Well done to our Three Peakers!

Hans van Nierop reports from the Yorkshire 3 Peaks:

3 Peaks cyclocross is one of those events that you swear you will do once and that will be that. But it has a very bad habit of drawing you back, and so this weekend myself and Josh trekked up to Helwith Bridge for another fix of the drug.

Weather was not kind to us this year. Starting in drizzly conditions and only getting worse through out the day with strong gales, heavy rain and fog. The off-road sections were also pretty soaked, and very boggy. Once over Ingleborough, and starting the descent down to Cold Cotes, I decided to have a closer look at the rocks beneath me. There were similar to previous years, pretty solid and not good to land on. Luckily I managed to carry on but Josh had a similar try at it and did it properly meaning his race was pretty much over and had to retire at the bottom of the descent. [Ed: Life member Dean Barnett, riding for the organising team, also renewed his interest in geology on the descent which delayed him, but he managed to continue, battered and bruised.]

I realised I should have done more endurance training as once over the 2nd climb of Whernside, and starting the road to the final Pen y Gent climb, my legs were quickly seizing up. But, you know that you have broken the back of the course so its just one long and slow final slog to the top of Pen y Gent. The thought of the fast descent is also enough to keep you going.

After 4 hours and 7 minutes I rolled in 78th overall and 14th V50, so was happy with that.

Its a superb race, if you have ever thought about doing it, just do it! You’ll love it. You may ache a little (well a lot) for a few days after, but its worth it. And if its not raining, the views on the peaks are just spectacular!

Thanks to James, Paula and Mea Moore for the encouragement round the course, and well done to Marc Henderson too. He finished 245th in 5 hours and 7 mins.

Ed: Well done to Dean on his 20th completion in 5:06:27, Hans on his 4th completion and Marc on his 5th and hopefully Josh isn’t too badly injured.