Three Peaks Cyclocross Shenanigans

During summer of last year I had figured I may as well make the most of living in Europe and in close vicinity to so many great and historic cycling events, and actually do some of them. I’ve never been a big fan of travelling long distances to participate in a day event, the time involved travelling to and from can usually be better spent doing something else, like actually riding the bike, not to mention the financial outlay usually involved. However if there was one event that I didn’t mind putting this personal prejudice aside for, it was the Three Peaks Cyclocross Race in Yorkshire, England. There may be another event like it somewhere, but I don’t know about it.

The race bills itself as the world’s hardest cyclocross race. Personally I have not, or are unlikely to, participate in every cyclocross event in the world so it would be hard for me to ratify this statement. However the race had caught my attention some years back when I first started riding cyclocross and I was eager to experience the pains for myself.

The Three Peaks Cyclocross Race - the hardest in the world? Maybe

The first Three Peaks Cyclocross Race was held in 1959 and took in the three highest peaks of the Craven Dales – Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-Y-Ghent. Over the years the course leading to and from each peak has been tweaked, however the three peaks have become a permanent fixture in the British cycling calendar and an event that any self-respecting cyclocross addict aspires to first compete, secondly finish and for a very select few, actually win. I set my sights realistically on the first two and dreamed of the third.

First things first though. As I sometimes forget, this is not New Zealand, where you can put off your entry to the week, or even the day before. In Europe events fill up fast. So my plans were set back a little when I went on to the race website last summer to find that entries had been massively oversubscribed (as they are every year) and that no further entries were being accepted. I didn’t make the mistake this year.

By June I had received news that I had made the final cut and that I had three months to put in some decent training. Well the training was a bit hit and miss but I did manage a fit in a few decent blocks and as September neared its end it was too late anyway, I chucked the bike in its bike bag and off to Manchester I went. 

From Manchester I navigated my way north to the countryside to the house of friends Hugh and Pauline. Tina and I had met them both in Patagonia while cycle touring, they had since visited us in Christchurch and were now spending some rare time at home in between cycle touring in the world’s most imaginative places.

We followed up a heavy steak which was eaten at my usual bedtime with pancakes and lashes of bacon the next morning for breakfast before I drove to Helwith Bridge for a course reccie with an old cycling buddy Wayne. For such a famous event, the starting location was particularly low key and consisted of a very small pub and a small row of terraced houses. 

The most important consideration for the endurance competitior = calories

There wasn’t a lot of the course we were actually legally allowed to ride, however it was nice to loosen the legs, gaze at the towering triple peaks and at least ride part way up the Pen-y-Ghent, the last of the three peaks to be negotiated. It prepared me mentally for the what would be store the following day and after a lunch of pie’n’spud and a pint of shandy at the Helwith Bridge Inn it was time to head back to Hugh and Paulines for some last minute preparations, stock up my stomach up with more calories and yarn away the night about the joys of travelling on the old humble bicycle with two fellow converts. Finally I got a very good night’s sleep.

Wayne and I reccie the descent of the Pen-Y-Ghent

Race day saw me rise early and back at the start at Helwith Bridge as the flotilla of cars that inevitably and ironically congregate on mass around cycle races begun to clog up the narrow roads surrounding the area. The 500 odd fellow participants were a slim fit looking bunch and I would hazard a guess that the body mass index was probably the lowest in Britain at Helwith Bridge on that particular morning.

At 9.15 a race briefing was held of which I didn’t hear a word of over the nervous chatter of my fellow participants. I would guess it was along the lines of ‘Be careful, help others if they need it and try not to give yourself a major injury’. I had been advised to get to the start line early so as not to start at the back and then have to negotiate my way around half of the field on the first big climb of the day, however as the star riders were herded to the front, us mere mortals tried in vain to hold our place near the front and I was inevitably relegated backwards in the confines of the middle of the bunch.

