More pain

From Matthew Sharrock:

Ok, so it’s taken me about 5 days to recover from the weekend’s intensive bike training with Patrick in London. Saturday was a true shock to the system as I didn’t realise how much actual ‘hill’ training Patrick had in mind. We started with about 8 circuits of Regents park (25 miles) and then it was time for those dreaded hills of Archway / Muswell hill and High Gate. We began with the mildly punishing Archway road and moved onto a variety of other chafing monsters.

All climbs were always complimented by the rather speedy but sometimes hazardous descent down pot-holed / speed-bump strewn side streets. Then came the dreaded ‘High Gate West Hill’ !! The Guardian travel guide says this of it: ‘Highgate West Hill may not even be up there with the toughest climbs in England, let alone the Alps and the Pyrenees, but don't let anyone tell you it doesn't hurt. ... you are suddenly on a hill you won't forget in a hurry. There's a consistently steep gradient from the little roundabout at the bottom of West Hill for about half a mile. Briefly it flattens, only for the sting in the tail to strike when the road turns hard right and the gradient steepens to something like 1-in-5 for the final stretch to St Michael's church .. .’

We decided to finish off with a crawl up Muswell hill and 6 more circuits of Regents Park, totaling 50 miles in 3’20’’, 2 twixes, 4 pints of water and a rather odd lycra shaped sun burn.

On the Sunday we looked further afield to south London and ended up devising a shifty Silverstone style circuit around the Putney bridge / Hammersmith area. I’m looking forward to repaying Patrick with my own ‘Fenboy’ style of cycling retribution when he visits Cambridgeshire ! mwha hahahahha !!!

Bring on the pain (and the sponsorship ;)x x

p.s. Patrick has bought one of those tiny cameras and will be filming his own training – so watch this space ...and don’t forget to sponsor us xx