Clifton CC

Hi all
This weekend went racing up too the borders to Rothbury.A 52 mile hilly race that had endless climbs starting from about 5 miles in.Only one other jersey i recognised from cowleys cycles so was a bit on my jack jones. Anyway the first climb had a massive selection on the race as groups formed everywhere .I held on in the first group until the pace went up again and about 10 of us clawed our way to the top with more behind.Our group split again as a raging head wind greeted us with a couple of stronger riders pulling away but we could still see the leaders but couldnt touch them.After that it was a matter of just digging in and trying to finish.The finish line was pretty much a good sight at the end after a hard but funnily satisfying day.Last year i would have been shelled out of the back pretty easily so thats rewarding.
cheers Timj

I had my regular Sunday morning hilly ride out into the Wolds livened up when I accidentally barged into the East Yorkshire classic. I was minding my own business, riding out of Pocklington towards Warter, when I was held up by race marshalls just by the Buddhist centre. A friendly marshall filled me in on the event and said I could follow the team cars up the hill, where if I waited they would all be back in half an hour (they had started in Beverley, ridden out via North Cave and had another couple of laps of a Warter-Huggate-Millington circuit to do before heading back to Beverley for the finish).
I just wanted to get on with my ride so I set off and was surprised to pass a couple of guys with numbers on during the climb (including a Rapha/Condor rider, who did seem to be having some kind of mechanical), and another on the descent. I even got a couple of shouts and a 'Go on, dig in, Lad!' from spectators on the hill (before they saw my back...) I was just catching up with another two when I had to turn off for Cold Wold so as to be back in time for lunch. I came back through Millington just behind the bunch again.
Of course it's easy to dust up stragglers who've already spent two hours chasing elite riders through the Wolds, when you've just rolled in at a steady pace, but it was still a bit of a thrill to have a go. Beats chasing tractors as a way of pepping up a solo ride anyway...
tom

Just the Peter Gray 220km for me yesterday, I'll say no more, you had to be there to fully appreciate the day!

tomf wrote:I set off and was surprised to pass a couple of guys with numbers on during the climb

Tom, sooner or later you'll "blow" in a race and be passed by a couple of tourists - then you'll realise that its not cycling etiquette.

timj wrote: This weekend went racing up too the borders to Rothbury.

Hey Tim just as well it wasn't a week or so ago, you might have bumped into a certain Mr Moat!!

PG220 for me also.

Many said that it was the best value £3.50 of the year!

11 of us set off together and set a brisk pace up to Richmond helped by the strengthening tailwind. 10mins chocolate break then on round to Scargill. I encouraged Hub, Howard, AndyG and SeanW to ride on which left self, Heather, SeanL, Nigel, Mandy, TimR and Dave to ride at a slightly more measured tempo.

It was on The Stang (great name for a climb) that we realised, in all its glory, what was in store. Horizontal (warm) rain lashed across the high ground straight into our faces and, those that had them, were forced to engage 2-3 gears lower than normal.

Nigel insisted on his customery Guiness at TH and sprouted wings on Buttertubs. The wind coming through the pass at the top was literally breathtaking. Tim was tipped of his bike and the wind was rolling my shorts up my legs!

Caught up with the front 4 in Hawes Cafe, but they left 20 odd minutes before us. I expected Fleets mOss to be trouble as the wind was still lashing the rain at us - I wasn't wrong. Tim was battling gamely, Mandy Faint wasn't living up to her name - she's made of stern stuff - never complained once. Dave was also digging in well.

We felt the tailwind down Warfedale was well earned. It even stopped raining in Grassington, and it was bizarre to be attacking Fan Carl at full throttle with 120 miles in our legs at gone 4pm. From there we kept it together to finish (with very squeaky bikes) at 6-30, nearly 50 mins behing the front 4.

Memorable day. Another benchmark ride I feel? Thanks for the company.

Hope those behind were OK?