Eventually we were off and using my bunch riding skills from yesteryear I weaved in and out and passed a large number of those that were in front of me while the bunch cruised along at a neutralised 40 km/h on the first road section. I stuck to the middle for safety as much as possible and was relieved that a large tangled mess of carbon and bodies that crashed heavily to the tarmac beside me didn’t actually include myself. Through the small village of Hoton we wiggled and not long after a farm track veered left and up towards the first climb of the day  - the Ingleborough, we went.

After a short sealed section the route negotiated some farm buildings before being thrown out onto a bumpy field. By the end of the road section I had managed to fight my way up into the top 100. There was a bit of hussle and tussle for lines and position once the going got rough, but to be honest, with the soaring heights of Ingleborough looming above I didn’t mind dropping a position or two as I had avoided the worst of the bottle neck on the climb and there was an awful long way to go.

After what seemed an incredibly short time since the start – I would guess 20 minutes, the Ingleborough bent upwards, the bikes were dismounted and shouldered, and off up the hill we ran… well I think I took a full bountiful strides and then thought stuff that and started to walk. And up it kept going. It just didn’t stop. Twice I looked down behind me to see not the view but the awesome sight of 500 plus cyclists, with bikes shouldered, heads lowered, heaving themselves up the impossibly steep climb, two abreast for as far as the eye could see like a giant cyclocrosser’s conga line. This ‘cycle’ race was ridiculous and although I knew I was going to hate every minute of it, I was enjoying myself – I’m not expecting everyone to understand that!

The climb up the Ingleborough - photo credit : http://yellowberry.com

The climb didn’t relent particularly quickly and at times the wall of hill in front of me was so steep, even shouldering the bike was no good as the front wheel bounced off the ground in front of my eyes. The only solution was to sling the bike even further back so that the frame lay parallel to my back, push my face into the grass and pull myself with the aid of tufts of grass or the fenceline which served as a sort of guide to the heavens.

After about ten to fifteen minutes the gradient eased somewhat and the next twenty odd minutes were spent part riding, part carrying to the top. Our electronic dibbers were dibbed at a check point at the summit and mine was dibbed at just under an hour. I had done a paltry 12 kilometres.

 The descent was not particularly straightforward. From the summit it headed south east over a boggy / rocky plateau before dropping off so steeply, the bikes had to be dismounted and dragged down the slope while we slid down on our backside. Then a mine field of jagged rocks greeted us and with 70 psi in the tyres, my eyes shook in their sockets in such a chaotic fashion I actually couldn’t focus on anything up ahead… something I have never experienced before. 

As the path began to level out and the rocks gave way to some hard packed grass a crowd up ahead signalled the second road section and I cornered off the last few bumps to hit to the glorious stuff, immediately taking my hands of the handlebars and treating my wary body to a very good stretch. Then some sod sprinted past me at about 50 kilomteres an hour, I stuffed half a bar into my mouth, forced myself back down onto the drops and off I went in pursuit.

From Cold Coats to Chapel-Le-Dale the race sped along like a rocket. I caught the guy in front and soon we were five. One of the five was intent on setting the world ten kilometre cyclocross speed record and that suited the rest of us just fine, as we largely sat in his slipstream taking only the most cursory turn at the front and readying ourselves physiologically for the climb up Whernside, the highest of the three peaks. 

The road was over too soon and the bumps quickly returned. The climb up Whernside was marginally more rideable than the Ingleborough, but only by the smallest margin. It’s the climb I have the least memories from although I do distinctly remember a lot of very steep rock steps. Near the summit I made the most of every riding opportunity, more to give my calves a rest that for any other reason. I spotted Hugh and Pauline who cheered me on, Hugh ran up beside me asking me if I needed anything. Ironically Hugh was a triple winner of the three peaks running race, he was probably wandering what the point was of carrying the bike when you could run without it much faster.

