hill climb project round 11

Throughout this season, our heroes of the hills have grappled with one defining question: Is it fear or excitement they feel when clipping in at the bottom of the mountain? While many are still attempting to unravel that mental riddle after 10 weeks of consideration, for the 32 souls arriving at the shadowy base of Pym Chair tonight, the biological response was undeniable. Pupils dilated. Resting heart rates instantly spiked into the red. Nobody dared look up until the very last moment.

No words can adequately capture the savagery of this climb; its cruelty must be physically ridden to be fully understood. Wielding gradients so wildly steep and unpredictably harsh, hyper-precise pacing is the only religion here. A deceptive, so-called "flatter" middle sector exists, which is still infinitely steeper than any road mortal commuters face, yet acts as a desperately needed oasis of recovery for the racers. Some call this section a breath of fresh air, but it is the only place where breaths of fresh air are taken onboard optionally. Everywhere else on this hellscape, oxygen is not breathed, it is violently gasped, forced in and out of searing lungs in sheer, burning desperation! On Pym Chair, everyone inevitably cracks. In fact, achieving greatness here outright demands it; there must come a defining moment when a catastrophic physiological risk is taken; a blind, desperate surge of maximum power unleashed simply to conquer the next ramp and prevent gravity from pulling you backward. The question is never if the mind will crack, but when, and whether completely emptying the tank can be timed to coincide with arrival at the finish line. What riders truly fear the most on these ramps is that creeping, inescapable loss of momentum too early; the harrowing, slow-motion nightmare of grinding to an absolute halt with zero gears remaining, legs turning to jelly, nowhere to hide and no options left while the clock still ticks just metres away.

Tonight, however, the gorge breathed hard with everyone. A booming, magnificent tailwind roared straight up the sore throat of the valley, coughing riders out at the finish. The gales blasted overgrown roadside grass flat, aggressively sweeping it upward towards the peak as if being groomed by an invisible comb. To the oxygen-starved gladiators throwing their bodies up the tarmac, on the final, highest and most exposed points, those chaotic gusts surrounding them created beautiful, delirious optical illusions. Plunged deep into the red-zone, their tortured minds tricked them into believing that these ripples throughout the greenery were side-effects of their own colossal, aerodynamic turbulence and furious, panting breaths. Parting the very earth before them, slamming the grass down with fury, they rode much like unrelenting boats carving a wake through still waters. The racers felt, for brief, fleeting moments, like climbing gods, toying with nature and controlling physics. Such lies were essential to keep morale high. Alas, this grand illusion was rudely shattered at the summit. Catching their breath at a dead standstill while continuing to be physically blown forward, the brutal truth dawned on them: they were not gods, merely the beneficiaries of the mountain's rare mercy.

In response to our opening philosophical question regarding the mental toll of the starting blocks, Mike Merchant's biological answer was unquestionable. "Definitely more fear than excitement this week with 24% feeling like a threatening number, much anguish about ratios in the weeks before, and fear only enhanced by cycling down the hill to the start," he conceded. Mike and his 11-year-old daughter Sophie arrived to blast their colossal tandem off first. Though rival heavy-weight Snowdon was absent from the start list this evening, they used their undisputed run at the mountain as an epic testing ground for future clashes.

Before the sleek, cutting-edge carbon fibre machines of the later leaders even saw the tarmac, a drastically different mechanical arms race unfolded within this heavy-weight rank. Taking dead aim at the missing titan, Mike explained his distinct, grass-roots advantage over his modernised rival: "Snowdon's tandem is a bit newer than ours, so perhaps he is more constrained, and can't make a Frankenstein build in quite the same way."

Crunching the ruthless mathematics of survival for weeks leading up to the race, Mike plotted the limits of mechanical gear ratios with the organizer. "In the previous events we've used a 32T x 34T combination, but our cadence might drop too low for control at 24% gradient," he admitted. "I'm constrained to a minimum 28T on my chainset because of the BCD of the 1990s square taper Stronglight spider." The glorious workaround to this impasse? A full-scale component heist and the sheer chaotic beauty of retro un-indexed shifting! Embracing his mad-scientist reality, he boldly declared: "However, I've got friction shifting without indexing, so I can properly bodge the rear groupset. It's currently 8 speed, with the derailleur not accommodating anything with more than 37T even with b-screw adjustment. So I'm stealing everything from my mountain bike, and running a 42T 11-speed cassette and matched derailleur, giving me 28T x 42T, which is the best I can do without major investment."

