Christening the 2021 Hilly 50 challenge

Downhill half the way!

Paul at the start of this year's Hilly 50 challenge in Carshalton Park.  The Hogpit is a huge earthwork, unrelated to the World War II bomb shelter for 1000 people that was in the park.  It is of unknown origin but suspected to be ancient.  It was recorded in 1444 as the Hoggpytte and in the thirty five years we have lived here we have never before seen it flooded.

My thighs ache and a drowsy numbness pains my sense as though of hemlock I had drunk or emptied some dull opiate to the dregs

Why am I so tired?  Why do I need the wings of poesy to take me up this potholed road to catch Dave Vine?  Is it the gale?  That's blowing behind me now, helping me up the last of Chipstead Way.  Is it the rain?  My Madison shorts have repaid a small part of their cost by drying out on me despite the persistent drizzle.  

I should not be tired after a day of descending, even if the weather was so bad they had called out the lifeboat in Caterham.  I should not be tired; there had been much downhill.

On the day in question you couldn't clearly see the lamppost on Pine Walk, but this was the view of the City from Pine Walk that we were missing

The first big descent, Holly Lane, was a bit exposed, but there was still that thrill of being blown off balance in the wind and overtaken by the maniac Openreach van.

The run along the top on Woodmansterne Lane is always a treat, a mile of slight descent in the lightest of traffic and pleasant semi-countryside if you can see it (the windscreen wipers on my glasses are not working).

The descent of Rectory Lane had only the odd branch, and the temporary lake at the bottom was only ten or twelve square yards and a few inches deep.

Dave on Hollymead Road at the top of How Lane, just before the Rickman Hill descent.  We were past photography after this point!

Rickman Hill would be the perfect one, drizzle pleasantly light, a view of Clockhouse on the hill in front of you, gentle start, no traffic, increasing gradient, fine road surface, but it has a 10mph speed limit at the top and a 20mph limit on the bit you should be zinging.

Grove Lane is the fourth serious descent, and though it has a nasty couple of potholes at the top at the moment, it's a lovely cruise downhill with Farthing Downs and the old water tower at Netherne to be glimpsed through the rain ahead of you.

The Cane Hill Slalom is entirely devoid of potholes, being new and thoroughly middle-class, and would be unlimited fun if it weren't for the big Coulsdon roundabout at the bottom.

The downhill from Netherne is another easy tarmac snake, but spotting the path on the left was tricky and even Dave, whose idea the path was, got overtaken with the joy of descent and overshot it a little.

White Lane might be a pain to climb but we were going down it and the road surface was good even if the the angels had turned up the power shower a little, and I had my scout Dave, a far less inhibited descender than me, to discover the huge gravel beach on the fastest stretch near the valley bottom.

Markedge Lane would have been fun past Fanny's Farm had the heavens not truly released their cats and dogs just as Dave announced his puncture.  It must have taken us twenty minutes to fix; why do tyres get dirtier and less stretchy in the cold rain?  Crikey were we cold and wet as we completed that descent and for the only time I was tempted to postpone further descending until another day but luckily this was the apogee of our irregular orbit, so finishing was going to be a long business anyway.

The weariness, the fever and the fret,

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs;

O for a draught of vintage, o for a beaker full of the warm south with beaded bubbles winking at the brim

Brief as it is, Church Lane at Chaldon is a relief if you are travelling north as we were, but it hardly counts as a downhill.  No, the ninth full descent is Burntwood Lane which is wide and well surfaced but a bit too much of a main road and has a few too many Range Rovers using it to be a truly carefree experience and you have to be careful not to miss the turn before the railway bridge.  Still, as the heavy rain turned to a misty drizzle, it proved a fine clothes drier.

But the best descent is the tenth; Old Lodge Lane, which takes you down from Kenley Aerodrome to Purley.  It has everything; a promising looking pub at the top, a winding undulating country lane for a bit of excitement and then a long, suburban hill (pity about the speed bumps).  No pedalling for a good, long mile.  Cycling as it should always be.

Away, away, for I will fly to thee

Woodcote Valley Road is a little known pleasure, straight and definitely downhill but all too short, and the last descent, Woodcote Grove Road, the A237, is a switchback but you can (nearly) make the ups without changing gear if you pedal hard on the downs.

So after all that descending, why are my legs arguing so, as Dave handles Chipstead Way better than me and, more to the point now, is near the top while I am halting the traffic to pick up my handlebar mirror from the middle of the road?  Toughen up, lad, you've spent half the forty miles going downhill! 

Was it a vision or a waking dream

Fled is that music.  Do I wake or sleep?

Evidence that we got to the end?  Certainly, but we might just have ridden there the short way from Carshalton.  No matter, we will be contributing to the Mike Morley fund for St Raphael's Hospice, which is what it's all about.

With apologies to John Keats.  There weren't any nightingales.  And it was Ash Wednesday, so I couldn't even enjoy that beaker of  the warm south.