5 big climbs

On Saturday we did a fairly easy 54km ride during which I spend the majority of the ride riding at the front. It was quite a change for me from the role of merely trying to keep up with the group that I use to cycle with in Pretoria. With my new group I get to ride at the front for big parts of the ride and that is very hard work. My 50km ride left me more tired than I though it would have and I would have really suffered if it had gone on for 100km

On Sunday we did another 55km ride but this time it was all different. The ride was centered on 5 big climbs. We cycled to the location where the climbs was and then did the climbs and afterwards cycled back home. Each of the big climbs was about 1.5 - 2.5km long and rather steep. In the area in South Africa where I live a climb of 2 km is thought of as big, but where I lived in Pretoria a climb of 1.5 km is quite common and I only really felt one of the climbs. Fishers hill is a climb of 2.5km with a very steep section at the end that goes for about 400m. The steep section is as steep as the steepest climbs that I have done but nothing that I have done that is that steep was longer than about 100m. The added length at the steepest gradient that I have cycled, certainly made Fishers hill a climb that I will visit again and again.

All and all a very nice cycling weekend