We started our Ride London training adventure with what should have been a gentle 32 mile ride in the Kent countryside, following the Houses & Hills route from Jack Thurston’s highly-recommendable book Lost Lanes. We carefully adjusted the route to put the majority of the substantial hills near the start of the ride while we were fresh, by starting from Ightham Mote (an interesting National Trust property that will be worth visiting at some point).
I didn’t even get out of the car park before having my first zero-speed falling-over due to cleats issue. I feel this will be a common occurrence throughout all our training rides.
The initial climb out of Ightham Mote towards the village of Stone Street was a bit tough to start on, but after that the route was nice rolling hills until we passed through Sevenoaks.
From there, we begun our ascent to the top of York Hill. Apparently the steep southern face of York Hill is home to an historic annual cycle climb race – I’m glad we ascended from the north with its long steady gradient which wasn’t too onerous. The descent was a rather thrilling affair, getting down into the drops on my new road bike and (by my very slow standards) stretching its legs for the first time. You can see the steepness of the descent on the elevation profile below around mile 10.
- Audrey descending York Hill
After this, the route continued through beautiful rolling countryside for another 15 miles or so, keeping ourselves reasonably well fuelled with jam sandwiches and jelly babies along the way. The only notable event during this was my second zero-speed falling-over due to cleats issue of the day due to my chain coming off while ascending a short hill.
Then, near the end, the sting in the tail:
What’s that? A climb? A really steep climb? Right at the end of the route? Yup. It turns out that while Ightham Mote itself is at the bottom of a hill, the access to the car park is about 60% of the way up it. That final climb really took it out of us, and we were very glad to be finished.
Overall ride summary:
- Distance: 30.5 miles
- Elevation gain: 2,356ft
- Average moving speed: 10.6mph
- Time: 2h53m moving, 3h38m total
- Total training miles to date – Mark: 30.5 miles, Audrey: 30.5 miles