Leith Hill - The Mayhem's Blog

This Saturday I agreed to ride the Leith Hill Octopus, it is an unofficial sportive route which takes in all 8 ascents up Leith Hill in Surrey. Although Box Hill is probably the most famous climb in Surrey following the Olympic road race course Leith Hill is much more challenging and steep. Adding to that is the face the road conditions vary a lot, it is quite narrow and there are steep banks on either side of the road for a large proportion of the routes.
I’ve climbed a few of the routes up before but certainly not all in one ride especially as at least 2 loops of Barhatch Road had been thrown in at the end to add to the pain. This was all training for the other guys I was cycling with to ride the 3 faces of Ventoux in September, unfortunately I can’t make that trip though.

Continue reading “Leith Hill Octopus + Barhatch Road (twice)”

I was lucky enough to get a place in the ballot for the 100mile RideLondon event this year, this is a closed road sportive following a similar route to the 2012 London Olympic cycle route. Around 30,000 people can take part with both a 100mile and 46 mile route on offer this year. A ballot is run to get places and these are randomly allocated, it is also possible to enter through a charity if you agree to raise a minimum amount. I assume that the charities have to pay a lot for these places but this seems like a similar method to what they use for the marathon events too. This event is actually organised by the same company who run the London Marathon so they have a lot of experience in big events.

Continue reading “RideLondon 2017”