Irontwit

As I was blasting along the level on a flat and smooth A road across the top of the Isle of Skye (the A635 from Greenfield to Holmfirth, not the Hebridean island) I asked the guy cruising along next to me what speed we were doing? “47mph,” came the reply! I was barely putting any effort in, just a few turns of the pedal in top gear every few seconds. Then we turned left.

The start of the Tour of the Pennines was sweet. There was a short connecting section before dropping on to the aforementioned Isle of Skye road, and then the route climbed and climbed, all gentle, all with a strong tailwind. A few of the group I was riding with blasted past, but my steady climbing rhythm soon had me dropping them (except for 1). At the top we blasted along the level as fast as we dared. Turning left at the head of the valley immediately transformed the ride into a very different experience. One guy got blown across the road into the oncoming carriageway (luckily empty) and couldn’t get back. My front wheel suddenly shifted a few inches sideways (never experienced that before) and everyone was leaning crazily to overcome the sidewind. Luckily this lasted for a few hundred metres only before we were dropping at mach speed into Meltham with the wind our tails once more.

The sidewinds were the scariest part of the ride. I saw one guy setting out on a triathlon TT bike, I hope his handling skills were good. At one point cycling downhill with a strong sidewind between Meltham and Slaithwaite another guy with tri-bars decided to have a dig on them, he got hit by massive gust, and I still don’t know how he stayed upright. I doubt he touched his tri-bars again.

As the route curved back towards Oldham we were being hit by an increasingly heavy headwind, at times I was cycling downhill on the little ring in 3rd gear! The entire length of the A640 past Nont Sarah’s pub became a bitter struggle in bottom gear at an average speed of less than 10kmh. It was a real trial of strength – about 7kmh all gently uphill into the teeth of a gale. This finished a lot of folk off and they switched to the shorter 60km route. I nearly joined them but thought “Hey, it’s only 100km, how much worse can it get?” Fool!

After a fast drop into Ripponden we turned left into the hurricane once again and headed up Blackstone Edge. I was taking turns with a guy on a red Trek, but as the road steepened my strength failed me and I lost his wheel. Yet another dour struggle ensued. As it was a fairly small sportive, there were very few groups on the road and most people were cycling in ones and twos. The headwind sections were so severe that you really had little choice but to tackle them at your own pace, no significant shelter was afforded by following someone. Maybe a big group could have made a difference.

The lovely descent into Littleborough was a scary experience battling the crosswind gusts. Once in the town the route took a much flatter aspect, past Hollingworth Lake to Milnrow. Somewhere, either I missed a route marker, or one was missing, but after a brief conflab with a few other guys who had made the same mistake we headed off up the last major climb over Buckstones and the down Grains Road to Delph and back to the finish. My time was 4 hours and 46 minutes, I have no idea whether this was a good time or not, and I await publication of the results with interest.

This was supposed to be an enjoyable end of season ride rather than a grim battle against nature. The route, disappointingly, was largely A roads. To be fair, they were mostly quiet and very smooth, but I suspect the lack of traffic was a function of the weather. The section between Littleborough and Milnrow, however, wasn’t pleasant. It was busy and not terribly wide so cars were frequently too close for comfort. There was plenty of climbing to be done (over 1850m), but none of it was terribly steep, Scapegoat Hill being the hardest, in terms of gradient. The climbs and descents were all on good road surfaces too. Despite some of the excellent views, because the route was mostly A road, I felt it lacked character, and on a still day you would have no difficulty tackling this at speed.

The organisation seemed very good and signposting was fairly clear – except towards the end of the ride (maybe we just missed an arrow). I didn’t stop at the feed station except to get my timing chip swiped, but there didn’t seem to be much beyond bananas and energy drink. Again, as it was only a 100k ride you didn’t need too much. The free curry at the end was lovely but would have loved another plateful and all other refreshments had to be paid for. Overall, I’m not sure that at £25 it represented fantastic value for money, although it was certainly a character building day out!