7.11 mins of torture

Busa National Hill climb race..

Never raced a hill climb before.. looked pretty straight forward and compared to a long mtb endurance race must be a walk in the park.. its only a mile or so long for goodness sake..

How wrong was i....

Race wasn't till 1pm so decided to stick the road bike in the car and the mtb on the bike rack and go ride some trails in the morning... Chatsworth and Rowsley routes were really close.. Rowsley would have been pushing it for time and energy so Chatsworth route was chosen.

13 miles round with 3 decent climbs to raise the heart rate... out on the Trek for first time since D2D race as at Uni i only have my singlepeed mtb and fixie for road... Trek is so fast!!! just love riding it... 1 hour 14min round.. just taking it nice and steady..

Got to Hill climb venue.. Curbar Lane... 11th off from a field of 150 riders... bike out of car, donned second lot of riding kit and took a spin up the hill... its steep... and long.. in lowest gear and still pedals feel stiff.. this is gonna hurt.. ALOT!!

Time passed till start with a quick nap in the car then stretch and few sprints up and down the road.. few minutes to go now so take up position in line on start... starters being watched by fellow non riding students on one side and riders warming up on turbo trainers on the other.. my minute man is in bermuda shorts and riding a mtb...
5 seconds.... GO

Nice big slip of rear wheel straight of the start... rain hasn't dried and hill is slippy.. so now i can't stand up as there is no grip and when i'm sitting i'm lifing the front wheel..i develop an ugly hybrid riding style and grind my way up the hill...
After 200m i could see my minute man... a few guys at side of road shout some encouragement " go on you've nearly caught him".. at this point i decided that if i didn't catch him then my bike would be disposed of and we would never speak of bike riding again..

Never ever worked that hard... i could taste blood and heart rate had ventured into unknown territory...

Crossing the line i couldn't control my breathing.. what a workout..

Coast down the hill watching the tortured souls grinding their way up... posted a time of 7.11 mins... off the pace by a minute or so.

Think this chapter of my cycle racing life is best forgotten... maybe will try another hill climb one day... but not soon... oh for a nice 4 hour mtb enduro...