Slow long ride - Boxhill, Surrey.

Today was the first of the Tri London winter rides, it was led by a very competent Triathlete in the club call Steven Lord. We set off from Blackfriars bridge at 7.30am and head south to Box Hill. Box Hill is used for many triathlons and is probably one of the best hills in the area (although doesn't compare to those I have ridden in the South of France) so it was nice to travel down there and experience it, no doubt I will be heading down there when my full Ironman training starts for long rides and some hill repeats.

The weather was ok when I set off at 7am but when I had got to the bridge it was slightly raining. We all met there, there was 12 of us so quite a big group... nice to meet some new people and put some names to faces.

It took us about 2 hours to get out of the busy roads and traffic of London but once we had got to Box Hill it was a nice place, did a couple of loops around which is good climbing experience for Monaco 70.3. I doubt I will look forward to riding down there n the future. At the top of Box Hill is a nice little cafe, the other riders got a coffee and big slices of cake but I kept my discipline and resisted..... they did look sooo nice though!

Couldn't face riding back through all the busy traffic back to London so I let the train take the strain and followed a couple of guys to Dorking station and got a train back to London.

All in all I was out for 5 hours+ and didnt cover a massive distance (about 65km) but it was nice to get out and meet some new people. I was very nice to get home though! 3000 cals burned, nice slice of cake??

Here is the route CLICK ME!

I also want to make a quick comment on SKINS. I have a pair of leggings and they are brilliant... BRILLIANT. Nuff said.