Guildford Hills Too Challenging to Cycle? – Think Hovis

Published on: 27 Aug, 2017
Updated on: 30 Aug, 2017

Gold Hill, Shaftesbury – a classic scene.

By Martin Giles

It’s a classic scene. A steep setted hill, lined with attractive old cottages and beyond the land stretching towards the heart of rural Dorset.

And thanks to a famous Ridley Scott TV Hovis ad in the 1970s it is probably familiar to everyone over 50.

Who could forget the the young lad pushing his bakers delivery bike up the hill before free-wheeling back down to have some fresh bread?

My son Tom and I were on, what has become, our annual cycle tour. We had left Guildford a few days previous and were en route, in 25 mile stages, to Wells in Somerset.

Having arrived at our destination for the night, showered and changed, we were having a pre-dinner stroll. Shaftesbury was every bit as attractive on a fine evening as I remembered it. Attractive architecture, many buildings constructed of the sandstone, similar to our local Bargate, on which the hill at Shaftesbury sits.

I remembered the way, past the early 19th-century town hall, to the top of Gold Hill and was once again arrested by the view: the picturesque street and cottages framed in a background of rural England and a fine summer’s evening sky.

Tom was, of course, too young to recall the Hovis ad so it was new to him and he seemed suitably impressed. I decided to take some photos but at the bottom of the hill were some workmen in hi-vis jackets.

The “workmen” in hi-vis jackets were spoiling the shot.

It wasn’t clear what they were doing but they would definitely spoil the shot, so I waited, hoping they would soon disappear. Given the time of day it seemed likely they were packing up.

As we watched I noticed that one had a video camera and tripod. They weren’t fixing a drain or a pothole they were making a film. Then I noticed one was holding a bike, not any old bike but the kind of bike featured in the Hovis ad, a delivery boys’ bike with a large basket over a small front wheel.

As I watched the chap jumped on the bike and started peddling uphill. Good luck with that,” I thought, the memories of recent hill climbs on our trip fresh in my mind.

But he kept going and he was making it look effortless. Either this guy was Sir Chris Hoy or there was an invisible cable dragging him uphill. He was even grinning. To me this wasn’t funny, in fact, it was getting annoying. Unknowingly, he was belittling my efforts on our mountainous route across southern England.

Then the penny dropped, Tom and I came to the same conclusion simultaneously, it was an electric bike! What better place to show off the remarkable performance of these vehicles than on this famous and beautiful, steep hill?

The cyclist reached the top as fresh as when he started. Little did we know he was the original Hovis boy! An ECG would have hardly detected any rise in his heart rate, his breathing continued at its normal rate.

It was a great advert for electric bikes and that was exactly what they had been filming. It is now on YouTube.

I had been given the chance of trying out an electric bike earlier this year, by the electric bike shop in Woodbridge Road, and was surprised and impressed with just how effective the relatively small motor was. But my wife won’t allow me to buy one yet. She says, quite rightly, that I need all the exercise I can get.

But for those who find hills too much of a challenge or who think any bike ride over one mile is too daunting, or who wish to keep up with other fitter cyclists, electric bikes could definitely be the answer to our local hills, the High Street say, no need to go to Shaftesbury.

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