Well that was prehistoric in its barbarism… The irony being the barbarian hoards weren’t even a flicker in creation’s eye at the point at which these features were scoured onto the face of our planet. The badlands presented themselves in descents to sea level then soul crushing climbs back up the cliffs.
Even the optimists reviewed their life position of ‘no regrets’ as we dragged ourselves up the first ramp at an unrelenting 17% for 600m wondering if we’d missed the crampons issuing station. Nearing the top secretly hoping we might fall off the cliff like a despondent Lemming the true misery of what was to unfold came bounding towards us out of the fog of despair.
The group had splintered off the initial assault of the wall and like nervous wildlings we huddled together in small groups hoping to support each other through the remainder of the ride praying all the time that we would not be the next to be slain by gravity’s sword.
It remained as such for the remainder of the ride until the final climb when predictably although it was the least steep with the matches that had been used to get there riders began to fail. There was an almighty battle at the front for the podium.
The podium:
There were 3 DQs well over the handicap watts so the podium sits as:
- M. Barker 3.2wkg
- M. Cayton 3.1wkg
- W. Frier 3.1wkg
Excellent riding all.
The main award though as ever, the Combativity Award.
This goes to the rider that showed the most aggression, or support for other riders. Simply the rider that puts it all out there. This week after many nominations in previous races B. Usher takes the win. For those that don’t know Bev is proudly 79 years old and tonight held on at the big watts end of things for at least the first half which was pretty savage. Very well done!