Yesterday Ian and I met at the same place, same time to have another go. I'd driven firstly through some heavy fpg and then some atmospheric mists only on the fields as I went past the flat riverside fields at Tewkesbury but by the time we met the fog had all gone.
We set off resolutely the 6 or so miles towards Bishop's Cleeve and soon reached the base of the hill. In reality, we should have arranged it so we'd ridden a bit further first as the bodies were not really ready for the load we were about to place on them.
I'd decided to ride as slow as I possibly could as last time my soaring heart rate had beaten me. I was able to do so but my heart rate soared anyway. I felt as though too much adrenalin was pumping through my body and wondered if I'd make it. I glanced at my Garmin and it was showing a gradient of 35%. There is no respite on this particular hill - once it starts it doesn't give any lower gradient sectors for a mini recovery.
I reached the bend where I'd stopped last time and knew there was only one final but hard stretch to go. I dug in with my heart rate at max and happily got to the top. I kept cycling as I didn't want to faint by suddenly stopping the load on my body.
I pulled over and shortly afterwards Ian came into view. He had had to stop once but had ridden the whole hill. He was gutted. He of course does not have the advantage that I have of a triple and a 28 cog lower gear. He'll make it next time.
We carried on our route and made good progress through Winchcombe and on to our next hill, Stanway. This is a nice hill with a fairly steady 8-9% gradient and I decided to push it a bit harder than I have done previously. I saw afterwards that I'd done my PB up this one.
Soon Ian arrived and I've captured him in all his glory in the following video.
One benefit of this decision was that we got to ride down Fish Hill into Broadway. Fish Hill has happy motorbiking memories as it is a favourite due to the 3 tight "kneedown" bends. Ian can't have felt too bad as he came past me at 47mph :)
We kept a good pace for the remaining 10 or so miles and got back to our meeting place having ridden 39 miles. I had planned to do 50 so I set back off and went up a few lanes to get the remaining 11 miles in.
I stopped at the military base in Ashchurch and took a couple of pics of my bike resting against the tank that has sat there for all the years I can recall. Back on the bike to find a couple more miles of lane and then back to the car with 50.7 miles on the clock.
So Bushcombe is tamed. I've just looked and that makes 27 of the 200 hills now climbed (It is 200 as there are 2 books, the second being "Another 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs").