The Isle of Wight - January 2011

A weeks break in the Isle of Wight may not be everybody's idea of a great destination in January, but we know a lovely spot that is great at all times of the year.
The weather was never likely to be that good so I took the Trek 1.2 and Amanda took her 1.5 WSD and on the Sunday morning we planned a ride so that we could meet my parents in the tea shop at Osbourne House to give them a key and then ride home.
We have done the "Round the Island" route a few times but generally in an anit-clockwise direction so we decided on the clockwise route heading off from Ventnor towards Freshwater, which takes in a couple of nice climbs as the road traces the southern costline.

The second climb is a personal favourite of Amandas as the views are tremendous and the decent is safe and fast.

You can just see the road going over the chalk cliff in the distance.












The top part of the island is fairly flat and a tail-wind meant that we made good time, handed over the keys and headed off to finish the 48 mile ride in good time.

On the following morning (Monday) I decided to get up early to tackle a specific climb - St Lawrence Shute. It probably won't be a surprise to know that my support vehicle chose to stay in bed, but it did not matter as I was only planning a short ride.

This is the view from the main road looking up the first section which leads past the little church on the hillside and the postbox.

This first section is over 8% in parts and represents a good challenge.

Every hill of note has "that bend" and this is no different. A sharp right hand hairpin and the road goes left and over a small bridge, and then turns sharp right and upto the final very steep section to the top.

This final run to the top is steep but not that long and one thing to bear in mind is that road can be quite slippery as it is under the trees - so rear wheel traction can be an issue.

Once over the top I turned right and back to Ventnor via the top route and a short 20 minute ride was complete.

A nice little climb to try if you are in the area.

I returned back to base camp to join the gang and we all prepared for a walk over Ventnor Down to landslip.

During the walk I noticed that there was a road leading up Ventnor Down to a radar station at the top. It was very steep and windswept but looked like a good challenge.

So myself and Amanda plotted a route to take in the climb as part of short sharp 28 mile run that would take us back through Shanklin and Sandown.

The climb in total from where we were staying is just over 4miles but the last half a mile is virtually flat, as the work is all done by then.

There are a couple of very steep sections of around the 15% mark and the wind on this exposed bit of road makes for an added complication. Amanda did herself proud by making to the top with just one short stop to catch her breath.

Definately worth a go if you are in the area.

This is the steepest section

It has its' own "that Bend" too.

One of the spectacular views looking back over Ventnor

Greatest Cycling Climbs By Simon Warren

I saw an advert for a book called "Greatest Cycling Climbs"  by Simon Warren , ( 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs: A Road Cyclist's Guide to Britain's Hills - Click to view on Amazon ),
so I bought it, thinking that it would be right up my street.
So it has proved, unfortunately for Amanda as now I have loads of targets to get my teeth into, which I will try and drag her up.

Cyclists debate the merit of the climbs included a great deal, as I have seen in various reviews but I really like this book as it is a quick, easy reference guide and the climbs are detailed with information of each section.

We had a long weekend booked in Withypool, Exmoor so I checked out the book and spotted that there were three climbs within range of where we were staying.

We arrived on the Friday and  I plotted a short 25 mile route, but it took in Winsford Hill, which although not in the book - it was used on the 2009 Tour of Britain which we went to watch so I thought it would be a nice one to judge ourselves on.

I use a Garmin Oregon 300 Handheld GPS Navigator and Memory-Map OS Maps 1:50K - Full GB to plot theses routes and have found them to be totally invaluable. One of those things that you put off buying for ages and then when you finally do get round to buying it, you wish you had done it a year earlier.
The Oregon is not cycling specific but you can add a cadence sensor and heart rate monitor and the large touch screen is perfect for operation on the move. The main benefit is now though, that we don't even take maps out with us (just spare batteries) - we trust the Garmin to that extent - is has been something of a revelation.

