Three Peaks Cyclocross (belated post)

A new era dawned with this being the first 'Peaks without John Rawnsley at the helm. Mark Richmond and Neil Hendry amongst others had stepped up to the mark so that everyone could continue to enjoy their favourite endurance cyclocross race and for that we are very grateful. The weather that they booked was pretty good too, except perhaps for that wind! Mark even managed to follow in John's footsteps by both organising and riding the event - chapeau!

From a 'Belgian perspective it was a bumper year with the highest number of HCTB competitors and the best results. Team-wise we finished 7th overall and 5th in the V40 category and individually as follows;

Rich Knowles 24th
Gus French 94th
Bruce Attwood 106th
Richard Allen 114th
Dave Ward 154th
Simon (Media Star) Fox 163rd
Carl Nelson 168th
Richard Seipp 238th
Richard Brewster 340th
Adam Cooper 523rd

My personal race was very enjoyable if a little disappointing time/results wise. I had a flyer over Ingleborough, almost literally in that wind at times and a great descent to Cold Cotes. The road section to Whernside began to tax the lack of recent endurance miles in my legs. I had been battling along with Al @crossjunkie and this continued over Whernside I'm not sure why we didn't just settle in and work together - we might have saved some useful energy, probably going too hard to think straight! The climb up Whernside seemed to go fairly quickly - Al caught me again as did Delia and we traded places over the top. By Ribblehead I'd pulled a little ahead of Al and Delia, a quick bottle swap from Jo and shouts from Will, Ali, Mark, Keith & Dave and it was off onto the road. The support for the 'Belgians was amazing all the way round and my apologies if I missed acknowledging anyone - some I'm sure were complete strangers. As I crossed the cattlegrid Delia came past and promptly dropped her bottle - somewhat alarmingly she retrieved the bottle and came past again - this was not good (for me) my legs just weren't up for the road it seemed. What followed was a 'steady' road section and ascent of Pen y Ghent (thanks for the bottle Rick) and then a very enjoyable descent with functioning brakes this year!

Another 'Peaks in the bag - great effort by Mark, Neil and co. on their first event. Time to plan for next year...