It’s one of the few hot days that the year has to offer, and I’m spending in the best way possible; on my bike. Tragically I’m in North London, but you can’t have it all. I’m here because I’ve heard rumours of a serious cycling hill less than an hour ride from my house, and, with London – or at least the parts of it I inhabit – being annoyingly bereft of hills higher than the occasional drunken partier lying in the road, this is Something Worth Checking Out. Think of the Ditchling Beacon, or more specifically, think of dying halfway up the Ditchling Beacon. How embarrassing would that be?

My usual solution for hill climbing in London manifests itself in my ‘usual’ training ride, a happy jaunt right through the middle of town before heading gradually westward to Richmond Park. The incline up from Chelsea Embankment, as well as the various hills that Richmond Park has to offer allow me to stretch out my legs and get my lactic acid fix, but I would love to find a reasonable hillock that I can incorporate into my daily commute (once I get round to commuting on the bike again, that is). I was never faster on the hills than when my ride home took me up Notting Hill, and it really illustrated to me the progress curve that actually riding up hills can give you. I was riding a beaten up mountain bike at the time, which is pretty much the law when you’re a student, and after a few weeks lugging myself up that pretty slice of West London, I found myself outpacing guys on road bikes uphill, to our mutual surprise, and my gratification. I was achieving that most important of cycling goals, crushing my enemies, driving them before me, and listening to the lamentations of their women, and even if I had to imagine the lamentations of their women, it made me feel suitably pumped. These are emotions I would dearly like to feel again.

It is for all these reasons that I found myself struggling up a hill in North London. To my considerable distress, it was not the hill I was aiming for, just the hill that leads to the even bigger hill. I hate hills, but I hate myself even more, so I wobble on.

I eventually pop out partway up Swain’s Lane. It leads up the infamous Highgate Hill, and is as pleasant a road as you can ever hope to find in the capital. I don’t even consider the easy option of turning right and up the hill and elect instead to swing leftwards and downwards, that there may be more hill to conquer; it’s a bit of a moot decision actually as this first section barely qualifies as a hill; it’s a gentle, lazy rise with a sharp corner that appears to have a Range Rover stationed there, in a permanent hesitation to turn, which forces me to dribble to a halt. I do the reasonable thing and smash his window in with a U-Lock and carry on.

A strange thing happens as I’m grinding my way up this hill. I fall victim to the twin evils of pride and hubris; I think to myself This isn’t so bad and I grew up in the Chilterns, I eat hills like this for breakfast. I’m winning. I’m beating it. I’m Marco Pantani, my Bianchi between my thighs. A bandanna appears on my head, and I can feel a goatee starting to sprout on my chin. I’m il Pirata pointing my front wheel uphill and aiming for glory. I’m…

Oh God, I’m dying.

When it hits the one way section, it also hit a 20% gradient. I am swiftly punished for my hubris. Punishment for my pride, however, is yet to come.

There’s an old saying ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’. There is also another old saying ‘Pride goeth before a fall’. I was to meditate on both of these very shortly. Well. Maybe not the revenge one. But the other one, the one about a fall? I would be meditating on that one.

Possibly as punishment for my brief transformation into an earring-wearing, bandanna-sporting, mountain-climbing, Italian God-man, my chain decides to ping off somewhere it shouldn’t. My cranks lock, and, lacking the forward momentum to unclip and put a foot down, I make the tactical decision to fall off instead. Luckily I chose to take the fall on the cheap palm / knee option rather than the expensive aluminium / carbon one and my bike escapes undamaged. Truth be told, I’m fairly undamaged too. My knee has produced blood, and my palm has produced a bruise, but that’s all.

I reinstate my chain and have a little sit down, mostly because setting off again on a 20% gradient isn’t to be sneezed at, and make sure to display my bloody knee to the million cyclists who have all chosen the minutes immediately following my fall to cycle past, making sure that everyone knows I’ve Fallen Off, which is better than Couldn’t Make It Up The Hill, which is lame. I also took a surreptitious picture.

The nice part was that nearly everyone who passed asked if I was ok, including a man in a van who offered me a lift, although he might have just been trying to steal my bike. I appreciated the sentiment either way, because, hey, my bike’s worth stealing.

I did grind the rest of the way up the hill. Annoyingly I was close to the top, the worst of the climb well behind me, but such is life. I made myself feel a bit better by descending the other side at a ludicrous speed until I remembered that traffic lights exist and was forced to slow down a touch.

So there we go. Not the worst bike accident I’ve ever had, and not even the worst tumble I’ve taken off this particular bike, but something I’m keen to avoid repeating, and especially this Sunday when I’m once again transforming into a goatee’d Italian for my furious jaunt to Brighton.