Leith Hill 8 months on...

CXrider

As an update, I now tend to do one Newlands Corner, one Leith and finish with box hill before returning back to Woking. I try and do this about once a week with other training every other day.
The rapid increase in my climbing ability and leg muscles is amazing.
I now only really look for hilly routes, or try to improve on the ones i regularly do, and find it very rewarding.
I now find that nourishment plays a HUGE difference on rides like this. One day I feel super fresh and can really spin up the hills, whilst other days it is a bloody struggle and it seems to come down to breakfast and what I eat/drink on the ride. Very important it seems once you start doing 2 to 5 hour rides.

drlodge

To mix it up a bit, you could ascend Staple Lane instead of Newlands, then either down Coombe or do Green Dene and up Crocknorth for a bit extra exercise (down Whitedown to go up the Hollow Lane route or carry on Ranmore down Ranmore Common Road towards Box Hill missing out Leith).

Hill do stretch your body and like you, I always look for some hills :-)

philbar72

yesterday the police weren't allowing traffic into the southernmost entrance to Leith, just so you are all aware. the road appears to have a massive hole in it!

Hopefully fixed very soon.

drlodge

Thanks - its the B2126 that's closed for 6 weeks according to NT. Good to know as I might be going round there this Sunday.

philbar72

Was looking forward to testing the legs, ended up going up Tanhurst yesterday. thats a crappy little climb.... nearly got knocked off by a car driver on one of the steeper bits!

drlodge

Tanhurst is a joy now compared to when it had its pre-made-up road surface! Did you have to contend with a river flowing down it, lots of pot holes and rocks? Thought not... ;-)

alex222

I quite enjoy the Tanhurst route up. More irregular so in and out the saddle whick makes a nice change to the other options.
Never tried it prior to resurfacing though, when it sounds a lot worse.

philbar72

Tanhurst is fine, the irregularity of it doesn’t hurt at all. I just wish the car driver behind me hadn’t nearly knocked me off my bike. I had to walk up 2/3 of it because of that! I’ve done it before and it gets very lumpy in some places, which is great, I don’t mind that.

Slo Mo Jones

philbar72 wrote:

Tanhurst is fine, the irregularity of it doesn’t hurt at all. I just wish the car driver behind me hadn’t nearly knocked me off my bike. I had to walk up 2/3 of it because of that! I’ve done it before and it gets very lumpy in some places, which is great, I don’t mind that.

Eurgh

I hate it. I hated it when I first went up it (before the resurfacing, on a wet day when a stream runs down it, and when I was nearly run over), and I hated it at the weekend when I went up it for the second time. It's fine until you get to the blind s-bend, when I am certain I am about to be wiped out by a Range Rover. Plus I punctured on a slither of glass, one of the many bits of crap all over the road.

elbowloh

Yeah Tanhurst was terrible before, slipping all over the place in the stream, impossible to get traction.

If you're gonna do the Surrey Hills, throw in Barhatch! Tougher than Whitedown imo.

drlodge

Barhatch is the Daddy - longer and steeper than WhiteDown. Of course Barhatch leads north towards Whitedown and you'd be a wimp not to do both ;-)

CXrider

drlodge wrote:

To mix it up a bit, you could ascend Staple Lane instead of Newlands, then either down Coombe or do Green Dene and up Crocknorth for a bit extra exercise (down Whitedown to go up the Hollow Lane route or carry on Ranmore down Ranmore Common Road towards Box Hill missing out Leith).

Hill do stretch your body and like you, I always look for some hills :-)

ha, yeah, spookilly enough I did Staple Lane last week and also last Sunday on the Club run.

It is worse than it looks as although its not that steep it doesnt give you much chance to recover.
The route up from the Lotus garage is the easiest one I think and Coombe Hill is fine apart from that last ramp but its short enough to grimace and sprint if need be.

Doing leith Hill (and a few others) on the Surrey100 on Sunday - anybody else doing it?

alex222

I haven't got round to trying Barhatch yet. Had heard it was tougher than Whitedown so keen to give it go. Bit more of a trek for me to get to so was waiting until there was a group of us up for it.
Have the Leith Hill Octopus in the diary for the August bank holiday weekend.

davep1

philbar72 wrote:

yesterday the police weren't allowing traffic into the southernmost entrance to Leith, just so you are all aware. the road appears to have a massive hole in it!

