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Monday 14 March 2011

Richmond park and the hill that beat me...

After a last minute rush-around on Saturday to make sure that I had everything ready for the morning, I awoke to sunshine and twittering birds. “What a lovely day for a ride,” I thought.

The ride over to Brixton went well with me only getting lost once, mostly due to a car trying to flatten me at the elephant and Castle roundabout. I even had time to stop and pick up some sustenance for the ride.

Everyone was there ready and just about to have a pre-ride cigarette, so far so good, 11 miles of cycling, arrived on time. There was some bad news at this point. Rachael, my Uke twin, had emailed around saying that she would not be joining us for the ride this summer. A natural cyclist and cheerful presence even under stress means that she will be a great loss to the group... and means I’ll have to try harder to play the right chords.

Because I ride in traffic most days, I found the ride to and from Richmond the easiest part of the day. Richmond park is beautiful and makes for a lovely cycling scenario. The only problem for me was that it contained hills. Steep ones. I had had a week and a half off of the bike due to having been on holiday, most of which had been spent consuming my bodyweight in eggs, cheese and fine German beer.

(Cycling gear does not look great with a wobbly beer belly)

Jonny never made it down to Richmond, which he wrote about yesterday.

Lessons from Sunday.

1. I must ride every day I can

2. - German food is designed for tourists not athletes

3. - I need to focus my training on hill climbing and endurance

After a beer and a pasty on the way home I felt surprisingly well. Tired but happy. On Sunday I felt fine to walk home from the cinema in Islington and could have gone out on the bike. I have a week off next week so after commuting all week and a weekend ride, I might go and find some hills.

Better still I might get back over to Richmond and beat the hill that defeated me on Saturday. Again and again. That'll show it. I'd like to say that neither of these photos is the hill in question.

1 comment:

  1. I think this is the hill. We went round clockwise, and most people were going anti-clockwise

    http://www.goinggoingbike.com/blog/the-great-road-climbs-of-london-richmond-park-broomfield-hill/

    ReplyDelete