Tasked with manning that terrifying precipice and ensuring these giant beasts of burden, and the nervous solos following them, were securely upright before their violent efforts was valiant volunteer, Richard May, doing heroic double-duty by juggling the chaotic distribution of race numbers. Sharing this heavy burden of the starting grid as the official start timekeeper was none other than our reigning Veteran titan, Thijs Geurts. When asked if the intoxicating pre-race tension was making him yearn for a last-minute, wildcard spot on the start sheet, Thijs fiercely shook his head! Emphatically declaring he was actually looking forward to not racing, the soaring Dutchman explained his tactical retreat. Endowed with a formidable, slow-burning 'diesel engine', Pym Chair's violently jagged, momentum-killing precipice simply does not allow his sustained, rhythmic power to shine. In past eras upon this specific cliff face, his mighty physiological systems have never managed to fully empty the tank, bizarrely leaving massive amounts of precious wattage unaccounted for with zero explanation. Tonight, remaining safely upon the ground to operate the stopwatch was his glorious salvation!

Charging out into the valley, Mike and Sophie’s gear-bodging gamble paid monumental dividends! Firing a flawlessly calculated pacing strategy into the sheer wall of asphalt, the great battleship defied gravity and refused to succumb to the dreaded loss of momentum. Explaining their stunning conquest that stopped the clocks at an unbelievable 8:28.677, Mike proclaimed: "We feel like we paced it perfectly, with the youthful component of the team saving just enough Skittles-fuelled energy to coordinate an out of saddle push around that final steepest corner."

While the mighty tandem staked a glorious claim for the heavyweight division, the wider peloton was actively plunging into a bizarre, wonderful mechanical circus! Historically, our combatants love to inflict suffering upon themselves using wildly unconventional machinery; last year, Chris Mountcastle captured everyone's hearts by manhandling a massive, battery-less cargo bike up these gradients. This season, the sheer absurdity escalated to completely brilliant new heights.

Arriving at the start block, Matthew Larkins instantly drew baffled laughter and highly skeptical gasps. His chosen steed? A diminutive Brompton folding bike! Though Matthew miraculously survived the drawn-out horrors of Blaze Hill on this folding contraption last year, surely the jagged, twisting 24% precipice of Pym Chair would be entirely impossible? The gathered crowds morbidly wondered if he would be forced into a walk, or exactly how excruciatingly slow the grind might be. Blasting those doubts into orbit, Matthew successfully wrenched the commuter bike up the sheer cliff in a heroic 6:28.755! To put this sheer madness into perspective: his staggering folder time was only a mere 1 minute and 33 seconds slower than his all-time Personal Best forged on a highly-tuned elite road bike!

Yet, the ultimate, indisputable mechanical king of the evening undeniably belonged to James Summers. Departing the blazing inferno of Croker Hill last week, James cryptically warned the peloton that a highly classified "secret weapon" was being prepared for Pym Chair. Fierce rumors of an impossibly lightweight, £10,000 boutique superbike immediately swept the recovering peloton...

Nobody expected this.

Striding onto the start blocks as Rider 25, the crowds instantly went completely feral. Countless camera phones were furiously thrust into the air to capture the glorious reality: James had rocked up to a 24% hillclimb astride a monstrous, fat-tyred UNICYCLE! Getting himself strapped in to launch immediately behind this circus act as Rider 26, Organizer Bhima Bowden’s jaw firmly hit the tarmac.

What followed entirely broke people's brains! Launching without the safety-net of handlebars, James aggressively pumped his singular wheel up the unrelenting, slippery gradients. Having covertly staged a clandestine practice assault on the mountain during the prior weekend, James had quietly logged a tortuous 7-minute survival baseline. However, heavily fueled by the screaming, hysterical crowds on race night, his legs went completely super-nova, slicing 68 seconds clean off his practice benchmark! Cresting the great gorge in a spectacularly mind-bending 6:36.539, James astonishingly finished a microscopic two seconds behind his completely stunned teammate, Shane Skillin! Confirming the hilarious method to his madness, James gleefully explained his strategy: "I listened to all the weight weenies and made a few modifications to my bike. Front wheel - gone. Handlebars - gone. Chain, cassette and derailleurs all gone... Worst result yet! 26 out of 33 with a time of 6:36, I wonder why!"

Shane, meanwhile, fought a grim technological battle of his own. His race was plunged into total analog darkness when his power meter mysteriously died moments before the start. Forced to blindly navigate the brutal gradient, Shane summarized the physical toll with brutal honesty: "went off feel.... it felt horrible." Enduring a wildly high-intensity suffer-fest, he made sure to thank sideline-supporter Alice Ford for spectating, but saved his sharpest words for his teammate: "...and thanks to James Summers for making me look bad by smashing it on a Unicycle!"

