OXTON BANK

OXTON, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

The first bike race I ever witnessed – Newark Castle’s Chairman’s Chase – came up this hill. The whole family turned out because my uncle, the club’s finest time trialist, was riding, and naturally we had high hopes for him. Unfortunately his stocky frame was no match for the whippet climbers and we were disappointed to see him propping up the rear of the peloton as it surged past. Personally I must have ridden the climb a hundred times in training; it was the closest decent hill to my parents’ home, so I know it inside out and back to front. You leave Oxton and ahead the road kinks right up the hillside into the trees. Hold back slightly as it begins to rise. It eases a touch when you hit the snaking bends and then ramps up – here is where you give it some gas. It’s a minute flat out, on the rivet, until you reach the brow, where it’s one last push before the fantastic 6-kilometre descent into Southwell.