The top was a relief until the decent started. Sharp jaggered rocks with no natural riding line through them littered the landscape and it wasn’t long until I jumped off my bike once more, shouldered it and started running down – it was way faster.

I took the rest of the descent cautiously in order to avoid the inevitable pinch flat and/or broken bone. I was surprised to come across a lot of walkers going up the rocky trail. We had been warned that the track wasn’t closed but I wondered at the folly of some people walking up a mountain with 500 near uncontrollable cyclocross bikes coming down towards them. 

The decent of Whernside - enough to make a cyclocross rider turn in their sleep

Near probably the most famous landmark of the race – the railway viaduct at Ribblehead, I picked up speed on the first actual graded track of the race thus far and weaved my way through the crowds holding spare bikes, wheels and nutrition and once again hit the glorious tarmac.

The Ribblehead viaduct with Whernside towering in the background

There wasn’t too much relief this time though as a head wind coming up the valley put an end to any easy ride and for the first time in the race I found myself fairly isolated. I was also quite knackered and I still had one final behemoth to get over. I shoved some food into the mouth and reasonably sedately made my way down the valley. 

The nine kilometres of road was nearly over when I reached Horton for the second time in the race. The same guy who had attempted the world record on the last road section overtook me furiously once more and it kicked started me into action. I nailed it to get onto his wheel and a few twists and turns later, the road veered left and off up the Pen-Y-Ghent we went.

The Pen-Y-Ghent was a different beast compared to the others. Where the approach to both the Ingleborough and the Whernside were largely on rough farm tracks, the ascent up Pen-Y-Ghent was on a formed gravelled track. Not that that made it any easier mind you. The day before when Wayne and I had done our reccie, it was up the lower reaches of Pen-Y-Ghent and it was a stony mess. I had childly sprinted up one horrendous section to see what it was like, however I was now under no illusions that this would be even remotely possible with 50 very hard kilometres in my legs and nearly 3 hours in. I did manage to ride the lower reaches though…just.

I wasn’t actually that far into the slog when calls up ahead of ‘rider’ alerted me to fact that if things weren’t hard enough, another peculiarity of the final climb was that you came down exactly the same way that you went up. Rob Jebb, winner of the past 10 editions then whisked by me, skimming over the rocks like he was on a full suspension mountain bike, and on his way to his 11^th straight win. I was a little stunned that I was only just on the final climb and soon the pointy end of the race would be sitting in the pub drinking a pint!

From the top I plummeted down into the oncoming rider’s fast, bunny hopping anything that looked like it wanted to sink its jaws into my tyres and attempting to keep the cramp at my calves, which had been threatening me since the first climb but was now getting tighter and tighter, at bay.

All concentration on the final decent photo credit: http://yellowberry.com

I swung back onto the road at the bottom with relief. Riders were still heading up for their final douse of pain but I just had to survive three more kilometres and the torture would all be over. A rider flew past me but I couldn’t summon the strength within me to try and catch up. Then a car up ahead held him up and together with someone else we hunted him down. As a trio we raced towards the finish.

As we took in the final few bends my legs were cramping all over and I resigned myself to simply rolling in after them, but a bad piece of cornering by one of them saw me squeeze in between both of them for the final twenty metre grassy section to the finish line.

I had finished. A print out at the finish gave my time as 3:46:16 and 95th place. I was pretty happy with that, I don’t think I could have gone faster on the day, I was spent. 

The race summary gives a total distance of 61 kms, of which 6-8 kms are unrideable and 33 kms are unsurfaced. The climbing, at only 1524 m doesn’t seem to fairly reflect the severity of the event but I would hazard a guess that the gradient in parts is well over 50 %. Keen? I thoroughly recommend that you sign up if you ever find yourselves in that neck of the woods.

Race HQ - Helwith Bridge

Pauline and Hugh - always a pleasure to stay with like minded people

Plenty of photos and videos on the race website:

http://3peakscyclocross.org.uk/