Tuesday 28 December 2010

Day 6 - 118.01km

After the fhe reezing temperatures of the last few weeks the temperature is finally heading back above zero and the rain last night has cleared most of the remaining snow and ice from the roads.

I've recently been reading 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs: A Road Cyclist's Guide to Britain's Hills so for today's ride I thought I'd head over to one of the closer climbs detailed in the book, Combe Gibbet or what I know at Walbury Hill. It's not exactly alp like but at 297 metres Walbury Hill is generally considered the highest point in South East England (topping Leith Hill as the 2nd highest by some 3 metres) so it's about as hilly as it's gets around here.

I've ridden it before but never from the direction detailed in the book so I thought I'd give it a go from that direction, to be honest it's not that tough, it does get steeper as you go up but I think the description in the book that it "climbs fiercly beneath a canopy of trees" might be stretching it a bit far. Normally from the top there's a great panoramic view across the Thames Valley but today the summit was shrouded in mist so you couldn't see much at all.



From Walbury Hill I headed south towards Andover then back home through Whitchurch and Overton. It's been wet for most of the ride so some pretty miserable conditions, the bike looks like I've ridden a cross race rather than on the road but it's nice not having to worry about ice patches at every corner.

Total ride time was just overof 5h 20 with 118.01km covered at an average speed of around 22 kph.


Full Garmin ride stats are here - Festive Challenge Day 6

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