Hills and more hills

Hills are good for training and for seeing a long way away; hills provide a mental challenge as well as a physical one and require concentration to master them. This Sunday I hope that we will be up to some of the steepest hills in Wiltshire and complete the CTC ride with some remaining dignity (and the memories of some nice views).

I've done a quick pre-clean and lube prior to the main clean up and lube on Saturday after my commute of Friday. Although it is dry outside the bike still acts like a shit magnet; the chain is wearing quickly and the only thing that will slow this process is regular de-greasing and re-lubing. I'm trying out Muk-Off's C3 ceramic lube, yet to ride with it but it seems...erm, slippery. The chain has to last until mid April when I will replace it and the cassette in time for May's ride.

My training mind set is to seek out the steepest hills and hardest rides, I have control over where and when I ride during training but this will not be the case in May. I have to take the terrain as it comes and I might get a nasty hill right at the end of the day. No good missing hills in training because I feel tired, let's face it, if feeling tired was a reason to sit down no one would ever exercise past the 10 minute mark.

Last Saturday's ride was no exception, I admit that I was ready to stop when I got back to Hanney; it was cold and even with the cake and tea at Steve's house the tank was empty. I followed my own rules and ploughed on to achieve Chain Hill and, to be fair, it wasn't as bad as I though it was going to be after 50 miles of riding.

I suppose my badly made point here is that mental weakness in training will equal mental weakness on the day. Mindset can be trained in the same way that muscles can. I'll have enough to worry about on the ride itself so trying to make hills second nature now can only be a positive thing.

Roll on the weekend and the CTC ride at Swindon - apparently the hills are.....interesting!