00:00Oh Jesus!
00:02Oh shut my mouth!
00:05I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
00:13Hill climbing is probably the toughest discipline in cycling that you've never heard of.
00:17In the months of September and October every year in the UK
00:20you can always find a group of cyclists racing up the most hellish gradient they can find
00:24in what can only be described as second degree fun.
00:27And the format for these events is pretty simple actually.
00:30Basically it's rider against the clock up the steepest piece of tarmac
00:34that the organisers can realistically find
00:36which is why today we are here at Swain's Lane in London
00:39for the nichest of niches, an urban hill climb.
00:43Sam has dragged me here today to Swain's Lane
00:45which is arguably one of the toughest climbs in the capital.
00:49900 metres and 8% average gradient might not sound like much
00:52but this one is going to hurt.
00:5420% maximum gradients, full gas racing
00:57and Sam's even got a little trick up his sleeve
00:59which is going to make my day even more painful.
01:02That's absolutely right.
01:03As an ex-junior hill climb champ
01:05I think that you've already got enough of an advantage over pretty much everybody here.
01:09So I've brought along this.
01:17This is the Rally Chopper.
01:19Now it was created back in 1972 and then it went on to become really popular in the 80s
01:25thanks to films like E.T., The Goonies and then more recently Stranger Things.
01:29So this bike really does have a proper cult following
01:32which is why you're going to be riding it today.
01:36So Joe, how are you actually feeling about this challenge?
01:39Well, as much as I'm not looking forward to lugging all 18 kilograms of this bike up Swain's Lane today
01:44I think it does fit the ethos of the event quite well.
01:47There's Brompton categories today.
01:49There's two categories for cargo bikes.
01:51So I think actually I'm not going to be quite as out of place as I might be in a
01:56traditional hill climb.
01:57You're going to fit right in to be honest.
01:58So if you had a goal for today though, what would you like to achieve?
02:02Well, to put things into perspective
02:04I think the course record for this climb is around just over the one minute mark.
02:08I had a look at what the best Brompton time was last year and that was about two minutes twelve.
02:12I will genuinely be over the moon with anything less than three and a half minutes.
02:16Three and a half minutes.
02:17Okay, I reckon we make that the target for the day.
02:20And if you can get under three and a half, I'd be very impressed.
02:23And actually, to be honest, I'll be impressed if this bike makes it to the top in one piece.
02:52Come on!
02:53Come on to death!
02:55Come on!
02:58Come on!
03:00Come on, you stupid man!
03:03Yeah!
03:04Yeah!
03:08Volta, volta, volta!
03:34Oh, my God!
04:05i don't know whether to laugh or cry
04:10how are you feeling joe yeah it's been a while since i felt like this to be honest
04:18um yeah it was really good fun though i chucked it into gear two to like start on the less
04:22steep
04:22bit and it pinged into gear three and my legs went like sat back down knocked into one um
04:29um sort of measured my effort on the less steep section and then when it kicked up just
04:34full gas yeah yeah yeah it was good
04:42so joe how'd you get on you know what all in all not too bad um i think pacing as
04:48i mentioned
04:48early on camelman was pretty good with hindsight actually i think the pacing was better than i
04:53realized initially i thought maybe i went out a little bit too easy but with hindsight i think
04:58i got it pretty much spot on so happy with how i rode and pretty happy with the time as
05:02well
05:02so put us out of our misery what was your time two minutes 21 is the the official time but
05:08the thing
05:09is i think we need to put some of that into context because i think the winning time of the
05:12day
05:12um or the fastest time of the day was 1 17 or 1 18 it was about that so essentially
05:18you were you
05:18were a minute off the quickest of the day and we know people have gone slower as well yeah and
05:23in
05:23fairness i'd be really interested to see how that compares to the bromptons as well because as i said
05:27last year i think what two i think it was two minutes 12 or something was the quickest brompton
05:31time but yeah we'd have to see i'd be really chuffed with that as well to be honest i'm pretty
05:35glad i made you come up on this bike because the amount of love that the rally chopper has had
05:38today
05:39has been phenomenal absolutely people have been throwing it back to their past kids have been
05:43loving it so all in all a fantastic day at the urban hill climb if you guys enjoyed the video
05:49then please do drop it a like subscribe to the channel for more content and we will see you again
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