Not all the gears. Still pretty clueless.

You know those lists declaring a random number of random things that you *must* do before you reach a random age?    I hate them.  I especially hate them when they have to be done before you die.  Like maybe you can do them after you die?  Ridiculous.

One of the reasons why I hate those stupid lists is because if I had one of those stupid lists I would list stupid things on it.  Like cycling up Ditchling Beacon without stopping.  Or crying.  And then I would stupidly tell people.  Like Inspirational Steve.  Who would insist on coming with me to "help" by cycling behind me all the way and threatening to beat me with a stick if I was to even think about stopping.  Or crying.

Let me introduce you to Ditchling Beacon in five "fun" facts.

1. It is one of the steepest roads in the South of England.   
2. It was part of the route of some French bike race in 2004, where it was not only classified as a climb, but also had a number after it.  
3. It features on the London to Brighton bike ride, and it's the main reason why I've never done the London to Brighton bike ride.
4. It is a climb of over 150 metres along a stretch of road just under a mile long.  That works out at an average gradient of just under 10%.  And yes I had to use my calculator
5. The lycra-clad speed freaks have a training session every year which involves going up and down Ditching Beacon as many times as possible in three hours.  They call it "bashing the Beacon", and the record stands at 15 bashes.  This year they have invited me along, and it's not just to hand out curly wurlies at the top. 
6. It's a mere couple of miles away from where I live.
7. I can't do mental maths

The short story
I did it!  I bashed that Beacon!

The medium story
I did it!  I bashed that Beacon!  I didn't even use my lowest gear!

The long story
My gears are broken, and have been ever since I got my new bike a year ago.  My lowest gear doesn't work - I didn't even know it was there.  Inspirational Steve kept telling me to drop down a gear to make it easier, and I kept wanting to punch him because I couldn't.  That's when we realised that my geary twiddly thing wasn't geary or twiddly enough to go to the lowest gear.  Oh, did we laugh?  Well, one of us did.  The other one collapsed in a heap, gasping the words "curly", "wurly" and "now".

The proof

Ditchling Beacon, as presented on Strava.  So steep they categorised it three times.
The KOM is Chris McNamara (surely not THE Chris McNamara?).  I got up it in 8 mins 59 seconds and managed to rest for a whole second.