A day of chasing for me. Having got my timings wrong arrived late in Tockwith with the other riders already left so after signing on set off at a spirited pace to see if I could catch up with some of the main pack. Luckily for me the pack was moving at a good steady pace and I was able to hook up with them just after Boroughbridge.
Feeling good leaving Richmond after the garage stop split off from the main group with Howard, Will and Andrew however as Howard and Will increased the pace I new it was going to be one of those days where I was more of a passenger than a contributor - managed to hold the pace until the Stang where the combination of turning into the wind and gradient had me struggling off the back. As Rob said as you went over the Stang the wind and the rain was straight in your face making for rather interesting conditions which for me held until having hooked up with Howard, Will and Andrew at Hawes we were half way up Greenhow Hill.
Many thanks to all three riders for holding to a pace I could follow most of the way back and appologies to Howard and Will who having accelerated off the front after the climb out of Pately Bridge followed the long route round to Knaresborough while Andrew and myself hauled ourselves the short (less hilly apparently, though it definitely didn't feel it at the time) way past Brimham Rocks to Knaresborough. With a quick stop there for more water we where off making good progress on the last stretch back to York.
Back at the control it was great to stop and relax with a cup of tea and reflect on getting round so fast in challenging conditions before Will returned to Selby and Howard towed Andrew and myself back to York at 20+ leaving me wishing I had his energy.

Was an awesome ride, I cannot believe how I managed to have decent power all the way to the end, must have being the gels, we where cruising back nicely to tockwith at 25-28mph, I was doing hill intervals on little drags you get from grassington.

Buttertubs was pretty hard, it was a challenge, I was behind Howard and Andrew on that climb, I was not sure if I had enough power to move to the front, so I stayed behind, not that it made much difference being behind as opposed to the front, the wind was that strong coming from the side.

At the top of Buttertubs, the wind was gusting to hard across us, it was so hard to keep the bike straight I was using all my strength in my arms to keep straight.

I've never, ever experienced wind like that, I was really genuinely scared when we got to the top of fleets moss and started descending, I could not see due to the fog, and it was hard keeping my eyes open due to the rain, that felt like sandblasting!

I knew it'd be a favourable crosswind going SE, and tailwind going E on the way back, so apart from Greenhow Hill, we had a swift return to Tockwith.

I feel great today, I'd be going out for 50 miles if I was not racing tomoz.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/40913163 So 174 miles for me, 17.2mph average, and despite the mad headwind/crosswind in the hills, averaging only 13-14mph on that part, we was still faster than last year.

2010: Elapsed Time: 13:33:01
2009: Elapsed Time: 14:33:09




Compared to last year: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/8001045

The way home was hard, if this was say a 240mile ride, it'd probs be cafe stop time, I had to down an emergency snickers bar, lukilly it was cold enough to eat one that was still solid, this gave me power to get home, but not to complete an extra 25 miles as I wanted to do to bring it up to 200 miles.

I'll look forward to the Tan Hill Challenge if I can attend it, and the PG W2TD next year.

You know, I've being thinking already how I miss the ride, getting wet, and blown so hard to the left I was struggling was so fun I want to do it again, total awesomeness, then being given a fright up the last and steepest part of buttertubs nearly getting blown over the egde. I would so happily do it all again in the same conditions.

Rob wrote:

tomf wrote:I set off and was surprised to pass a couple of guys with numbers on during the climb

Tom, sooner or later you'll "blow" in a race and be passed by a couple of tourists - then you'll realise that its not cycling etiquette.

It has happened to me already, and I thought once I was behind the race car I was just traffic like anyone else, so I wasn't bothered (I was more bothered by cars passing me and then getting in the way at junctions...). But I can see that others may differ, and it definitely wasn't my plan to get tangled with a race at all. If it happens again I'll turn off and find another way home.
tom

Well, we did it!…the PGM 220k. An unforgettable day, one that I’ll be telling the grand kids about in ever-increasing levels of exaggeration

We rolled out of Tockwith with the main group and after about 5k, the inevitable break of about a dozen riders went up the road. The main pelaton (Mark L and I!) decided that none of these riders represented a threat to our cake-eating GC aspirations so we let the break go The only fellow rider who kept ghosting around us on the way up to Richmond was a veteran audaxer in a yellow jersey who was solo-ing the course with a map fixed to his handle bars; we referred to him as “Mr Yellow” (I’ll come back to him later). Of course the cake points jersey was up for grabs so we briefly stopped at the designated Café at Richmond and took a flyer with our first cake of the day…little did we know it would also be our last!

