You'll find it in Castleton the town at the base of Winnats Pass.
1.6 miles
8%
Winding and Windy.

The initial section forces one up and out of the saddle faster that you can say eighteen percentage, sugar, I thought this is not a good way to start a climb. You continue to grind away ontop of the pedals through the tree lined road until the foliage subsides and the road momentarily flattens.


I saw my riding companion ahead disappearing round the bend that climbed skyward and assumed that the hairpin would lead to the top. But I was bitterly disappointment.
As I struggled once more out of the saddle the the views of an old mill or refinery and breathtaking peaks were of little inspiration. I was sulking about having to ride out of the saddle once more so early on on this road, pushing and pulling on my bars as if I were punching a pillow like a told of school kid.

The corkscrew bend relented the punishing gradient eased to a more regulated manageable six percentage. I now had my back to the Hope Valley and a hopefully finishing point appeared on the windswept horizon. It looked as though my summit was in touching distance. Alas it was not, as I got closer I saw the summit was a mirage and I had to round another bend and revealing more road.

On and on I climbed at a steady pace ready but my matches has been burnt on the lower slopes and now the half mile crawl against the buffeting wind was excruciating. I caught back to my domestique and heard them speak but my heart was thundering in my ears muffling the conversation. They rode on steady and my cadence dropped, it was like the Froome / Wiggins moment of the 2012 Tour except I was wearing leg warmers and it was spitting with rain.



Finally I got some kind of rhythm as the gradient of the road stayed at an easier 5% and I reached a chalk line that had been added to the road by a previous visitor.
It was a tough fifteen minutes of my life, I never hope to repeat.

Thanks Gem Atkinson - Great Idea of Yours! LOL

"There are many exercise apps that allow you to keep track of your running, riding, and other activities. Record speed, time, elevation, and location from your phone, and millions of people do this, me included. However, when we look at activity logs, whether they be our own, from our friends, or from a public timeline, the activities only appear individually.

Quote from an article in the Huffington Post:

Sometimes the day in day out it can get really boring and overly tiring.
This has happened to me with the route I use to commute to and from work. The quickest faster way is to use the Cycle Super Highway, it just so happens it the quickest faster route for everyone else too.

The bus lane is nice and wide and the cyclists aren't really doing too much harm or the cars to be fair. It is mostly the buses. Accelerating past us and then swinging in, edging forward. There feels like there is a real bad feeling vibe coming from bus drivers at the moment trying to damage the other road users.

But all the people, all the time, all the stop, start sprint. It is exhausting and I'm only cycling 6 miles home.

Recently I've started to revel in the rain. It gives me a reason to get on a packed commuter train. Now that is bad isn't it!
Two weeks ago I was waiting for the traffic lights to go green at Lambeth North when I noticed a small sign that said London Cycle Network 3 Stockwell. Instead of turning left and following the masses onto the major artery that connects Kennington with Oval I followed the sign.


These little blue signs are quite tricky to follow, they suddenly disappear or point you down pedestrian alleys, and you wonder if that's the right way.

I tried to work out my route on the fly as I cycled home but didn't really seem get it right and I popped out again at Oval Cricket Ground and had to rejoin the cycling motorway that is the A3.

Back to the drawing board, or computer screen I guess. Trying to work out the route based on the little blue signs is tough.
TFL doesn't help, in fact it doesn't acknowledge they exist and nor does Open Cycle Maps or Google.
Sustrans came to my rescue, you'll need to grab google maps too and on occasion 'street view' the turning because its not always clear. The route I take has a cycle path that cuts through between an estate near Oval, that's what I missed before.

Armed with hurridly written notes, celotaped in an uncouth manner to my stem I set out to ride where literally no-one has ridden before. I was on an urban commuting adventure and I was unsure which neighbourhood I was in as I navigate a warren of Stockwell and Kennington's residential back streets but I pop out at Clapham Common in the right place unscathed.

I stopped for traffic one maybe two times, my speed was perhaps alittle lower as I'm not riding on a wide open drag strip and the route is longer by two miles.
But on the plus side there was no need to haul on the brakes every 50 metres then sprint from a standing start to get clear of all the cycle wobblers.
It is nice to have a change and even though at the end of the day you just want to get home, I would encourage everyone to switch it up, try these little blue routes, you never know what you'll discover.

Here's the skinny on it:
A race that take in a portion of beautiful Pembrey beach before heading into a Pembrey Country Park for 9km of gravel, water, singletrack and sand.

Open to all forms of off road bike including cyclocross and a thing called a 'Fat Bike'

Race was roughly 35km which took me about 2 hours to complete.

Results:

Category position	First Name	Last Name	Overall time	Lap 1	Lap 2	Lap 3	Fat Bike?	Overall Position
1	Karen	Brouwer	01:43:35	00:31:27	00:35:16	00:36:51		15
2	Melanie	Alexander	01:49:07	00:34:47	00:36:31	00:37:48		30
3	Claire	Beaumont	01:59:03	00:36:28	00:40:45	00:41:48		63

Classics and  cycling sprint ace - Tom Boonen

Gary Barlow off of Take That (blonde on the left)

will not miss
Cleaning my bike in the dark, every weekend for 17 weekends

Getting my bike out of the shed the following weekend to find, there are still smeary marks and bits of dirt I missed.

Digging twigs, stones and clumps of sand from the seal of the washing machine

Training on a turbo in pitch black

Car Tetris

Jet washing my shoes, daily rotating the newspaper stuffing and pray they will be dry by the next weekend

Getting up a 7am on Saturday/Sunday and missing a re-run of Frasier by driving to a cyclocross race

Going on the M1



ViCiOUS pint-sized cheerleaders and 'Paul' the mud dumpling

Shredding off road on skinny tyres, feeling out of control and trying to go faster

Winning cyclocross races

Followed by awkward podium presentations

Signing people's autographs

Having a slightly bruised shoulder on Monday mornings

Running on muddy paths around Tooting Common as the sun comes up

Hanging out with ViCiOUS velo at races, making jokes, having ideas showers, smashing into bushes, yelling at them from the sidelines 

Trying to race in the cyclocross motherland 

The peculiar smell of damp mud

Finding a secret line on a section of course to go faster than everyone else

When people in the crowd call your name and cheer with as much energy as they can muster

Riding on the turbo and getting to that point where your muscles feel so tired they they fizz then feel white hot, sort of cold but that makes you try to go faster