Christmas Toys (Life's little ups and downs)

Santa duly arrived and delivered new boy's toy courtesy of little sister (aka Mrs Sloth).

I am sufficiently enamoured of Velimpex Sky-Mounti that I believe every hill cycling anorak should have one.

OK so its not electronic, doesn't make beeping noises etc, but it does lay to rest all those doubts about how slow I might be up hill.

Sunday saw a 55 mile ride out round rural Warwickshire and showed that any gentle gradient of up to 4 or 5% is little problem. 5 to 10% can be coped with, and above that its time to get into the granny gear and grind the way to the top.

Edge Hill proved this easily with a posted road sign saying 14% maximum. Sky-Mounti confirmed, posting 14% in 3 separate stretches, with 8 to 10% in between. It would be true to say that the 1.3km climb did seem to drag on, but I made the top without putting a foot down (something I would have been incapable of just 3 or 4 months ago)

Does it help to know how steep things are? I think "Yes" since it gives an indication whether you should really slow down, or whether you're just feeling lazy or tired. Certainly, it removes the tendency to push too hard on false flats where the road looks flat but is actually going up at 3 or 4%.

Thanks Mary.

Good progress on the Turbo trainer, not only have I managed the Col de Telegraphe (about 10k with 800m of climbing), but tonight I managed to finish Alpe D'Huez (abandoned yesterday after tripping the thermal cutout in the Turbo trainer, oops!).

13.5km, 1067m ascent at 8.2%, completed in 1:24:54 and burned 1073 of those nasty calorie thingys at an average of 9.6kmh. That might just do in the Summer with a little further improvement.

More post next week after this weekends Audax in the Peaks. 108km with 1750m of climbing coming right up............