In preparation for London to Brighton, a classic, somewhat hilly, day ride out of London, I decided to take on North London’s hills¹.

While this route is perfectly manageable on a geared bike, I own a single speed bike, so this was going to be an interesting ride for sure… and interesting it was, for it turned out to be the rainiest day of the year thus far!

Meet Pixie!

Before we get into the nitty and gritty, I want to introduce you to someone special: Pixie (because she’s pretty and a fixie²!)

She is a Quella Varsity Cambridge with the Classic saddle and handlebars. She feels very good to ride, and honestly just reminds me of that childhood feeling of getting on a bike and being free! She’s responsive, light and very nimble³.

That said, this was the first time I was going to put her, or rather my legs⁴, to a real test.

Route Details

The route covers a modest distance of 54 km, but with an ascent of 700 meters. At 13 m/km of elevation this makes it more hilly than L2B with 10 m/km of elevation on the official BHF route. Prior to starting I was not sure if I could make it, as on a single speed bike with a gear ratio of 2.75⁵, everything north of Hyde Park feels like the alps!

The actual route I covered ended up being around 100 kilometers in total, including getting to the start and returning home. Below I’ve put a snapshot of the North London Hills bit, with the start and end locations shown:

I Was Warned

I left the house without a raincoat and without checking the weather forecast. My assumption? It’s been a fairly dry summer, and the rainfall we’ve had in the past month has been quite tame. God was out there trying his hardest to reach me for the dark clouds where not showing any signs of movement, and the rain was pouring non-stop. I ignored Him and carried on.

I took a longer journey to the start of the route on purpose to get myself warmed up. I went through Harlesden and Willesden, before entering Kilburn and continuing into Hamsptead, covering 15 km with an elevation gain of 45 meters (3 m/km). This felt good, and I was confident that it was going to be a great ride.

Swain’s Lane Humbled Me… Hard

While I appreciate the route prepared by the Islington Cycling Club, the designer definitely has a sadistic side to them, for the hardest bit of the ride is right at the start: Swain’s Lane. This is a notoriously steep road in London just outside the Highgate Cemetery covering 1 km and a whopping 71 meters of elevation! The elevation itself isn’t the cause of the issue, but rather that there is a nasty bit in the middle with a 14% gradient. This got me: I stopped dead in my tracks. It took me 12 start and go’s to finally get past it, as I kept going down slightly to gain some momentum before turning into back into it. All my hill tackling techniques we’re tested to failure: I couldn’t stand and push as I felt like the bike would flip over and I couldn’t really rock the bike side to side as the gradient was just too steep. In the end I had to borderline cheat by going in an extreme zig-zag pattern to reduce the effective gradient… I don’t see myself winning the Urban Hill Climb race anytime soon!

While it was a bit demotivating to hit this at the start, the rest of the ride proved to be very manageable with hills. I’ve learnt my limit: 14% on the current gear ratio that I have. For London to Brighton, I’ll likely have to walk up Ditchling Beacon (the final hill on the route, with a max gradient of 16%), or ride with a lower gear ratio.

Finchley and Barnet

After Highgate, I was on a path through Finchley to Barnet. Despite the torrential rain, it was nice to pass by parts of London I’d never seen before, and some of the roads had nice elevation gains that raised my body temperature.

Cyclists typically hate two things: hills and cars. But believe me when you’re stuck in a thunderstorm those two are your closest friends. Every time I found myself on a descent I was holding onto my bike for dear life: not because I was afraid of slipping, or my rim brakes not working, but rather all my muscles were tensed up to create an imaginary sense of warmth! Busy traffic lights, which were becoming less and less frequent were joys to me as I could camp between the fumes of the cars and feel like I was around a fireplace!

Once I got to Whetstone, things really quieted down and I felt like I was outside London. My route was to take me through some green spaces. I was so cold and I knew it was a time to properly fuel. I whipped up my last-minute ChatGPT recipe and oh man it hit… not because it was particularly good but because I needed all sugary goodness I could get!

At the Limit of London

I was so cold and honestly delighted to be back on the roads with some cars and hills. While I was technically still in London, and not even at High Barnet yet, it felt like I was in the countryside. All country roads, with no opportunity to stop on the side. A puncture or an accident here would have been horrible. It was pouring with such ferocity that the droplets would hurt on impact. I don’t even know if I would have been able to replace my tubes had I gotten a puncture due to poor visibility and my electric pump (most likely) failing me⁶.

Some of the roads here came to rescue though, with some nice inclines. I enjoyed riding on Mary’s Lane and Hendon Wood Lane.

The route got a bit confusing here and my phone died! Luckily it turned back on and I was able to start the route from the middle, though I almost went back the way I’d come. I wanted to finish the route… I’d come all this way and honestly at this point it made less sense to go back as I was more than halfway through the route. I should note though: My phone dying was another warning for disaster looming ahead.

I made my way up through High Barnet, and took a photo after completing Hillside Gardens. This was a challenging one and I almost had to stop… but my gears… sorry I mean my legs, were there for me.

Looking back at the route now, I didn’t know how close I was to the M25! I’m sitting here wallowing in regret that I didn’t cross it, but there is NO way I would have pushed myself to cross it given the circumstances of my ride.