We felt good through the northern villages up to Scargill, although ominously we could see the storm clouds brewing up ahead of us. At The Stang climb, the rain started coming down and visibility disappeared. We were already soaked when we began the long, slow, 8 mile haul up to Tan Hill into the teeth of a rising gale. Occasionally, we passed lone cyclists returning down the hill in the opposite direction with expressionless stares on their faces. I recall turning to Mark and saying “why do all these cyclists look like shell-shocked soldiers returning from the Front!” By the time we made it to the pub, it was being lashed by horizontal rain and even the sheep were huddling together behind the wall on the lee-side of the building, refusing point blank to make room for my bike! Inside, we found Steph F and Pete K finishing lunch and trying to get their blood circulation going next to the log fire.

After a quick bite, Steph and Pete joined Mark and I as we headed south towards Thwaites into appalling weather. It was after the hairpins at Butter Tubs that all hell broke loose. We hadn’t realised that the mountain on our right had offered some protection against the gales. After ticking off the steep hairpins, we celebrated like the crew of the ill-fated fishing trawler at the end of the movie ‘Perfect Storm’, similarly not realising that nature wasn’t going to let us get away that easily. As the mountain on the right fell away and the road steepened, the hurricane from the right hit us with full force, putting us in more trouble than a wounded prawn in a flock of seagulls! My handlebars were whipped sideways, edging me off the tarmac towards the barrier and for a brief moment I feared being lurched into the huge void below. Both Steph and Mark had literally been blown off their bikes and were struggling to recover themselves. Pete, to his credit, had managed to grunt his way through it but the effort had taken everything he had. The rain felt like nails driving into our eyes and faces and the descending cloud had reduced visibility to about 100 metres. I’ll never forget images I have in my head of that moment.

We then fought our way to Hawes, our shoes filled with water and clothes completely saturated. The descents were hairy with brakes rendered ineffective by water and mud. We decided not to stop at Hawes because we wanted to get off the exposed sections of the course and still had Fleet Moss to come. The wind lightened off slightly but the rain became torrential. Water was cascading out of side-tracks onto the ascent of Fleet Moss and the first half was like riding up a waterfall. After summitting, we descended in misty rain to an angry river Wharfe as we headed towards Kettlewell and Grassington, where the rain finally dried up.

I then uttered something like “don’t worry, it’s downhill all the way home now”…when almost immediately we came across the steep climbs on the approach to Greenhow Hill! After an exhilarating drop into Pateley Bridge, we stopped briefly for a coke and chocolate bar before tackling the climbs out of Wilsill and the trek home through Knaresborough. The organisers officially clocked us in exactly 2 hours after Howard’s lead group, which we thought was a respectable effort. Back to Mr Yellow, I had been concerned about his well-being and was pleased to see him back at HQ. After tackling Butter Tubs, he had decided the ride was too dangerous and had packed it in. We were told there was still one person out on the course, which was of some concern to the organisers.

This was a day to be survived and our group of Steph, Mark, Pete and I were immensely proud of our efforts in completing the challenge. I would hate to have solo’d this course in the horrendous conditions; we supported each other through various bad patches, and ultimately, we proved that any Cliftonite could complete this course provided they tackled it with some mates of similar ability and had a reasonable level of fitness and preparation.

Oh, and unlike some of those in the posts above, my entire body is a complete mess of soreness today!

D.

Just to say WOW! what an amazing ride. A big thank you to everyone I rode with - from Rob standing patiently in the little rain showers (!) waiting to see we all made it up the hills, to Sean for trying to sort out my back wheel for me and all the smiling, cheery faces in the Hawes cafe.
Fantastic day and definitely the best £3.50 spent ever, not just this year!

