Monday 30 June – Sunday 6 July. T-minus 5 weeks to Ride London.
Total Team Sheep Miles: 2112; Total raised for Friendship Works: £523

We’ve been extending the distances over the weeks, but looming on the horizon are the two major climbs of the route. Leith Hill, from the southern approach taken on the day, is a 500ft climb over 1.5 miles with an average gradient of 6.9%, max 12.9%. Box Hill, made famous by the Olympic road races back in 2012, gains just under 600ft over 2.7 miles with an average gradient of 4.1% up its Zig-Zag Road. Last week’s long ride had a lot of elevation gain, but the majority of it was very gradual, so for this week’s major ride, we decided it was time to slay the demons and finally meet the hills.

With the Tour de France winding its way through the Yorkshire hills, it was our very own Team Sheep mountain stage.

Tuesday: Fast

We started the week with our usual combination of spinning (Audrey) and fast Richmond Park lap (Mark; new PB of 22m30s, average speed of 18.2mph).

Thursday: Mid-length race pace

Continuing our mid-length race pace practices, we did another session at Richmond Park – the park section totalling 17.8 miles in 1h17m – 13.9mph average, a new best for us riding together, out of a total ride of 30 miles.

Saturday: Meet the Hills attempt 1

They say there’s no such thing as the wrong weather for cycling, just the wrong clothes. Two miles into our first attempt at cycling out to the Surrey hills and we definitely had the wrong clothes (and arguably in my case the wrong bike). A massive downpour started, with black thunderous clouds stretching out to the horizon. Our planned route followed the Wandle Trail / Avenue Verté south for the first 12 miles – tracks which are muddy even in the dry; in the wet the right clothes would be diving suits! Our brakes immediately filled with mud and the idea of descending massive hills for the first time with ineffective brakes didn’t appeal, so we cut our losses and headed back home.

We re-planned the route to avoid that section, following roads and paved tracks instead, so if the weather on Sunday was equally bad at least we wouldn’t be as muddy. While it might rain on the day, it won’t be on muddy tracks for tens of miles. l do need to work out how to carry a light-weight waterproof though, as it was chilly in the wet.

Sunday: Meet the Hills attempt 2

A hearty breakfast at Mel’s of Earlsfield set us up well for our re-planned ride, and we took the the train out to Effingham Junction to start. Our revised plan would have us going over five major climbs finishing with Box Hill, then cycling back home via Epsom and Sutton.

Away from the station and out into the Surrey lanes, the weather was delightful and the scenery lovely. Our first climb (1 in the above diagram: White Hill / White Downs, 665ft over 4 miles, 29 minutes) started soon after leaving the station and was followed by a ridiculous 18% descent which we would have to come back up later.

Leith Hill

We started our first ascent of Leith Hill (2) approaching from the north and heading south. This will be the descent on Ride London day, a more gradual affair than the southern face. It rises 539ft over 3.2 miles and took us 22 minutes.

Descending the western side, we found that the Ockley Road is closed and impassable until early August (hope the work finishes on time; 26,000 people on bikes will be along here on 10th August). This means a five-mile road detour (or a mile of rocky footpath) to reach the start of the climb. The detour was pleasant and what passes for flat in this area, so gave us time to recover before hoofing it up the hill again.

The ascent of Leith Hill from the south (3) rises 500ft in 1.5 miles – an average of 6.9% with a maximum ramp of 12.9% coming near the top. It’s the steepest part of the Ride London route, and on this first attempt it took us 17 minutes including a bit of a pause three-quarters of the way up. Audrey suffered some knee pain as we neared the top, a worrying flashback to problems from months back, but luckily these cleared up as we continued.

Over to Box Hill

Heading back north, following the Ride London route down from the top of Leith Hill, we were faced with a choice – to get to Box Hill we either had to ascend the 18% slope of White Downs that we’d flown down earlier, or cycle along the fast-moving A25. The Ride London will follow the A25, but it will be closed to traffic. So, up the hill we went (4). We walked up the steepest part on a “footpath” – though it was more like rock climbing than walking. We didn’t feel bad about walking this – it was our first major day of hills, we still had Box Hill to go, and most importantly we didn’t want to aggravate Audrey’s knees further this close to the event with a slope that is beyond anything we’ll meet on the day.

The roads between the top of White Downs and the bottom of Box Hill, following the Surrey Cycleway route, are delightful – great scenery, gently rolling hills, and not much traffic – we made good time. Reaching Box Hill we made our way up without any major problems – while it is a long ascent, the gradient is very even, so you can just keep grinding away. Remembering not to be distracted by the National Trust café – which is at a false summit a mile short of the top – we finished the 2.7mi, 600ft climb in 23 minutes, with no stopping. It felt surprisingly manageable – a much easier climb than Leith Hill. We rolled back to the café for a celebratory slice of Victoria Sponge (and one of the worst coffees I’ve had in years), pausing to admire this wonderful view.

We stopped for too long and ate too much cake (the slices were enormous and we had one each; the National Trust clearly know their market here), so we were both pretty sluggish when it came to starting the ride home, but after a while we picked up the pace again and enjoyed the long, mostly down hill, 20 miles back home.

We’re happy with our first day in the hills, completing nearly the full amount of climbing that we’ll meet on the day. After 52 miles, we still felt broadly fine. An encouraging ride!

The boring stats:

• Weekly distance: 112 miles (Mark), 87 miles + 1hr spinning (Audrey).
• Average moving speed (long hilly ride): 11.3mph
• Moving time (long ride): 4h35m
• Total punctures to date – Mark: 0, Audrey: 2
• Total zero-speed falling-over-due-to-cleat-issues – Mark: 9 – think I’m finally on top of this! Audrey: n/a.
• Total training miles to date (including cycling to work) – Mark:1153 miles, Audrey: 959 miles + 5 hours spinning.