I was a little bit more on the ball than Tuesday, I was actually ready when Mand rolled up to the kiosk, the fact she was late had nothing to do with it, honest!

“Bye Mand, see you tomorrow Gabs!” Con called after us.
“Tschuss!” I returned with a cheery wave.

We didn’t get far – the crossing lights started as we approached and whilst we might’ve beat the barriers we both put the anchors on and came to a halt.

“The Express is a bit late,” Mand suggested.
“Or we are,” I countered.
“Hmmph.”
“Just saying.”
“If I see that damn dog again I’ll...”

I couldn’t help it, I snorted in amusement – again.

Apparently it was an escaped Fritzy that made her late, not chasing him but washing her bike off after the little blighter weed up her wheel! Well I thought it was funny. The Zug squealed and vibrated across the road, the gates swinging up almost as soon as the train was clear of the tarmac.

We followed the valley up to Dümpelfeld where we turned to follow the Ahr towards Blankenheim. Dad suggested we use some of the lanes up the sides of the Ahr gorge for some intensive climbing practice, there’s a bunch of them starting at Insul, all teen percentages with hairpins. By linking several of them we can get a fairly intense but varied workout without having to keep doing laps.

We took the turn in Insul, the climbing starting with a vengeance as soon as we crossed the river. You can’t go far around here without some climbing and with that you soon learn to select your gears in advance, both of us were already in the small ring, to stay seated we were soon well down the sprockets too. Not that you can sit around the hairpins, we rose steadily up the contours, one, two, three, a bit of a rest then the fourth and fifth hairpins before the gradient eased up towards Sierscheid.

Conversation had been left down at the river and only as we rolled across to Harscheid did we resume.

“Bleh!” Mand complained, “don’t want too many of them.”

She’d matched me pedal stroke to pedal stroke, she’s a better climber than she lets on.

“You can bet there’ll be some in Spain, and it’ll be hotter.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Mum says its the heat more than the actual climbs that’s the killer.”
“Thanks oh bringer of joy.”
“I guess its the same for everyone,” I noted.
“Except the Spanish an’ that will be used to it.”
“It's not exactly been cold here.”
“But not top end of the thirties,” she pointed out.
“It won’t be that hot.”
“Ha! according to your dad it will.”
“Sugar,” I allowed.

We looped down onto the Munstereifel road and dropped in a helter skelter chase back to the river to continue up the valley. River and road looped their way to Fuchshofen where we made a turn onto the second climb. there’s no lead into this one, no soft start, no, this time we were out of the saddle before we’d done a hundred metres through the village.

I’ve only been up here a couple of times before and I soon remembered why. Eight hairpins doesn’t sound bad compared to the twenty odd on some alpine climbs but these are all squeezed into something like a kilometre and a half with grades topping twenty percent. No room for any brinkmanship this time, bottom gear and all of the effort was in keeping the bikes moving.

I risked going up a gear on the third ramp but had to drop it back at the bend, it was enough though to gain a couple of metres on de Vreen who’d stayed in bottom. She wasn’t giving me any quarter mind, she slowly closed the gap, sitting on my wheel through turn six before wheezing alongside on the ‘only’ ten percent ramp to the penultimate turn. Not that I was in any better condition, we both rose to get through another stupidly steep corner, even on the outside edge it was well into the teens.

The last ramp barely separates turn seven from eight which kept us up on the pedals until the road lost its viciousness through the meadows crowning the hilltop. I grabbed my bidon and took a hard pull of liquid as I fought to keep the red spots at bay.

“Feck!”
“Not many,” I gasped in agreement.
“Who decided that was a sensible place for a road?”
“Dunno, ‘s the worst one tonight I think.”
“’ope so, thought my legs were gonna explode.”
“Yeah.”

To be honest, it's not often you get such an intense climbing experience, there are steeper climbs, longer climbs, there are roads with more turns but you don’t generally get such an intense arrangement. No, Fuchshofen has to be right up there with anything in the Alps or even Yorkshire, for certain I’ve never ridden a climb close to its intensity anywhere else. I guess Dad wants us prepared for anything, if you can get up here, however slowly, you should manage anything a race will throw up.

There was a chance to recover across the top and a nice fast descent to Antweiler, must remember ‘that’ hairpin for next time mind! Once again we turned to follow the Ahr upstream first through Müsch then through a wider bit of the valley before spotting the next turn ahead.

“Bugger,” Mand allowed under her breath.
“It only goes up to that farm,” I informed her.
“Only,” she repeated dropping her chain to the smaller front option.

