I thought I'd keep this thread alive for a little longer and share some more bike experiences. I found reading through all the forum threads very helpful when deciding which bike was right for me, so perhaps my views will help someone else later down the line.
The weather has been beautiful for the last few days and I've been making good use of it by taking long lunch breaks and running some errands... paying cheques in, posting letters etc.
On Wednesday I decided that as I'd never been to Biggin Hill before and as I wouldn't have to tackle any of the really steep hills to get there, I should go and explore the area and see what shops were there. I took a quick look at the OS map, strapped my phone to the handlebars with a couple of Rapstrap and started up Nokia SportTrack so I could record my route.
My route started with a long gradual 4.5 mile climb past the Harrow pub, along Ledgers Road (startling a deer and two pheasants along the way) and joining the cycle path that runs alongside Limpsfield Road up to Botley Hill Farm at the very top of the North Downs at over 1000ft up. It's downhill to everywhere from here. When I reached the end of the cycle path I spotted what appeared to be a tarmac a footpath labeled as the North Downs Way leading through the woods. As I didn't fancy having to cycle back up the very steep Titsey Hill I took to the path which quickly turned into a leafy track through the forest along the side of the road. I wasn't in any rush so I very slowly picked my way along the path at a couple of miles per hour avoiding all the fallen branches until the route led to a set of about 25 steps leading straight up the side of the hill. Ah well... I picked up the Agattu and climbed the steps. The bike handled the leafy forest path ok except that I had to keep on poking leaves out of the close-fitting mudguards.
At the top of the steps, the path resumed along relatively flat ground until it joined up with White Lane. I looked at the road.. uphill or down... I decided that downhill was probably the right way to get to Biggin Hill and turned down White Lane, upon reaching the bottom I realised that I'd been going in totally the wrong direction and had to turn around and go straight back up the Mighty steep hill again, climbing up around 200ft on a road that's around 800ft long. At one point I got off to push and quickly found that pushing was harder work than cycling in 1st gear.
At the top of the hill I crossed over Clarks Ln and took the gradual downhill along Approach Road towards Tatsfield. At Tatsfield, I took another wrong turn and took the long route out via Tatsfield Lane to join up with the Main Road into Biggin Hill. A long downhill cruise for a couple of miles saw me arrive in the town centre (10 miles since I started). After a stroll down the high street and a quick can of Pepsi from the local newsagent I hopped back on the bike and decided to see if I could manage a better route home. I checked my phone's maps application, worked out a route and headed down the hill, turning off the main road and then heading down the near-vertical polesteeple hill dropping about 130ft in the space of 400ft of road. At the bottom of the hill, I decided there was no way this could be the right route, turned round and headed back up it (again in 1st)... Back at the main road I checked my maps again, turned round and went back down Polesteeple hill once again and then back up the other side of the valley via Lusted Hall Lane into Tatsfield. The rest of the return journey was easy going, joining Clarks Lane and then following the Limpsfield Road cycle path once again until it met with Ledgers Road (where I startled a third pheasant).
The total trip was 19.11 miles and took me 2h,3m to complete.. My average speed was a mere 9.3mph, but that includes browsing the shops and drinking some Pepsi and going the wrong way at every possible opportunity. I find it amusing that in my efforts to avoid big steep hills, I managed to climb the steep bits over and over again when I didn't need to. Maybe I should take the OS map with me next time. Max Altitude 323metres, min 194m. Leg muscles turned to pulp.
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Today I went into South Croydon to pay a couple of cheques in. I knew the route this time so didn't have to deal with any wrong turns. I took a route through Farleigh and Selsdon which was mostly a blissful long gradual downhill for 4.5 miles straight into the centre of town. There's just one big uphill and one set of traffic light on the way there which show up as the low-speed bits on the graph below. After 4.5 miles I arrived at the bank. I was expecting the return journey to be a lot more difficult than it proved to be, the electric motor giving me plenty of help and keeping my speed above 15mph for most of the journey back home. I was surprised that I was in 7th for most of the way back. I do wish that you didn't have to stop pedaling to switch down gears though... You only need to switch down gears when you're going up a really steep bit and stopping pedaling means that you loose all of your speed and then have to switch down even more gears to compensate.
The 9 mile journey there and back took me a total of 36 mins which I find to be pretty amazing. I'm sure it would have taken me longer to do this with a car as there would be nowhere to park once I got there. Average speed 14.9mph, Max speed 38.5mph
I'm still loving this bike and not a hint of buyers remorse.
Hope all you found this writeup enjoyable to read. All the Google route maps and Speed/Altitude graphs were done with Nokia SportTrack.