Watching a fat-tyred unicycle casually hop away into the twilight proved to be the ultimate psychological dagger for those waiting on the grid directly behind him. Indeed, the sweeping mercy of the tailwind did not bless everyone. Utterly exhausted from the mounting toll of the season, organizer Bhima Bowden very nearly didn't take the start line. Yet, a fierce hunger for retribution burned deep within him. Tormented by two relatively slow recent years of 4:40 and 4:38, raced under awful conditions whilst drowning in organizational panic, he vividly remembered the untouchable golden era where he casually unleashed a 4:21 and 4:23. Surely tonight was his destiny? 

What followed was pure mechanical and physiological comedy. Soft-pedalling somehow at 3 W/kg up the terrifying climb to rendezvous with finish-timekeeper Lia and swap onto his featherweight racing wheels, Bhima witnessed the valley's collective dread firsthand. Warriors returning from their own early reconnaissance or simply descending to the start line possessed zero excitement, radiating only high fear and negativity. As she plunged past him, Tammy Lewis Jones locked eyes with the organizer and offered a terrified, wide-eyed, "Oh no!". Mere moments later, Johnny Winbolt-Lewis coasted down, concisely stating the grim reality to come: "Bloody tough innit!?".

Driven to assert his own dominance against this creeping wave of anxiety, Bhima decided to angrily test his legs on the 24% gradient. Seeking to channel the famously violent, out-of-the-saddle climbing supremacy of Jack Morris, Bhima threw his weight forward. CRACK! The brutal torque completely overpowered a ridiculously flimsy, hyper-lightweight rear quick-release skewer. In the most impossibly dangerous sector of the mountain, his entire rear wheel violently detached from the frame, warping and buckling the rim as it ground to a catastrophic halt!

Stripped instantly of all his climbing swagger, Bhima desperately scrambled to wrestle the broken steed upright upon the near-vertical cliff, his cleats sliding uncontrollably down the road. This violent roadside wrestling-match immediately triggered a devastating biological response: an acute, crippling muscle cramp. A horrific, seizing pain that Bhima notoriously claims strikes his legs only once every half-decade had magically decided to erupt 30 minutes before his start time! This would be a dire sign of things to come.

Fleeing back to the valley floor with a patched-up bike to hastily teach Richard May the holy art of the "push-off", Bhima fatally compromised his own physical preparation in favour of total, organizational chaos. Nothing epitomized this sheer panic more brilliantly than the wildly delayed arrival of Hale Velo speedster, Sam Garrett! Plunging down the valley to the start block with literally one singular minute to go before his launch time, a deeply high-stakes, Formula 1-style pitstop spontaneously broke out!

As Sam frantically ripped away his extra outer clothing layers, Bhima and Richard instantly descended upon him like a trained mechanics crew. The two men physically pinned the race number onto his jerseying while simultaneously catching his weight, yanking him upward to mount his machine as the unforgiving starter's clock loudly counted down. "Thirty seconds..." With zero warmup, adrenaline was now his sole fuel. "Ten seconds to go..." Trembling upon the block, Sam miraculously jammed his final cleat into the pedal with mere seconds remaining. Then, at the "Five second..." marker, total survival-instinct took over. Remembering crucial 'weight-weenie' protocol at the final moment, Sam blindly threw his hand backwards beneath his saddle, ripping open the velcro on his heavy saddle-bag of tools, completely detaching the anchor and aggressively hurling it off into the roadside bushes directly as the whistle blew! Exploding flawlessly out of this beautiful pandemonium to snatch 9th overall with an electric 4:56.443, Sam laughed heartily afterwards at the absurdly manic brilliance of his launch crew.

But for his head mechanic, there was no salvation. Stepping onto the line for his own race directly after managing such wild chaos, and mistakenly believing the balmy temperatures would magically negate a vital warm-up, Bhima’s logic spectacularly failed. Launching out of the gate as rider number 26 directly behind a unicycle, the dreaded phenomenon of 'blood pooling' struck with ruthless efficiency. His legs instantly turned to heavy, cold lead, feeling heavier than the monster tandem with every pedal stroke. Searing lactate seized his muscles, and the raw wattage he produced was practically laughable; his violent maximum sprint up the first sector barely generated the power normally reserved for a 10-minute grind. By the time he reached the 'flatter' middle section and finally generated a sliver of respectable power, the horrifying reality dawned on him: this wasn't a race, it had effectively just been his desperately needed warm-up! Limping over the summit in 4:36, he managed to shave a couple of seconds off his cursed era, but stood staring at a gaping 15-second abyss between himself and the PB he so arrogantly assumed was guaranteed.