After the last one this time is really quite soft. We turned onto the ramp and kept an even cadence up and through the first corner, the second and then started the much steeper ramp to the second pair of hairpins. Four hundred metres of low teen grades with the steepest pitch just over half way, maybe twenty percent but only for like twenty metres tops. Twenty excruciating metres, I think we were both thankful to get over that without stalling.

The last bit up to Dorsel was almost a pleasure to ride even if there are a couple more short sharp ramps up to the crest of the hill. We bobbled along the ridge through Aremberg at a steady lick then got a chance to let it go as we dropped back to the Ahr. Three ‘sectors’ down, one to go, we turned, downstream this time towards Schuld, taking the opportunity to take on a bit of fuel on the almost level retracing of our earlier route.

Schuld is another awkward climb, not overly long although it does climb all the way to Harscheid, no its the first fifteen percent ramp straight up from the valley road that's the killer. I guess if you could take some speed into it you could give it some welly and cover the hundred fifty metres with some speed, when you have to wait to cross into the turn there’s no chance. Mand let out a deep sigh as we entered the road and on slightly rubbery legs we started to heave ourselves upwards once more.

Gott, that was painful, but of course there’s more, oh yes, Dad you’re a sadist! Bergstraße, says it all really, we crawled our way along the crest between two loops of the river until we entered the ever present woodland where the road picked a slightly less capricious gradient up to and through the first hairpin. Thankfully you can sit down on it and we kept up a nice pace even on the couple of steeper sections up into Harscheid.

Of course we were here earlier and now we retraced to Sierscheid and a chance to practice hairpins going downhill. The couple of K down to Insul went far too quickly even with the tight turns slowing us almost to a halt, much, much quicker than going up. From here its almost all downhill back to Dernau and Ill admit that I was pretty glad of that, by the drawn look on Mands fizzogg she was too.

“Good ride?”
“Mum, didn’t know you were back?”
“Flying visit, off to Oslo tomorrow.”
“Alright for some.”
“You are off to Spain for a week,” she pointed out.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Dad says you were doing hill repeats?”
“Not exactly repeats, I think Dad found all the worst climbs this side of the Rhein.”
“Sounds about right, Fuchs?”
“The one with all the hairpins, yeah.”
“Ooo, nasty,” she suggested.
“No kidding.”
“Hi Mrs B,” Mand offered arriving from below dressed in just a towel after what must be the quickest shower ever.
“Hi Amanda, looking forward to Spain?”
“As long as there’re no climbs like we did today.”
“There are some nasty ones down there, mostly long rather than steep.”
“So why did we just kill ourselves on that lot?” I put in.
Mum shrugged, “sure your Dad has his reasons, go get sorted out, Spätzle okay for tea?”
“On its own?”
“Dur, daughter mine, I’ll dress it up, chicken, veggies?”
“Sounds good to me,” Mand opined.

I wouldn’t’ve minded something more, I dunno, meaty maybe but I guess I’ve got out of cooking.

“Yeah, there’s some peas in the fridge you could use up.”
“Half an hour then.”

Well it was closer to forty minutes later that the four of us convened around the kitchen table and started on the egg noodles.

“Da-ad?” I started after clearing my plate.
“Ga-by,” he mimicked back.
“You know me and Mand did all those stupid climbs today?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I mean Mum says the Spanish climbs are mostly just long.”
“Whoa, leave me out it,” Mum told me.

Dad pushed a last fork full of food into his mouth, giving Mum a questioning look. He finished his food and took a swig of his beer before answering.

“Your Mum’s not wrong, most of the climbs will be low grade but long however I was talking to Darren the other week, apparently last time he did the junior Vuelta they chucked in several nasty little climbs, had half the field pushing on one.”
“You think they’ll do that this time?” Mand queried.
“Don’t they show on the race profile?” I added.
“There’s a good chance Manda but they are probably too small to notice on the profile.”
“Short and steep,” Mum suggested.
“Precisely love,” Dad confirmed.
I sighed deeply, “joy.”
“If I get a chance to warn you all I will,” Dad went on, “but its quite possible you’ll turn a corner and be faced with a wall.”
“Great.”
“So anyone want pud?” Mum enquired.

“Mum?”
“Yes love.”
“Did Dad mention that I saw Woody yesterday?”
“Geoff?”
“Er yeah, him and his wife were on the coach that comes to the Stube.”
“Surprised he’s not at the college getting ready for the new term.”
“He didn’t seem to be very with it, he kept calling me Juliette,”
“It has been a couple of years kiddo.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “oh they send their love.”

Mum looked thoughtful, pausing from sorting out the coffee cups.

“I guess I really should give Bren a call when I get back from Norway.”
“Bring us a prezzie?” I hinted.
“Kids,” she half heartedly complained.

Maddy Bell © 16.03.2018