Winning - The Stoke Hill Climb

Unforeseen circumstances often arise in bike races. Usually measures can be put it place to prevent these issues, but today I was caught out; my plan was to ride out to the hill climb as a warm up, have a coffee or three, race, then ride home as extra training. Five minutes into the ride the first substantial drops of rain started to fall. No big deal, I thought, skin is waterproof. It was then that I noticed that the temperature was also quite a few degrees cooler than the last few days and the chill was setting in.

Most cyclist's solution to this problem is to ride harder, with the thought of a hot shower at home willing them on, however I needed to save my legs for the race and unfortunately the event HQ consisted of little more than a gazebo and certainly not a hot shower. As I so often do, I convinced myself everything was fine until Ryan, Charlie and I rolled in to HQ. At this point Ryan and Charlie left me in the rain like a couple of parents dropping their child off at a creche. Thanks for the support guys (I would've done the same).

I still maintained the attitude that I was fine until I went to sign on. My hand was too cold to write, but after a while I managed a squiggle which bared a humorous resemblance to a child writing their name for the first time. I was left with two options, continue to pretend I was fine and keep my dignity or admit my mistake and plead for help. I asked the lady serving coffee if there was anywhere inside I could go, but there was not. Instead, she offered me blankets and I couldn't refuse the offer. A few minutes later I was still shivering, so she brought me a cup of tea and a pink hot water bottle...
If you're going to look soft you may as well go all the way! I'm always humbled by how generous strangers can be when someone needs help.

So there I was, half an hour until my start time, unable to think about racing a bike. Fortunately my parents were coming out to watch and they rocked up twenty minutes before I was off, giving me just enough time to raise my core temperature by a couple of degrees and spin my legs on the rollers. At exactly 11:01 I rode to the start knowing I would get there one minute before my race began. As for the race, I don't recall a great deal. I remember my legs still feeling bad from the off, the negative voices started to rise to the surface, but I tried to stick to my plan. When riding a perfect hill climb you don't think much, you almost have to imagine you're in the matrix and 'there is no spoon'. I managed a decent sprint to the finish and stopped the clock at 4:32, three seconds quicker than last year, but a long way off my target of 4:25. After an eager wait for the results I discovered that I had won by nine seconds from Tom Nancarrow. The relief after the mornings suffering was a fitting reward and after copious amounts of hot drinks had been consumed and we finished chatting about our power numbers from the race, it was time to head back to a hot shower.

Thanks to Exeter Wheelers for a great event, the marshals for standing out in the cold and Ann Owens and Chris Godfrey for some cracking photos.

The Hill Climb Season

The hill climb season is a British tradition that I love. For those of you who don't know, a hill climb is a very pure form of bike racing. Riders gather in a village hall, ride up a hill at one minute intervals and the fastest time up the hill is the winner, sounds simple right? I think one of the reasons I enjoy the hill climb season and all bike racing for that matter, is the attention to detail that goes with it. Riders will go to extreme lengths in their quest for speed. In my case, this means removing every piece of unnecessary kit from the bike and I mean EVERY bit, from bottle cage bolts to stem caps. On Friday I found myself needing a haircut and thought, do I swap my usual grade three back and sides for a more aerodynamic grade two? Personally, I can never really notice the difference, so needless to say I went for the latter option. On the other hand, don't think that every marginal gain has to be utilised. Style on and off the bike is good for morale, so you'll rarely see riders wearing no socks. The feeling of arriving on the start line knowing your mind, body and machine are in peak form is wonderful.

The two most important factors when racing up hill are power and weight. You can combine these metrics to give a rider a power to weight ratio, expressed in watts per kilogram. I manage my body weight during the hill climb season by eating healthily whenever possible, but don't meticulously calorie count like some do. Power is developed by the hard hours out on the road. Ninety nine percent of the time I enjoy my training or at least enjoy the feeling of knowing that it's making me stronger. Being out with your friends (you know who you are) can also make a massive difference. With the right combination of personalities, you can turn a sporting atmosphere in to that of a party atmosphere, albeit with a flat white in your hand instead of a Peroni. 

Last week I went on a ride where this spirit was summed up perfectly. The plan was for five lads to go out for an eighty mile ride out to Dartmoor, stopping at the new cycling cafe in Bovey Tracey, perfect. We hadn't even started the ride when we had a call from Charlie, saying he'd just woken up and would meet us en route, which meant more hanging around. Four hundred metres in to the ride we hear a shout from James, he'd punctured and none of us had a spare tube with a valve long enough for his deep section wheels. Fortunately Jake had some patches in his saddle bag and James manage to repair the puncture and the hole in his tyre. Events had run smoothly for the next thirty miles and we were tackling the second climb of the day. I was halfway through my effort when I felt the air leaking out of my rear tyre, you've got to be kidding? A quick inner tube change and we were back on the road. At this point it would be easy to get frustrated and write off the ride, but after it took me three attempts to get my tyre off (I blamed my recovering wrist injury), I was the subject of the next joke, which kept the others entertained. 

Around ten miles later it was Ryan's turn to be mocked when he claimed that he rode up the hardest climb of the day in the big chainring. We were giving him the usual "oooh you're hard" when I heard the 'ting tinging' of spokes and turned around to see Ryan in the hedge. There are many different stories of how this occurred, each one blaming a different person, but the most factual account is that James' quick release skewer somehow got hooked on Ryan's rear mech cable and it went downhill from there. The consequence? Ryan's rear mech hanger snapped rendering his bike unrideable. Since we were only two miles from the cafe a very kind man offered him a lift, while I benefited from some motor pacing on the bumper. 

Cafe 360 in Bovey is not far off a perfect cafe for a cyclist - a bike shop downstairs, retro bikes on display upstairs and of course, great coffee and cake. The only option to save Ryan's bike was to turn it into a single speed. When he told the mechanic he had forty miles left to ride including Haldon Hill, the mechanic thought he was having a laugh. Luckily Ryan's made of tough stuff and he made it to Exeter by grinding his 39x16 gear up the climb, spinning on the flats and holding on to my saddle at speeds over twenty five mph. This was working OK until his hub starting disintegrating on the outskirts of town, at which point we had to put our heads together to get him home (see video on my instagram) by forming a borderline genius system where we all helped push/pull him along. The fact that I look back on this ride with fondness is due to the camaraderie and laughs we had, despite the catalogue of errors.  

Three days had passed and I was ready for my first hill climb on a local climb of mine, Chineway Hill. This was my first race back after breaking my wrist, so I didn't go in with high expectations. My form on the day also wasn't helped by not getting much sleep the night before - Albert Hammond Jr, the guitarist from one of my all time favourite bands, The Strokes, was playing in Bristol and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I arrived in good time at HQ and caught up with familiar faces I hadn't seen since the national HC last year. The minutes ticked down until my start time and after a good warm up, the adrenaline started to kick in. 

If someone asked me "do you enjoy hill climbing?" I would probably say yes, but 'enjoy' isn't quite the right word. Chineway is a particularly painful climb, the first half is a steady four percent and the second half averages eleven percent, with the final slopes at twenty percent. During my effort, I rode to my power meter for the first half, then emptied the tank on the steeper section, testing my physical and mental limits in the process. Ryan and Charlie gave me a good shout, but I could tell I wasn't on the best of days. I stopped the clock in six minutes eighteen seconds, eleven seconds off Andrew Feather's winning time, which was good enough for third place. I felt a tinge of disappointment stepping up on to the podium, but I had to remind myself that I'd only had my cast taken off a week ago. I'd already started thinking about the next one, Stoke Hill on Saturday and more importantly, how to win.