Cockfosters and Enfield

On the way east, it was mostly country roads and at times I felt quite unsafe as drivers were not kind to a silly single speed cyclist. At some point on Ferny Hill, I found a tea house and knew it was time for a quick stop. Some caffeine to warm up my soul and a few more bites of the ChatGPT-bread were needed.

I am eternally grateful to the staff of the tea house, for despite my worries of being a health hazard with my dripping bib shorts, I was reassured that they would mop after me and that I shouldn’t feel bad about it at all! The warmth of the staff was perhaps what I needed most in the cold, though the espresso did help too.

My phone was not doing well. There was now a green line running down the screen. My time was limited, so I chugged my espresso like an Mormon and tried to go as fast as I could go.

This is where I wanted more hills, for the faster I went the colder I felt.

I got to Cockfosters road! Officially making it past my first tube line on a the bike! At the junction, I saw a massive hill. A crazy part of me wanted to hit it, but it was so busy with cars and I was unsure of the gradient… zigzagging on this road would have required an unwavering faith in both God and the Devil, so I put my head down and continued southwards on the road towards Cockfosters station.

The route didn’t take me through Cockfosters, but instead turned onto Hadley Road towards Enfield. This road was stunning, with absolutely massive, Dubai-sized houses.

Back to London: Alexandra Palace

I don’t remember much of the road back to central London, as at this stage I was just trying to get there as fast as possible. However, my ride through Alexandra Palace was memorable for a number of reasons:

• The inclines were quite tough, but rewarding
• Despite living so close to it for a few months during my East London stint, this was my first time visiting
• The route through the palace itself was closed… I had to take a detour through the park!

I really enjoyed riding the hill on Alexandra Palace Way, and I was thinking that this would be the perfect place to train hills for cycling and running. Perhaps I need to do another East London stint!

Muswell Hill

The last bit of the journey, Muswell Hill. I was not really expecting things to get harder than Alexandra Palace but the ride on Muswell Hill Road was quite tough, and not helped by the city traffic. This was a long stretch of a continuous, tough incline of around 8 percent average gradient. The steepest stretch is reported to be around 12%, and this is corresponds to my experience as I was really struggling to push.

But it was worth it. I felt so triumphant on top of the hill, having completed the whole route.

The streets around this area are just stunning, and this is one of the nicest places of London that I’ve passed through. With an average flat price of 505k, this should not be surprising.

Unexpected Casualties on the Way Back

As I made my way to the city, my phone died. This wasn’t a major cause for concern as I could figure out my way back, but the little respite from the rain was gone: it was pouring heavily again, and the cycling paths on the way back were like mini swimming pools. As I was on a mission to get back home as soon as possible, I zoomed through the puddles, splashing water all over… making no difference to me as I was fully drenched already.

Sadly, my phone wasn’t just dead because it ran out of charge, the screen actually got damaged. I was rudely reminded that iPhones are water resistant only for around 30 minutes. The ride I took was akin to plunging my phone in a river… so I was lucky that only the screen was damaged and not anything more serious like the motherboard!

Looking back at this experience, I decided to research a bit to see how much it had actually rained that day, so I looked up some weather data online…

On July 19th, it rained a whopping 35.8 mm based on sensors around Hampstead. This is the highest recorded in the year so far (the second highest was 31.8 on the 5th of Jan!), and the 8th highest recorded since data recording began in 2010. It’s hard to tell how bad the rain was on the specific bits that I was cycling on, though based on information from the Met Office, I would say that some bits were at least 9 mm/hr.

Perhaps what I found most interesting from my experience is seeing the dedication of tourists to well… touring I guess. You can see them in the photo below on the Mall (the road to Buckingham Palace). An army of them, all equipped with the right gear for the day. Online gurus will talk a lot about drive and hustle… ignore them and simply learn from the tourists!

Concluding Remarks

There are three types of fun: type 1, which is enjoyable during and after (example: climbing); type 2, which is enjoyable during, but not after (example: HIIT) and type 3, which is neither enjoyable during nor after. While the individual hills that I conquered were quite enjoyable, this experience is firmly of type 3 in my books. Lesson learnt: make sure not to cycle on the rainiest day of the year!

You’ll hear more about my adventures with Pixie very soon! So stay tuned…

1. Many thanks for Islington Cycling Club for making the GPX files for this ride available! ↩︎
2. Note that for this ride I did not have her on a fixed-gear configuration. For those who don’t know the difference between fixed-gear (or fixie) and single speed: both have a fixed gear ratio, but in a fixed gear configuration, the sprocket (the gear at the back of the rear wheel that connects to the chain) cannot freewheel. This means that the pedals are coupled with the wheels: move your pedals forwards, and you go forwards… but move your pedals back and you’ll go in reverse! Consequently, you cannot coast (when you stop pedaling while the bike is still moving), which means that descents are scary since you need to keep pedaling, or put your feet up in the air like a goofy madman! While riding fixed is fun (there is a certain exhilarating feeling you get when the bike reminds you that you cannot stop), it is also sketchy to ride on in the city, where you need to start and stop frequently. ↩︎
3. Mind you that I haven’t ridden any top-end race bikes, and most of my cycling experience has been with the clunky Santander Bikes (or Santy D as I like to call them).  ↩︎
4. To quote a legend: “Isn’t it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailer?” (I just like to feel special) ↩︎
5. Gear inches of 73 if you’re interested in comparing! ↩︎
6. Which reminds me… I should be better prepared for such emergency situations with one of those mini gas canisters. ↩︎