The weather is putting my Snowdonia plans on hold and it doesn’t help that I’m very busy with fun family stuff.
Off to see my mum for the weekend with a stop off in the Surrey hills where I have organised a tour guide to take me over some of the best hills - he’s a lot faster than me so it may be quite a challenging ride!
So, I made it to the Surrey hills today, really very nice and I had a guide.
Ticked off 3 today (and on my friend Jeremy’s route so nothing to do with me!)
No118 - Coldharbour Lane (lovely), No18 White Down (stiff) and No14 Box Hill (also lovely)
I think that takes me to 54, must remember to get the app!
If it got to 18% it was certainly not for long. Strava gradients are never accurate enough to help either.
FWIW it felt like steady 15% with the odd slightly harder and easier moments. The main challenge for me was that it went on for quite a lot longer than I thought it would - the false summit about half way up really caught me out.
I really liked the Denbies climb too, lovely setting
Whitedown is pretty much dead straight ~15%, other than the bend at the bottom which is much shallower, you’re probably describing Coombe I think, the next road to the west, which is a hard ~18% left hander after 4-5 minutes of 6-8% and followed by another bit of ~9% so there’s no immediate recovery.
(I think the official climb version of whitedown may start at the A25, but that’s not really a hill)
I never climbed it much, even though, it’s exactly the sort of climb I liked, and the alternative for the routes going near there not so nice - but having to stop and open the gate always ruined it.