a climb followed by another quick descent, back into another climb and so on in a similar vein. It turns out there actually are no flat sections in Dartmoor. My ultimate humiliation came when approaching a steep climb after about 4 hours my legs just said 'no more!'. I had to get off and push the bike up the hill. The shame was compounded when nearing the top of the climb a cyclist flew past in the opposite direction and shot me a cheeky grin. If it don't kill you it only makes you stronger I guess. Roll on the getting stronger.
Travelled down to Plymouth to visit home and took the bike planning to do two rides over the weekend. Ride number 2 didn't happen though after I got myself well and truly broken by the Dartmoor hills. Strange, from my childhood memories of Dartmoor I would have described it as undulating. Damn those childhood memories! My planned 4 hour ride turned into about 5 1/2 hours as I slogged my way round a 70 mile loop spending half of the time in bottom gear and out of the saddle. It went something like this... climb for 20 minutes (often 20% inclines), descend for two minutes, back into a climb followed by another quick descent, back into another climb and so on in a similar vein. It turns out there actually are no flat sections in Dartmoor. My ultimate humiliation came when approaching a steep climb after about 4 hours my legs just said 'no more!'. I had to get off and push the bike up the hill. The shame was compounded when nearing the top of the climb a cyclist flew past in the opposite direction and shot me a cheeky grin. If it don't kill you it only makes you stronger I guess. Roll on the getting stronger.