Ditchling Beacon 2012 London to Brighton

This is my climb up Ditchling Beacon on the 2012 BHF London to Brighton charity ride.
I was pretty pleased that I made it all the way up without stopping. I did this quite comfortably but I wouldn't say it was easy - as you can tell by the sounds of the fat guy gasping his way up the hill!
At the time I was about 260 lbs so a fair bit of extra baggage to haul up the hill!
I'm looking forward to doing the ride again later this year (2013).
Loved the two on the tandem! They were really funny. If the guy was to believed he was doing all the work and the girl on the back was just along for the ride!

[@billb207]

Impressed by that girl at 09:41 powering up that hill on a bit of a sit up-and-beg bike laden with a pannier.

[@christopherfisher7805]

Allez .Allez Allez All he has to do is 5 seconds faster than Wiggins on this climb, and it's the Mountains Jersey for him!!...Allez ! ALLEZ !!! ..ALLEZ!!!!!

[@bigblokeonabike]

I thought the same. It did make me smile that a fat bastard like me was cycling past all those skinny guys in lycra! I did a few hilly rides before this. I do Box Hill quite regularly as it's only a 20 odd mile round trip from me. I also did the King of the Downs (half route) which had some pretty tough hills on. Other than that it's just my 36 mile a day commute which is basically flat but I do try and get my heart rate up...

[@PeowPeowPeowLasers]

Plenty of power if you sit your arse right on the back of the saddle and keep it there. I never stand on the pedals, unless you're sprinting to catch someone up I think it's a waste of power. Interesting to see so many people out of the saddle and then reigning it in when their legs turn to jelly :)

[@sw19cam]

People big Ditchling Beacon up too much. I did a London-Brighton night ride (FNRTTC-Martlets hospice) and was fearing this hill on account of what everyone had been saying about it. I'm not saying it's 'easy' but it is very doable if you change your gears and you're prepared to keep at it. And anyway, you're rewarded afterwards ;)

[@hadleighmurad]

7 years later! I completely agree, I did the same night ride and all the "roadies" were saying to us, wait until you get to the big hill, peddled right through it, absolutely amazing feeling, passed so many people and I'm not exactly a small person and I had an old/heavy 26" wheel mtb. It was cool enough to keep my overheating temperature down, maybe in the sun, i wouldn't be able to do this. Riding down the descent was pure ecstasy, saw loads of lights from tents in the hills and you could hear people cheering and partying, which made it feel like a real achievement, that was the longest day of my life when returning back to London via coach in the morning lol.

[@TheDanielCoyle]

well done :) that hill seemed to go on forever

[@Nimai_HiFi]

Did this on Sunday without stopping, its a good hill. Shame I couldn't tear arse down the descent though, because of the accidents.

[@bigblokeonabike]

No I don't have a single speed. IMHO a single speed would really NOT be a good idea on this ride. I need pretty much as low a gear as possible on hills so if I wanted any reasonable top speed out a single speed I probably wouldn't be able to get over a speed hump! My bike has 3 rings on the front and 8 on the back (I think). I think I was pretty much in the lowest gear all the way up this hill.

[@bigblokeonabike]

Syncing this was a real PITA as It was a 6 hour long data file and a 90 minute video. Normal syncing is easy when I have GPS from the camera as I just line up the dots! I like the pretty guages :-) rendering does take a while but on short clips which I will usually be creating it won't take long.

[@MrNightcrawler1969]

We have some lovely hills up here in the North East to train on.

[@GrahamLSimmons]

What's most interesting is the amount of people in pretty serious-looking gear with pretty serious-looking bikes who can't make the climb. Flat-land commuters I guess. I realised recently my commute is far too flat, so rather than go out on club rides for the next few weeks I'm going to try and find the longest ascent I can and train it. Gotta prep for this hill in the summer, yknow! :D

[@keislayzell9255]

If you are using the Beacon as a training aid you will be fine, just go out for a few rides building up to about 4 or 5 hours and get used to feeding on them. Best of luck

[@bigblokeonabike]

All the data was collected using my Garmin 800 cycle computer. The dials were added later with some software I forget the name of!

[@hadleighmurad]

Dashware i believe?

[@bigblokeonabike]

@CycleGaz I can assure you if I had a lower gear I would have been using it!

[@bigblokeonabike]

Yup, that's the whole thing.

[@Hdtjdjbszh]

I live in Brighton, this is one of my training hills. It is brutal! Doing my first london to brighton this year, any tips?? I can easily handle the beacon, but usually it is at the beginning of my ride or after about 20 miles. How tiring are the other hills before the beacon? Any help wouyld be appreciated as im bricking it and its like 8 months away

[@carlofino4666]

mate, with the watts u are pushng if u lose some kg u would be flying up that hill

[@trident1314]

looks pretty brutal...what are you using to get these readings

[@Lucpol1986]

What's with all the ''wannabe roadies, with wannabe gear' pushing up the hill?... Kudos to those that made it.

[@adammacdonald3126]

what power meter did you use?

[@PetitDreams]

Are u using a single speed bike? If not then why not? (I'm curious) Isn't it easier to do hills, and long flat distances with a single speed? Just wondering lol thanks (I'm kinda a nice to cycling.)

[@gamma_dablam]

There is no way that single speed makes hills easier. Gears aim to improve cadence efficiency, which single speed obviously can't do