Hopefully fixed very soon.

Hi Philbar, were you there about 10 o'clock? Those young-ish lady police officers were a bit...attitudey...weren't they? One of them did get her phone out and tried to find an alternative route for us though. We did Tanhurst Lane too, I find it much harder than Leith Hill. My ride buddies hadn't been up Whitedown before, so I played it down beforehand...

Did anyone else see the Swedish charity ride? Most in the same tops, most on the same Trek bikes. Some of them were very fit, some were not so. Went up Tanhurst with them, they were all shouting stuff in Swedish, made it feel unlike a country lane in rural Surrey! Could have done without the road rager (British) effing and blinding at us because were were on the wrong side of the road - like there's two sides of that road!

I agree Barhatch is the daddy in the south east; as long as Whitedown but a much harder kick at the top. What's the hardest? Bignor Hill is hard, but the toughest part is at the bottom; if you get over that it's just a grind to the top. If anyone is planning a trip it ends on the South Downs Way so you have to come back down; even a CX bike would struggle with flinty surface. And the road is a bit crappy too, take it steady going down.

drlodge

The thing with Barhatch is that its easy to over do it early on, and then you have nothing in the tank when it kicks up at the end - and the kick is quite steep and longer than you think. On the plus side, you can see the top at the last plateau which is just shallow enough to sit yourself down and take some deepth breaths before the final "sprint" to the top.

Slo Mo Jones

I've never done White Down before. Harder than Leith?

I'll have a pootle up there this weekend.

charlie_potatoes

Slo Mo Jones wrote:

I've never done White Down before. Harder than Leith?

I'll have a pootle up there this weekend.

Yeah it's a fair bit harder but as drlodge says Barhatch is harder still.
Whitedown is a favourite of mine though.

CXrider

Did anyone else see the Swedish charity ride? Most in the same tops, most on the same Trek bikes. Some of them were very fit, some were not so. Went up Tanhurst with them, they were all shouting stuff in Swedish, made it feel unlike a country lane in rural Surrey! Could have done without the road rager (British) effing and blinding at us because were were on the wrong side of the road - like there's two sides of that road!

Yeah, I was riding with the Woking CC and we went up Staple Lane at the same time as them. They all then met and stopped at the top whilst we turned left without stopping.
Did you see us? Ether red/black tops or orange/white chequered tops depending on old or new kit!

CXrider

Charlie Potatoes wrote:

Slo Mo Jones wrote:

I've never done White Down before. Harder than Leith?

I'll have a pootle up there this weekend.

Yeah it's a fair bit harder but as drlodge says Barhatch is harder still.
Whitedown is a favourite of mine though.

I don't think I have done either of those, though I might have done it on a club run as I never ever paty attention to where I am going just follow the leader... :oops:

Has anybody got a link to a Garmin gpx or tcx file that includes one or both of the hills that I can put into my garmin?
Cheers.

charlie_potatoes

CXrider wrote:

Has anybody got a link to a Garmin gpx or tcx file that includes one or both of the hills that I can put into my garmin?
Cheers.

If you PM your email to me I'll send you a file.

davep1

CXrider wrote:

Did anyone else see the Swedish charity ride? Most in the same tops, most on the same Trek bikes. Some of them were very fit, some were not so. Went up Tanhurst with them, they were all shouting stuff in Swedish, made it feel unlike a country lane in rural Surrey! Could have done without the road rager (British) effing and blinding at us because were were on the wrong side of the road - like there's two sides of that road!

Yeah, I was riding with the Woking CC and we went up Staple Lane at the same time as them. They all then met and stopped at the top whilst we turned left without stopping.
Did you see us? Ether red/black tops or orange/white chequered tops depending on old or new kit!

Sorry - I was looking for Swedish lovelies so may have missed anyone else! And trying to keep the wheels turning up Tanhurst...

