Give those tour riders a target

[Artstu]

I had a ride to Yorkshire and back today to have a go at Holme Moss. It required a lot of battery conservation to and from Holme, along with first going over Holmes Moss from the other side. Over 5,000 feet of climbing in total.

I was about done for when I arrived in Holme, but I made a moderate effort up the climb, it was a strong headwind at the start of the climb, and there were two sets of temporary lights to negotiate on the actual climb. It went okay considering.

 

[flecc]

That's ideal for the Tour, most alpine pass gradients are between 7 and 10%. The Tour mountain stages are more about climb endurance than steepness competition, though there's usually at least one or two stages with the odd 14% sections included.

 

[Artstu]

and this is supposed to be the easy side of Holme Moss tackled in tour setting.

The side that gets all the attention

 

[Artstu]

Well none of the Tour riders who use Strava beat my times on Holme Moss

Marcus looked to be the quickest on the day.

http://app.strava.com/activities/162566215#3773008228

 

[RobF]

Unusually for me, I tried fairly hard last Friday on a stretch of the route between Leyburn and Masham - it was raining and I wanted to get out of it.

It's an unremarkable road, although like most of Yorkshire it's either up or down.

I scalped a few roadies on the climbs, getting a couple of expostulations of surprise in the process.

"How can that podgy bloke on a Noddy bike be passing me? Hold on, he's got a motor."

A couple of the harder core guys duly flew past me on the flatter bits, although most of the ones I passed I didn't see again.