Will’s Caveat

You’ve heard of Sod’s Law, Murphy’s Law, and Occam’s Razor, plus a myriad other laws, suppositions and more.
Well, today, I’m adding to it. Allow me to introduce to you Will’s Caveat.

At this point, I’ll briefly deviate, to say that I like hills. So much so, that I have a life philosophy, which started out as a cycling philosophy: The hill is not in the was, the hill is the way. Seriously – I even have a T-shirt with that on – find it by clicking the T-Shirts menu option above.

When I first got back into cycling, I designed very convoluted routes, to avoid hills. I live in Devon, and flat bits of road are mostly few and far between, with hills being the norm. As a result, I soon realised that by trying to avoid hills, I was doing myself a disservice, so I reversed my strategy, and started designing routes to deliberately include many hills.

Cycling up hills is good for you. It makes you stronger, and fitter. Life works like that, too – problems make us stronger, and are opportunities for us to grow as people. This is why my cycling philosophy has since become a life philosophy.

With the scene set, let’s get back to Will’s Caveat, which is simply explained as this: Hills grow during winter, getting both bigger, and steeper. As a result, when spring arrives, and you start cycling more, you will be suffering up hills that the previous summer you breezed up. As summer carries on, the hills gradually shrink, and by autumn, they have reverted to their true size, allowing you once again to breeze up them.

See also  The 1st WillCycle Community Story

Scientists are perplexed by this phenomenon* and simply cannot offer any explanation**.

So, if you too are finding the hills bigger and steeper in spring, you now know that this is due to Will’s Caveat!

*OK, I lied about the scientists.
**Yes, they can actually offer a rational explanation quite easily, but we have no need for such negativity here.

2 thoughts on “Will’s Caveat”

  1. I always KNEW they grew over winter….. Not sure the one to the telecoms tower at Stavanger’s highest point ever fully shrinks again… might be the “granny gear” inducing incline doesit though.

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.