A bizarre, gloomy shroud of underperformance gripped other veterans, too, starkly contrasting the massive PBs scattered across the rest of the field. Ascending the gradient to log a desperately close finish just seconds in front of Bhima, Nick Brownbill suffered his own grim pacing demons, finding his ultimate assault falling 4 agonizing seconds shy of his lifetime best.

And if the physiological drain wasn't enough to end your night, the pure psychological warfare of the valley was waiting to finish the job. Even this week's heralded 'poster boy', Peter O'Hare, completely fell victim to the existential dread! Lined up on the grid, the towering powerhouse began furiously wobbling in a terrifying panic-dance despite Bhima anchoring his saddle to keep the machine steady! Narrowly surviving the starting block chaos to post a solid time of 5:26.944, a highly-reflective Peter fully unpacked his pre-race unraveling, heavily burdened by punishing allergies that sapped his energy all day.

"I’d got myself in a bad balance, so wouldn’t have been able to push off. In my own head too much," he confessed afterwards. Ultimately declaring it was unequivocally the "worst I’ve felt on a bike", he stared the raw terror of Pym Chair right in the face and found total acceptance of the torment, owning his ride with supreme humility: "I actually didn’t do too bad. But could have done so much better. The fear haha. I blame only myself."

Indeed, merely clinging to consciousness was the true victory condition for some of our bravest entrants. Throwing his leg over the saddle to take on this fabled gorge, newcomer VET Paul Dentith successfully faced down the demon, surviving the climb only to vividly summarize the utter physiological ruin the tarmac inflicts on the human body, gasping, "I did well to get to the line without passing out."

Yet, for grizzled Veteran Simon Oldfield, this level of bodily suffering was simply a nostalgic trip down a highly painful memory lane! Grinding his way up the sheer cliff face, he reflected that tonight was "nearly as hard as when I first rode up (1978) in 42x21 with a heavy saddlebag!" When compared to Simon's heroic 1970s gear-crunching, the massive 34 and 42-tooth "bailout gears" utilized by the modern peloton suddenly sound like a luxury!

Conversely, other warriors clearly operate on completely different biological planes! Returning to the fray after braving the literal solar surface of Croker Hill last week, Chris Wood proved his body is entirely unbothered by atmospheric torment. The secret to his monumental engine? A recent, highly-disciplined, grueling "heat-acclimation" training camp in Ibiza! Combining daylight cycling with intensive, late-night endurance training within the Balearic nightclubs, his wildly unconventional preparation definitively paid off! Grinding his way up the gorge with glorious stamina, Chris extracted a magnificent 3-second PB from the unyielding gradient.

A masterclass in grinding against the odds was famously laid out by the series’ ultimate super-fan, Phillip Coates. Waging his crusade as a lone wolf this evening, Phil admitted to profound pre-race sorrow, mourning the absence of "Baby Coates" (Lily), whose real-world work experience had tragically barred her from the starting block. "I'll really miss the girls not being there," Phil lamented. "You get instantly used to family company on race night."

However, a true recruiter never leaves the sidelines empty! To fill the familial void, Phil orchestrated a brilliant abduction, dragging along his unsuspecting friend, Nasser. Arming the bewildered newcomer with a heavy cowbell and throwing him directly into the screaming finish-line madness, the classic, irresistible trap was flawlessly sprung. Nasser was relentlessly targeted and aggressively peer-pressured by the joyous, euphoric finishers, with his submission wholly inevitable: Nasser is now seeking his own racing start-line slot for next week!

Unchained on the mountain to set an inspiring example, Phil waged a truly desperate war against physics, gravity, and gravel. Confronted immediately by the decaying road surface at the start, sheer preservation seized him. "Not hard enough off the start because I bottled it when I saw the road surface and gravel," he confessed. Surging with wild panic into the first lethal kick of the gradient, his wattage exploded beyond all sustainable boundaries, forcing a desperate tactical retreat upon the "flat" middle sector just to claw his average back toward his 350-Watt master plan.

"I found it very difficult indeed to get any stability on my power output," Phil vividly recalled. "The steep parts required power I couldn't hold in order to just get up them. And so began a very rough exercise in playing the averages game. Eyes glued to my power data, from 3 second output to average output and back, frantically trying to moderate my power to avoid going bang, but also I'd ran out of sodding gears too."

Stripped of all mechanical bailouts, he was forced to suffer the mountain’s cruelest psychological trick: the dilation of time itself. "Time passes slowly on gradients like that, the ground seems to stop as you glare at it, drool onto it, swear at it, willing it to simply get behind you at a detectable rate," Phil eloquently detailed. "The pain stretches thin and sharp in the legs and lungs threatening to ping into cramp or simply override your dwindling will power to carry on turning the crank. Then it's time to find that energy you've been desperately trying to conserve for the push over the line. Empty the tanks, now, and keep emptying them till you cross the line."

