I'll be looking out for that after you insulted my 'mound' repeats on Strava
Gospel Pass done! Has nicely increased my 'Biggest Climb' on Strava from
969ft to
1500 ft! Supposedly the longest continuous climb in England and Wales outside of the Lake District so doubt it'll change anytime soon!
Brutal ride, I'd been out an done 45-ish miles on saturday but my legs were feeling good, they actually felt good all the way around. The climb itself was good, but the weather wasn't. I had a couple of rain showers on the way out with gusty cool winds, as soon as I reached Hay (Wales!) the winds calmed and the sun was out, climbing up Gospel was even more sheltered from any winds with glorious sunshine on the top. Dropping down the other side things cooled and clouded over, once on the main road I turned north into a block headwind. Then the rain came! Miserable! Considering it's a normally quite quick ride back it really dragged on,
I was struggling to hold over 20mph and near 200W at that point, the only thing keeping me going was seeing my average speed slowly tick up from 14mph to 15.4mph.
On the climb itself, the flat just before the summit of Gospel the sun was out gloriously and at around 1200ft was the warmest part of the whole ride! Lots of cars out so had to stop a number of times (single track road). The steepest drag parts of the climb are towards the bottom with only a couple of ramps towards the top so the top was enjoyable.
Once sketchy steep section (think it's this part called 'tack wood' - around half way up through some trees) was where it hurt most, a couple of riders coming the other way gave me some encouragement which helped immensely. I'd been trying to climb any constant parts at 300-330W until then, that section taxed me so bad I had to stand and grind it in 36*32.
Nearing the top I had to stop twice just before the car park, one of them on a ramp but I didn't struggle to get going again so I knew my legs were good. Lots of cars in the car parks here with people in tshirts having picnics! I stopped for a few pictures there (first 3-4) before
spinning away easy up to the summit, a little cheeky climb at the end I really enjoyed as I had the sun on my back.
After dropping down through Capel-y-ffin and Llantony the clouds covered over, it was slow going with many oncoming vehicles. Overtook two people on a tandem and gave them some encouragement as the stoker only had 1 arm! They were enjoying themselves so I'm not sure they'd done the same climb I had!
On the way back in the rain when I reached 'Locks garage' I'd had enough, I came very close to calling the other half... I was wet and cold eating the last of my food, I put my long fingered gloves on and layered up. The 5-10 minute rest (I probably should've had a warm drink from the garage) worked, I decided to take the shortest route home (and promptly took a wrong turn a few miles later lol). After 15-20 minutes the rain stopped, the change in direction (from NE to NW) along with the hedgerows sheltering me from much of the winds helped hugely and I finished feeling quite strong, along with seeing the total elevation tick over 3000ft as another 'landmark'. I contemplated doing a couple more miles to make it up to 60 but didn't as a warm shower was much more appealing!
Smashed the goals I'd set myself for the climb:
Fairly sure I can take maybe up to 5 minutes off it knowing the climb a little better without start-stopping for cars and pictures. Still don't quite know how the guys Everesting it (as a 'Sportive', 19 climbs!) in July are going to manage it!
With that 58 and the 45 on saturday I'm now ahead of my Strava 'pace' (yearly mileage goal) for the first time.
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