Surrey Tour Of the Hills (TOTH) Sunday 17th August

drlodge

My cycling club (Charlotteville CC) is doing this ride on Sunday as our club run, 72 miles from Shere and hitting just about every hill there is - except Box Hill as the road is closed at the east end of Box Hill village.

http://www.aukweb.net/events/detail/14-356/ £8 for Audax UK members, an extra £2 if not.

So I guess the route will go around Box Hill thus: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/5637495

Start is at 9:50am, positively late! Anyone care to join us?

chrisaonabike

Blimey that goes up and down a bit doesn't it

drlodge

It sure does. I went out last night and did the hills that aren't on the route - up to Newlands from Guildford, then Staple Land and back up Newlands from Shere. I think some pacing will be required especially since they saved the best (Barhatch) till last!

chrisaonabike

I see there's a cutoff of the 16th for online booking, can you turn up on the day, pay and ride?

I can't face another day in the rain like last Sunday, so I want to leave the decision as late as possible

drlodge

Don't know if you can pay on the day or not...but you have until 10 hours before the start to make up your mind ;-)

chrisaonabike

drlodge wrote:

Don't know if you can pay on the day or not...but you have until 10 hours before the start to make up your mind ;-)

Fair enough.

It looks a lot more daunting than the RL100

drlodge

Yes, just completing this is a challenge, low gears are required! And its a damn site cheaper that RL100 too.

davep1

drlodge wrote:

It sure does. I went out last night and did the hills that aren't on the route - up to Newlands from Guildford, then Staple Land and back up Newlands from Shere. I think some pacing will be required especially since they saved the best (Barhatch) till last!

That's nasty! Forecast for Sunday isn't great. There's also the Legs of Steel in September if you miss this one...

drlodge

If the forecast is bad I may take the winter bike, but I don't fancy doing that many hills on it.

bikergirl17

It's definitely a testing route (harder than legs of steel) but more so given the painfully poor quality of the roads ... But you easily can do it in compact 24 or 25; other than barhatch -- truly evil to make the last climb -- the steeper bits are relatively short. It looks like that ridewithgps route undershoots the total ascent. Over 7000 feet if I recall.

gavinbay

Great event, and have to say you do have to wonder why more don't do this rather than the "lemming" type sportive's that cost an arm and a leg.

And yes comparisons with Ride London do make this hard core

Great sarnies at the end, roads as ever full of gravel and clay all making it a little tenuous at times, but that's what's so good as it doesn't get cancelled by the "health & safety" brigade :roll:

Did think we'd get some heavy rain at one point but we could see the showers tracking West to East so carried on and in the end was pretty good.

http://www.strava.com/activities/181503547

drlodge

My thoughts exactly. It was well organised, cheap and great food at the hall. The heavy rain kept of thank goodness, but one of my group did slam into a stationary car coming down from Radnor Road, only a broken shifter, the headlight of the car and his pride were damaged.

It was certainly a challenging ride with all those hills!