I can't really add much to Darren's fantastic account really!!

I decided to drive out to Tockwith, even though I only live in Copmanthorpe and it was with great relish that I passed Howard, wound down my window and hurled abuse at him for being a masochist and riding out! Not sure if he knew what to say, but we politely introduced ourselves at the start a few minutes later! I have STARTED a few rides with Howard recently, though never more that that! Today was of course to be no exception.

Darren and I had planned a cake fest as some of you may know, and I had been tracking down little cake stickers to add to our top tubes, a la Cavendish in the TdF last year (though his were wings for stage victories, but you get the idea - one sticker to the top tube for each cake consumed!).

We bravely clung on to the leaders until just outside Cattal where THEY went through a red light - naturally Darren and I stopped (Kevin - you have taught us well!), hence the early split (I am sure we could have hung on until at least Whixley!).

There then followed a lovely ride up to Richmond, with our select group (me and Darren) trading places with The Man in Yellow, until Boroughbridge where we finally gapped him (although he did put in a brief appearance later, coming out of a garden centre in Richmond!). Darren briefly speculated that he might not be real, but perhaps the ghost of PG himself, as he kept popping up so unexpectedly.

Anyway, all went beautifully up to Richmond, with Darren managing to find the first recommended cake stop despite my assertion that "no its further on, up here on the right". He managed to sniff it out like a dingo looking for a stack of bones. There were no outward signs that it was a cafe, and I bet no-one else found it, but we settled down for a breafast of scones with real butter - lovely!

At this stage we were well ahead of the recommended schedule given by the organiser. One cake down and loads more to go! Unfortunately as you will have gathered from Darren's account, it didn't quite work out like that!

We hitched up with Steph and Pete at Tan Hill for the return leg and I went through a serious bad patch on the run into Pately Bridge (not enough cake you see). Many thanks to all three of you for pulling me through! I was massively rejuvinated by a can of coke and two snickers bars and felt pretty good for the run back to Tockwith. Of course the sun came out for our last few miles so we were all dry and there was no evidence of the horrors to which we had been exposed - you will just have to take our words for it!

A truly memorable day. My longest and toughest ride by some margin.

Thanks particularly to Darren for his company throughout.

Mark

A fine set of write ups on the PG. I'm jealous.

The MTBers were in action Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday Gill took a lonely trip to the other side of the Pennines to do the 2nd (and last) 'Hit the North' enduro. The format is the same as Mountain Mayhem but competing over 8 hours and instead of 24. Despite doing the race alone, with no support crew and therefore no idea where she was in the standings for the while event, she finished 2nd Lady missing 1st by just 10 mins.

On Sunday the monthly Club Run met at Chequers Crossroads, Osmotherley, for a hilly route around the west moors. Signs weren't good at the start with a stiff wind and some ominous looking clouds to the west, but conditions improved as we went on. Navigation proved a little tricky with some thick fog at the highest point. Thanks to our Peter Grey colleagues for using all the rain up before it reached us.

Well done everyone who managed the 220, as for the mere mortals who did the 100, it was very nice to have 2 young ladies for company who hadn't done more than either the Easy Rides or more than 30 miles before this one.
Fortunately the rain was obviously further North, and we kept dry all day unlike last year; we managed a steady pace & the girls stayed with us all day; even going in front on the climbs beyond Huthwaite to Yearsley.
I am sure that if Peter was looking down on us that he would have appreciated having 2 new riders taking part.
Bernard

Yes, well done from me too, to all those riding the Peter Gray Memorial, particularly braving the 220km.

Rob was out Sunday, so after all the recent TTs, it was back to Saturday club ride for me.

Expertly chosen route by Kevin and the group enjoyed a classic Settrington Bank, Duggleby, Thixendale, Huggate, Millington route to the cafe.

A fair number of punctures with the debris on the lanes after the recent rain and there was some fine gritting of teeth by various riders getting back to fitness.

Thanks for a good ride!
Claire