By Bradley Burke.

The final hill climb of the series, hosted by Sussex Nomads, was on Ditchling Beacon – a climb we all know quite well! There were 5 of the HC hill climb gang today (me, Tina, Rocky, Giles and Ryan – 6 if you include Ted, Ryan’s Horsham Cycling lycra clad-canine!).
Though an early start, we looked forward to a closed road up the Beacon (traffic being one of the worse parts of the climb usually, besides the gradient…). The rain held off, and we set off at 1-minute intervals and gave our all, encouraged on our way by crowds, megaphones and copious cow bells.
After cheering on the last competitors we descended to HQ to join the other 68 finishers at the village hall to enjoy cake, chats and the presentation.

A good day out, as it always seems to be! A funny business is hill climbing, but the camaraderie, shared ventures and mixing in the grassroots local bike racing has been great. Whilst Tina, Luke and Giles head to the National Hill Climb Championship for their final race of the season – I’m sad my first season of hill climbing has finished and now looking forward to next year!