Cyclist recently came on board as co-sponsors of the Catford Hill Climb, the world's oldest cycling race that holds one basic goal: challenging each rider to race to the top of the hill in the fastest time possible.
The hill in question is York's Hill. A permanently damp road just outside Sevenoaks, Kent that's as close as you can to the bergs of Flanders without any cobbles.
It's just 640m in length but provides a rather knee-crunching average gradient of 14%. Making it worse, the 2018 edition saw a day of rain beforehand making parts of the climb no better than an ice rink.
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If the neglected road surface and the constant stream of grit and mud at the bottom doesn't get you then the 25%+ gradients towards the top of the climb will.
Two sections exceed 1 in 4 gradients, urging riders of all shapes and sizes out of the saddle to make it to the summit.
The heavier riders struggled with the slope, finding their front wheels bobbing around while the lightweight title contenders saw their rear wheels spinning uncontrollably in search of some traction.
For some, if it wasn't for the roaring few hundred lining the road towards the top they would step off. However, they make it with help from the three-deep crowd urging them onwards to the top.
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Freddy Mitchell, a 16-year-old racer riding for VC Londres, puts the near-impossibility of the hill into perspective just moments after crossing the line.
'It's grim. You have no choice at the bottom but to stick to one side of the road because the road surface is so bad. Then you hit the hardest, steepest section which forces you out of the saddle but then your wheel goes crazy because there is no traction,' says Mitchell, laughing through the pain still etched upon his face.
'Your legs and lungs are screaming and then your legs go first, it's an indescribable feeling. If it wasn't for the crowds shouting you on you wouldn't make it.'
Eventually, after 143 riders crested the finish, penultimate man off, Rowan Brackston of London Dynamo took victory from Dartford Road Club's Ewan Tuohy and espoir Matthew Clements of Richardsons-Trek.
The only rider to break two minutes on the day, a well-paced effort that judged the steep, slippery sections well enough to bank two seconds for Brackston on the rest of the field.
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To put the difficulty of the hill in perspective and the adverse conditions on the day, Brackston's winning time of 1 minute 57 seconds fell 10 seconds short of Phil Mason's course record of 1 minute 47 seconds set way back in 1983 and was the slowest winning time since 2013.
Cyclist Magazine will be giving you a deeper insight into this prestigious Hill Climb in the next issue, on shelves Wednesday 7th November, but for now here is a sneak peak of the images caught on that damp October morning, pain faces and all.
All photos - David Wren