CXrider

Would you believe it - I actually did Whitedown yesterday. I was following the hilly section of the Surrey100 ride on Sunday and came across that massive road closure on the way to Abinger. Had to hook a left towards Gomshall. I was now lost and my Garmin was not picking up a re-route so I turned right at the next junction and spookily enough there was a sign saying Whitedown Lane!! :shock:

As my planned route was buggered and I was hear for hill practice I took a left and went for it. It was at about midday I think and there were a couple of riders well up the hill.

I was thinking that this was a bit easy and WTF was all the fuss on the forum about.
I then came across this sign:



Oh dear....

It was a bit of a beast but I did manage it without stopping but it did cross my mind at one point when I looked up and realised this was still going on! :roll:

As I was then lost anyway I took a left and headed down Crocknorth(?) which is scary (I had been up it before and thats tough as well.) and made my way home.

I think the first hill I did was almost as bad. Don't know what it was but it's on my route below:



Need to find this barhatch now

drlodge

Nice one. I'm guessing the first hill is Hound House Road - quite long but not as steep as Whitedown. It goes past the end of Barhatch (on the right) near the top.

CXrider

OK, thanks. Now I know where it is I will give it a try and then I think I will have gone up every major hill in Surrey.
I will then try your hills route - and then that silly Leith Hill Octopus thing. Haha. Makes me laugh when I hear that.
Do you get a special "I disarmed the Octopus!" T-Shirt when you've done it!

CXrider

yay, did Bar Hatch Lane this morning:

http://ridetoparis.co.uk/43-master-of-the-hills

drlodge

I lead the ride last week and did it then too :-P

MiddleRinger

CXrider wrote:

Did anyone else see the Swedish charity ride? Most in the same tops, most on the same Trek bikes. Some of them were very fit, some were not so.

Yeah, I was riding with the Woking CC and we went up Staple Lane at the same time as them.

Passed the big bunch of Swedish up Staple Lane, they were on a week long 1000+ km ride from Wales, it was their final day and understandably some looked absolutely shattered!

As for the Surrey Hills, I'd say Barhatch is my least favourite. Just not a "nice" climb.

CXrider

As for the Surrey Hills, I'd say Barhatch is my least favourite. Just not a "nice" climb.

You mean as quite oppressive with bugger all views and far too narrow and unsafe?
Or just that's hard to get up it without reaching your limits?

As both are true!

philbar72

DaveP1 wrote:

philbar72 wrote:

yesterday the police weren't allowing traffic into the southernmost entrance to Leith, just so you are all aware. the road appears to have a massive hole in it!

Hopefully fixed very soon.

Hi Philbar, were you there about 10 o'clock? Those young-ish lady police officers were a bit...attitudey...weren't they? One of them did get her phone out and tried to find an alternative route for us though. We did Tanhurst Lane too, I find it much harder than Leith Hill. My ride buddies hadn't been up Whitedown before, so I played it down beforehand...

Did anyone else see the Swedish charity ride? Most in the same tops, most on the same Trek bikes. Some of them were very fit, some were not so. Went up Tanhurst with them, they were all shouting stuff in Swedish, made it feel unlike a country lane in rural Surrey! Could have done without the road rager (British) effing and blinding at us because were were on the wrong side of the road - like there's two sides of that road!

I agree Barhatch is the daddy in the south east; as long as Whitedown but a much harder kick at the top. What's the hardest? Bignor Hill is hard, but the toughest part is at the bottom; if you get over that it's just a grind to the top. If anyone is planning a trip it ends on the South Downs Way so you have to come back down; even a CX bike would struggle with flinty surface. And the road is a bit crappy too, take it steady going down.

No attitude from the officers for me, they were there to do a job. Some of the riders in our group were a bit daft, repeatedly asking them to be allowed onto the climb.

In the end after 3 sentences (all identical) from me, our group got the message and went up Tanhurst. Whereupon I nearly got knocked off by an audi driver in a rush! 

As for those groups of riders, yes passed literally around 70-80 of them heading back to Kingston. Formidable sight.

Mikey23

http://www.strava.com/segments/6747370

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