Yartley Bank ha ha ha

Everyone has there nemesis... Superman has Lex Luther, Gordon Brown has Tony Blair... I have hills! I hate them as, well to be honest despite losing 17lb, I still am not powerful enough to get up anything but the shortest hill without panting. So..today I faced a major nemesis.... Yartley Bank.... a magnificent 140 foot climb!!!

Lets rewind a bit...how comes I ended up climbing it; well, I was planning to get the train into Birmingham and riding back from there but the first 200 yards put a stop to that idea! Blimey, was it windy and did my back hurt when I hit a couple of lumps in the road! Nooooo, not going to risk being stuck miles from home, so instead I decided to go somewhere more local...and flat. Shame is, I ended up on the Stone road feeling crap but needing to keep my average miles up, so much against my better judgement, I ended up in Stone.

Now, there are 3 ways back from Stone: back along the A34 and up Yartley Bank; along the canal or along the Green Lane to Gt Bridgford and back. Well, I discarded the canal idea as I didnt know how my back would put up with it and, sigh, couldnt find the green lane, so I ended up back on the A34....glup!

So, what was Yartley Bank like? Well, I peddled all the way to the top but lets be honest, I did stop once to get my breath back. I do like the back road to Marston as, apart from one other cyclist, it was completely empty!

Well back onto the ring road and then along the canal to the otherside of Acton Tressal before coming home. Er.... I thought this was going to be a short ride??? 27 miles! That's the longest I had done this year.

http://gb.mapometer.com/en/cycling/route_206162.html

A few stats:

Weight Loss: 17lb

Total Distance this month 133 miles (against a target of 220, so 87 miles to do)

Average Distance (without trips to the shop rides) 21 miles against a target of 18 miles.

Not Bad.