UCI Cheshire Cat 2009

Why oh why did they stage this event on the day after the clocks change?! It was one early start, that felt even earlier, for the drive up to Knutsford. The weather on the way was gorgeous but a few miles from the start the fog was dense and low.

I opted to for less weather protection on the gable that the fog would burn of and the sun would stay out. It turned out to be a good decision, bar the lack of over shoes which left my feet numb from the moment we set off.

For this years event I had a race plan in my mind and I stuck to it. For the first 10-15 I went out fairly hard; trying to make the most of fast pack riders. The pack was working so well that when the route split came some of the long route riders followed us!

After the main pack dissipated I rode with Mark in a smaller pack of a while. At about 15 miles in I broke for another pack but upon catching them found them to be slower so opted to carry on. So for the bulk of the ride I was by myself, but I didn’t mind as I had a good beat going from my iPod to my legs.

Mowcop came at twenty miles – bang on my caffeine gel feed. Knowing what was coming helped and I zig zagged up the first section, turned off up a side road to rest then darted straight up the main hill (see the pic).

I’d thought that would be pretty much it for the hills but the organisers had planned a tougher route than last year. Of not was a gorgeous climb through a forest and Swiss Hill, a cobbled road. Swiss Hill is the first hill where I’ve had to get off my bike. I take my hat off to those who rode all the way as it was so bumpy and slippy. I found it faster to get off and run up! This had the added advantage of relieving some of the cramp I had picked up from 50 miles.

All in all I put everything in to this one and although the results aren’t published yet am confident the my time of 4 hours and 8 minutes should be a good one.

Thanks once again to Kiltogo for another superb event.