Straight out of Withypool though, we hit 20% slopes before our legs had warmed up and although short, this section really was a tough introduction to Exmoor (although much worse was to follow as will become apparent).
As it happened, Winsford Hill was fairly straightforward and we both enjoyed it thoroughly and it may well have led me into a false sense of security, as that evening I set about creating a route to take in two climbs that were in the book - namley Porlock Hill (rated at 9/10) and Exmoor Forest, which is the easiest of the three climbs out of Lynmouth (rated at 3/10).

I set the route to take us fairly directly and with as much flat as possible to Porlock Hill as I didn't want to set off to hard.

I had read the comments in the book about the smell around this famous section of the A39 - the so called steepest "A" road in England and thought that our legs would need to be as fresh as possible to tackle this notorious climb.

The Winsford Hill climb the day before had though, given me a great deal of confidence and we duly arrived at the fork in the road at the bottom of the climb where you can elect to go via the less steep toll road....

To go up the climb you take the left fork and straight away the road starts to climb to about 7% and narrows to a single lane past some houses, widening again once it has gone past. Looking up at this point you can see a house up on the left on the outside of a right hand hairpin bend and the road has steepened quite a bit without it being too obvious. As you approach the hairpin though, the pitch becomes well over 10% but fortunately you are on the outside of this bend as you can see from this photo....

.... but this though, is nothing compared to what greets you when you get round this corner.

The road rears up to 25% and seems to go on for ever as it heads into the trees - in fact you can't even see the next corner, which is said to far steeper than the first - and you are on the inside of it this time.

I had spend much of the early part of the climb out of the saddle, but my brain quickly told me to sit down, otherwise I would burn out in no time.

As my heart rate hit 175 I sat back in the saddle to try and conserve some energy, but met with something that I had never come across before ...... the road was so steep that my front wheel was starting to come off the road - I had no choice but to stand up!

I got about 200 yards up this section before my bpm was over 180 and I thought, I have got to stop, so quickly unclipping before I fell off I stood gasping at the side of the road and peered over my shoulder to see how Amanda was getting on - she wasn't - already pushing as she rounded the bottom bend (a sight that would become fimilar in the coming months), she shouted "go on, don't wait for me". Hilarious in hindsight as she clearly had no idea that I was really struggling and thought that I was hanging on for her!

I had stopped which is all but accepting defeat, but I decide that I was not going to push even one inch of this hill, so I caught my breath and clipped back in - no mean feat in itself given the extraordinary gradient at this point.

Steady progress seemed to be the best bet from now but, as the second left-hand hairpin approached, this was clearly not going to happen as a truly unbelievable stretch of tarmac came into view. The profile says 25% - it may be in the middle of the road but on the inside of the corner it must be around 70% - so you have to go out into the middle of the road ,which I did , and then carried straight on to the far side of the road to the escape lane for those coming down the hill. Amanda was still walking so I decided to sit tight and wait for her to get to me, which gave me time to take in what was going on around. Cars, campers and the like really struggling to get up this road, and the point in the description about the smell was spot on, the whole place stunk of clutches and brakes - awful.

Amanda duly arrived and after a brief chat I got back on and headed up the next section of super-steep road, then turning gently right it finally started to ease off and became easier to cope with, and so it continued as the hill progressed, ever less steeply to the top, now out of the trees, the fantastic views become apparent and you can really get cracking despite a few "false flats" misleading you to as where the finish really is.

Amanda caught me up quickly and we headed off towards Lynmouth via the steep decent of Countisbury Hill, which once completed lead to a well deserved coffee and rest at one of the many watering holes in this lovely little town.

Back on the bikes, we set off for the Exmoor Forest climb which was a delight. It is a fairly long climb of around 11km but the steady gradient and meandering route along a river keeps your mind on taking in the scenery and by the time you have reached the top of Exmoor, you haven't really had time to feel tired.

I learned a valuable lesson that day - I didn't treat Porlock Hill with the respect that it merited, and it smacked me down for it - I won't do it again.

The weekend finished with heavy rain which forced me to abandon plans to do the 10/10 climb of Dunkery Beacon - which is probably as well as we drove it before going home and I don't think my tyres would have been able to grip the road , due to the amount of surface water.

I plan to come back to meet up with Porlock again and hopefully Dunkery as well.