The distance to Church Stretton meant it would be a one way trip and some negotiation was required to get my wife to drive over and meet me at the end. This was all sorted and a meeting time and point at one of the pubs was sorted.
I rode over to Noel's for 8am and we set off for Clent. Noel suggested a different route to Clent than I had planned - but is much better then striking off through some of the SW suburbs of Birmingham. This added about 15 minutes to reaching the foot of St Kenelms Pass in Holy Cross. I'd planned to ride up and then down St Kenelms Pass again but the additional time and distance meant that I decided to split from Noel there. It was great to ride with Noel again, and made a change to drop the pace a little and have a chat.
The route profile (planned in the Strava Route Builder tool) suggested a total ascent of over 5000ft so I was trying to keep my heart rate down (to an average of ~145bpm) to cover all the distance and climbing especially with the Ling Mynd at the very end of 65 miles. From Holy Cross I headed off towards Kinver using some of the roads I'd ridden a month or so before on the Tour of the Black Country through Broome, Churchill and Kinver. I rode down Kinver high street the opposite way this time. From Kinver the villages became a lot more sparse and it really was very remote at times. The next place I rode through was Bridgnorth. This was the only real mistake I made - I was heading to the town centre then had planned a left turn to the NW - unfortunately this turned out to be a fast 2 lane bypass road - I decided to be cautious and stopped so I could cross over to the path on the other side - the traffice was too fast to be safe. At the top of the hill was a roundabout and I turned left and was straight back on quiet country roads. There was not a lot of options in the route I'd planned as there were no crossings of the river until Bridgnorth.
The route continued and the terrain was very "rolling". Monkton was approached down a 20% descent on a very poor and broken road surface - very dangerous. There were also 2 tough "mini" climbs (Strava Cat 4) both signed on the road at 18%. These were sapping and I rode them conservatively to keep energy for The Ling Mynd. However I did get a 4th best time for 2015 for one of them - so still none to shabby!
I used my 34-30 gear combination for all these. I have wanted to keep the 30 as a bail out gear and use the 28 as the lowest normal gear, but on climbs over 12-15% I find I have been using it more than I expected. Its takes a lot of strain off my knees and my heart rate is slightly lower than when using the 28, although progress is correspondingly slower.
I continued towards Church Stretton making reasonable progress although I was starting to feel quite tired and at one point almost decided not to even make the attempt. However having ridden 65 tough miles just to get there I decided I would go for it. There was a good long descent into Church Stretton, but once over the A49 its barely ¼ mile to the bottom of the climb.
There was a short drag past some houses and then straight ahead it rose at what looked like a vertical climb to a gate. The gate and cattle grid marked the start "proper" and the gradient steepened very quickly to around 16-20%. There was no where for me to go except straight into the 34-30 gear and grind up. It was very hard but I felt in control (just!). Heart rate was mid 170s which is about my maximum. There was a flurry of cars behind me but that gave me space and I pulled in where I could into the passing places and to be fair they gave me room. The climb continued relentlessly - never below ~12% and rising again to 16-18% - but the steepest area seemed to have been passed. I slowed slightly as I climbed and my heart rate dropped to high 160s but I think this reflected how tired I was.
The view was spectacular - on my right the land just dropped away and on my left it rose above. About half way up the land opened up a bit and the gradient eased further but it was still very hard. I pressed on to what I knew was the summit - or at least the end of the Strava segment as I knew it finished before the first right turn from the road. I had planned to follow this road and do a loop but I was pushed for time so turned round and rode back down the way I had come.
The steepness of the road and the unevenness of the surface made it an interesting descent - there was a lot of back wheel bouncing and I was nervous to say the least.
However all was well and rode into the village centre and after a short delay met my wife - the Cosford Air show caused traffic issues and delayed her 20 minutes or so. I put the bike in the car and we had lunch in the Bucks Head Hotel. They served a pleasant Sunday lunch at a reasonable price.
After lunch we then drove back up the Long Mynd and I took a few photos from the top:
And then a few more just above halfway - where its greener and the scale of the valleys can be seen better:
The Strava Route is here: https://www.strava.com/activities/325342383
The stats were:
Distance: 70.2 miles
Time: 4hrs 44mins 41 seconds
Height Gain: 6296 feet
Average Speed: 14.9mph
And my data up the climb was here https://www.strava.com/segments/6681340:
Length: 1.9 mile
Height Gain: 931 feet
Average Gradient: 9%
My Time: 18min 11 sec
My position: 377 of 1306
No comments:
Post a Comment