North Hertfordshire 5 minute + climbs

Yeah decent hill that one. I did a fair few rides out to the chilterns during lockdown - mostly Bison hill and Ivinghoe beacon, but also made it out to Kop hill and Whiteleaf. Those two back to back were quite tough, I accidently went via Aston hill on the way home too and by that point was completely cooked. It's a lovely area to cycle though, lots of nice roads and hills to explore and I've barely made a dent. 

This post was primarily to find decent hills that I could get out to in the morning before starting work. Obviously hills like Ivinghoe beacon aren't a dime a dozen in this area. When in London (whcich is most of the time) I do most of my longer rides in Kent where there's a ton of steep hills and I definitely took that for granted. 

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the response - time to rediscover these as lockdown 2 kicks off. A shame the cold weather isn't as helpful for getting out as first lockdown. 

Hexton is a favourite of mine - lovely gradient and road surface, just a shame it's not the most quiet at times. 

I've cycled round the 'little switzerland' area a couple of times but not really appreciated the various hills so I'll definitely check them out. I actually just bookmarked an old TT course in the area that I heard about which seems to go up a few of the hills (North Road Hardriders TT). So looking forward to trying that out at some point. 

Those two near Bushey/Barnet look worth checking out too, cheers!

If you're in the Hexton area and fancy a change up Sharpenhoe hill is worth a pop - shorter but much steeper than Hexton. 

Hi Colin,

Thanks for responding. I actually live in Preston funnily enough and I can vouch for these climbs. The most westerly one is Charlton hill which is short and quite sharp, northerly on the Gosmore road I refer to as just Preston hill which you can hit with a bit of speed coming from the downhill just before it, and the easterly one is referred to by locals as Poynders end hill. Poynders end is probably the best for training as it takes the longest but is still only around a 2-3 minute effort so good for repeats but not quite what I was looking for. Both Charlton hill and Preston hill are just over a minute long so good for pure anaerobic type efforts.

In the end I headed over to Welwyn and did 5 reps of Digswell hill from the bottom roundabout up the B197. Had to cross 2 roundabouts on the effort but early morning and with coronavirus there was very little traffic so no interruptions. It's more of a drag than a climb but still enough to provide resistance through the pedals. 
 

Cheers,

Henry

It's a fair comment. I was after hills for a few reasons:

1) I enjoy them and find it more stimulating doing hill repeats rather than just pushing on the flat/rolling terrain for shorter efforts like 5 mins

2) Steady flat ground for 5 mins can be quite hard to find round here and it becomes hard/dangerous to hold the effort on downhills

3) Repeatability - I don't have a powermeter on my bike so it's difficult to get the intensity right. On hills I find it easier to judge the effort, it's easier to keep consistent force through the pedals, and I have segment times to compare my efforts with

4) Traffic or junctions on flat roads are more prevalent than uphill

Hi Hew, thanks a lot for these they look great. I went out one weekend in the summer to find that Coombe lane climb but took the turn before it by accident and climed the road up past the golf club to Therfield instead. It's quite a nice climb but Coombe lane looks a bit longer with a steadier gradient, plus you don't have to worry about stray golf balls... Will definitely check that one out in the coming weeks.

Chishill looks solid too, I'll try to find a loop to incorporate it. I've just come back here for 2nd lockdown and forgot how many short up and downs there are. I did a loop from Hitchin to Huntingdon and Cambridge on Sat to keep it relatively flat but all other routes are constantly up or down for short periods of time. Lovely to get out in the fresh air especially with not much else on offer at the moment.