Fillery Fling: Up and Over

I needed to find some hills.  Gravel hills.  This was to be my first real ride in preparation for doing Colville Connection in five week's time.  I'd not been riding much and knew that if I was going to consider making it to Colville and coping with the ride, I needed to do some training.

Time was limited, but after missing Wednesday night racing due to family commitments, the planets aligned for a brief window of opportunity on Thursday morning.  Oliver had just started back at school after the Christmas/Summer break, but Andrew as still on holiday from work so I could dash out for a ride while he hung out at home with Ella.

Pre-emptive strike

I kitted up and guzzled down an Up&Go to help fuel up for the ride.  I wasn't sure how hard it was going to be - my recollection of riding through here on the Longest Day Ride in 2010 and 2011 was hazy.  I'd gone up the western side and found that a long slog after quite a few kilometres in my legs.  I couldn't recall what the descent was like on the other side and that would be today's first climb.

I set off from the car at a casual pace to get warmed up.  The road meandered a little on the flat, before tipping upwards for a gentle warm up climb.  I coasted down the other side of that and past the red shed I recalled being bathed in glorious sunlight when I rode past it on one of my LDRs.  Here's where the hill really started.

The road was pretty well trafficked, though there wasn't a car in sight today.  The wheel tracks were quite well cleared of any big hunks of stone, but occasionally there was a patch of loose marble-like stones that I had to get over without losing too much speed.  This often required extra effort, extra body english, and a few stern words.

The road got really steep and I struggled with my compact road gearing.  The corrugations through the uphill corners were the worst.  Big hunks of stone sat in the low point between corrugations and would flick out from under my tyres, often resulting in me spinning on the spot for a brief second.  Forward progress was difficult and I wondered what the hell I was doing here.  There isn't a hope in hell of me surviving Colville if I can't ride over a hill.

I stopped for a break to ease the load on my legs, stretch and catch my breath.  I was quite disappointed with how hard this had turned out to be.  My fitness, strength and skill just weren't up to it.  There was no way I was going to turn back, so I kept going.  A few corners later and a ute came past me with someone grinning and waving from the rear window.  Hey! I know that someone!

Two corners further on, the ute had stopped and my niece and nephew were standing on the side of the road waiting for me.  They were on their way to Raglan to camp out for a night before continuing on to Waingaro for a swim.  It was the last few days of their holidays.  Like me, they wanted to know what the hell I was doing there.  My niece told me I was crazy.  It seemed to be a fair and accurate assessment at that time.

We continued on our way; them in front in the ute, and me behind sucking a bit of their road dust until they were out of sight over the brow of the hill.  I came around a corner and saw a familiar stretch of road reaching out in front of me and trending every so slightly downwards.  I had reached the top.

Looking East

Looking west towards Raglan

There was no one around to share in a high five, so I just let out a sigh of relief and continued pedalling, gathering speed for the downhill.  The downhill was reasonably long and quite smooth.  The road was better on this side and I had fun getting some good speed going and staying off the brakes for the corners.

The road levelled out and I decided I had to at least get to the seal before turning around.  I got to the seal and kept going.  My computer wasn't even showing double digits yet.  I cruised along Waitetuna Valley Road, trying to remember how far it was to complete a full loop back through Old Mountain Road and calculate how long it might take me at the sort of speeds I'd been riding so far.

Looking pretty unimpressed

Wind farm on the hills

 I got all the way down to the intersection with Old Mountain Road and stopped to consider my options.  I hadn't told Andrew that I might do the full loop and with no cell coverage there was no way to let him know. I guessed that the Old Mountain Road route would take 2-3 times as long to do as going back the way I came.  Besides, the sealed road was easy going and a nice way to spin my legs out.

Up and over

I got back to the gravel and after a brief stop to pick up some road treasure, I was on may way up and over the hill again.  The climb was long, but not as gruelling as I remembered.  That's not to say it wasn't a struggle, because more than once I really wanted to stop.  But, the thing is, when you are training, you aren't supposed to stop.  I made it to the top and paused to soak up the well earned vista.  Beautiful countryside in every direction and I had it all to myself.

From there it was a fast and loose descent back down the steep side of the hill.  Corners were taken a little more cautiously on this side, with the marbles/stones scattered across the road.

The red shed

After passing the shed I had a little warm down section to ride back to the car.  It was a beautiful ride on Fillery Road, all 22kms of it.  I felt pretty dejected about my performance climbing on the loose gravel and had hoped I would have done better.  I couldn't imagine riding 72km around the Coromandel Penninsula like that - not that I knew what it was like... better?  Or worse?

It took a few days, but eventually my negative feelings settled and I came to the conclusion that I could only improve, and get stronger and fitter with practice.  Let's ride.