This month’s route is the famous Ballbuster bike course around Box Hill in Surrey. Traditionally home to a season-closer duathlon in November organised by Human Race, the hill is used by countless cyclists every weekend as a training ground. While there is nothing too taxing about a circuit of the hill, it’s actually much harder to ride clockwise than in the anti-clockwise direction we describe here, it does provide for all the basic skills in using your gears, developing good bike control in a fast descent and, as an added bonus, there’s a superb tea shop at the top of the Zig Zag section! Plus, as it’s a circular route, it’s pretty much impossible to get lost so you won’t be needing the Garmin’s navigation functions!

We put two Garmin units into the field for the first ever Spring Ballbuster; an Edge 305 to give us the bike course that we’ll be discussing here, and a Forerunner 305 to capture the whole event for posterity. Both traces have been uploaded to MotionBased and you can see the results at the end of this article.

Because the run course duplicates the bike course we are using the data from the Edge 305 to provide the commentary as that gives a clearer picture -- the extra run laps come before and after the three bike laps. We should also point out that the first 100m or so of the trace shows a marked deviation from the road - this is because the bikes are racked in a field behind the main car park and the atheletes have to run across this to get to the road!

Although the route starts at the top of the Zig Zag section, this is not the top of Box Hill itself and so the route rises through the village of Box Hill and the numerous mobile home sites before turning downhill to a very sharp left-hand junction, where the road joins the Headley Common Road. From here it’s a slight rise across the Common before making another left-hand turn down into Headley. Once through the village the road drops sharply away on a reverse camber into a left then right turn and entices you to descend. Unfortunately, you now need to make a sharp left-hand turn to pick up Lodge Bottom Road and this is where the bike handling skills come into play!

You’ll get your maximum speed on this section, but you need to be aware that this is a fairly narrow lane and there can be both oncoming traffic and, depending on the weather, a significant amount of debris from the trees that line the route. At the bottom of the hill where the lane joins the Old London Road you make a left turn, be aware that there is almost always loose gravel here. The road now goes straight into a short climb which brings you to another left turn by a cottage where you start the famous Zig Zag itself.

The first section of the Zig Zag is the steepest and climbs, first between high banks and then under trees, to the first hairpin. From here you work your way up the side of the hill, going first to the left and then the right, on a fairly constant gradient. The middle corner is the hardest and you need to keep as wide as possible to even out the change in gradient. The third section takes you up into the woods, with a clear view below you of other riders working their way up the slope, and then kicks up slightly to bring you out in front of the National Trust buildings. The climb is all about keeping the momentum up and you should find that, after the first section, you should be able to build a steady rhythm and even begin to accellerate towards the final corner.

The loop is almost exactly 8 miles, the Ballbuster race does it twice round on foot - once before and once after the three times round on the bike. The secret to a successful race is not to go too hard on the first run or the first lap of the bike -- it’s all too easy to over-do it and blow up on the final run lap. Consistent and efficient climbing and good handling skills are the secret -- plus a considerable degree of nerve to make up time on the descent!

If you look at the three bike loops ridden by Mick Barnes and compare the heart rate traces you’ll see that each time up the Zig Zag the maximum rate recorded is lower than the one before -- remember that he had run the 8 mile loop before starting to do the bike!

Bike loop only ridden by Mick Barnes

Complete race by Gary Blesson