This Year's Hell of the North

Alan comes in first at this year's Hell of the North

Lynne and I entered this year's Hell of the North Cotswolds held at Winchcombe.

For once we started at the front of the 1000+ riders and it certainly paid off. The event was opened by the oldest lady in Winchcombe just a 100 years old! She received a large round of applause for this.

It started with a police escort through the town  and then into the real thing, up an ever narrowing road which hit a 15% gradient at times

This climb soon split the riders up and I was pleased we had started at the front, as chaos reined behind us.

Once we had reached the summit of the first climb it was a long decent to a T-junction where riders were going wrong. It is amazing how many friends you get when you have the route on a GPS!

The route this year was a lot tougher than previous, the dry bumpy trails of last year turning into muddy bumpy trails – not great for hard tails.

I was going really well when a marshal said that I was 6^th at the time so I pushed on at a good pace.

I entered the halfway check point/tea stop, as the leading guy’s were just leaving no time for tea and cake, time to catch them!!!!!!!!! After a while of determined effort I caught them but to my dismay they said there was another rider ahead.

I raced on through some great single track with plenty of oh s*** moments.

I caught the leading guy as he was looking at the map, I flew past knowing where to go, and straight away he was after me.

With 5 miles to go it was down the best hill of the day we overtook some of the slower 50 k riders as we raced down the track, how we didn’t puncture I don’t know.

We then made a mad dash through the town to the finish, after watching Mr Cannings in Majorca I waited to make my sprint, as the other guy changed gear I was off and managed to fend him off and get there first.

And they say it isn’t a race!!!!!!   

Lynne did really well coming in second lady, she found the day tough 60 miles of mainly muddy off road, there was definitely a lot less road than last year and plenty more mud.