Shifting instantaneously from "hero to zero" upon hearing the timekeeper's bell, his collapse yielded monumental triumph! Securing a time of 05:08.865, Phil captured 13th overall and 4th within an incredibly vicious VET leaderboard, ruthlessly butchering his PB by a colossal 35.630 seconds!

Deep in the hills, words and blood-oaths simply cease to matter. Long ago, following a prior encounter with Pym Chair, legendary returning VET champion Alice Larkin swore vehemently to the cycling gods that she would absolutely, undeniably, never, ever return to race up this sickening precipice.

The mountain, inevitably, called her bluff! Unable to resist the intoxicating siren song of the hillclimb community, Alice shockingly threw her prior vows straight to the violent gorge winds and proudly took to the start block! Her unexpected presence instantly heightened the glorious tension of the night, because an all-time legend had also descended from the heights to defend her territory: our towering two-time Club Hillclimb Champion, Egg Cameron, had sensationally returned to the slope!

Wielding monumental, devastating power, Egg was entirely in her element, declaring she was utterly delighted by the heavy threat of having a rider of Alice’s ruthless calibre desperately trying to chase her down from the launch pad behind! All eyes immediately snapped to the timekeepers' screens, desperately waiting to witness who would capture the crown between the resurrected Champion and the rider who vowed never to return.

Down at the starting blocks, the stakes were so incredibly high that a hilarious, mid-race "push-off arms race" broke out! Desperate to capture every possible millisecond, as each woman was loaded onto the line, they loudly demanded a harder, vastly more ferocious physical launch from the haggard Bhima to grant them maximum initial momentum! Though this grueling, muscular labor only worsened Bhima's impending physiological doom, it provided the perfect launchpad our Queens needed.

Surviving her own terrified pre-race "Oh no!", Tammy Lewis Jones weaponized her fear, powering to a superb 3rd place overall with a blistering 6:07.591, while the brave Maggie McPhillips successfully wrung out her legs to lay down an 8:17.262 for 4th.

But the war for the crown yielded pure, jaw-dropping history! Shimmering with power to shatter the hallowed 6-minute barrier, Egg Cameron emphatically stamped her phenomenal return with a breathtaking 5:59.818, capturing a colossal 8.343-second PB in the process! Yet, magically transcending her own unbreakable vow never to ride the gorge again, Alice Larkin ruthlessly stole the throne! Seizing the ultimate Women's victory at an unbelievable 5:52.180, Alice utilized every ounce of that massive start-line push to scrape an unimaginably microscopic 0.808-second PB from the asphalt! Following the war, all fierce hostilities beautifully evaporated; the four victorious Queens gathered happily together upon the wind-swept crest, taking a magnificent, joyous group photo framed perfectly against the epic landscape they had just conquered.

Meanwhile, at the razor-sharp end of the men's leaderboards, anticipation reached a fever pitch. Whispers of complex mathematics swept the elite peloton, sparked heavily by Tom Bowers' recent cinematic video report from round 8 on Barlow Hill. Diving deep into his spreadsheets, Tom claimed to have definitively solved the mystery of his recent climbing margins: his legs are supposedly firing the exact same legendary Wattage, but his times are secretly being penalized by a phantom 5kg of extra mass, forged from heavy recovery-eating for his grueling gravel season!

There is, however, one hilarious flaw in his grand mathematical defense: nobody can actually find the 5kg! With prominent veins visibly popping across every limb, and an undeniably hyper-lean climbing aesthetic, the physical evidence of this extra weight simply does not exist. As a fiercely dedicated 'weight weenie', Tom is renowned for sourcing the lightest boutique bike parts on the planet, liaising directly with suppliers to brilliantly showcase their cutting-edge tech. Bolting these spectacular, top-tier upgrades to his machine requires utter perfection; every single carbon gram is painstakingly verified on hyper-sensitive, meticulously calibrated laboratory scales. Clearly, he has been so fanatically obsessed with maintaining his micro-scales to weigh featherweight bike parts that he must have simply forgotten to calibrate his own cheap bathroom scales!

In truth, Tom might have been the sole rider whose heart actually pounded with pure excitement. Armed to the teeth with carbon fibres and muscle fibres on what is historically known to be his favourite battleground, the trap was set. He was smiling and ready for war. When the ultimate dust settled and the clocks screamed for mercy, Tom unleashed absolute devastation. Blasting up the gorge, he completely shattered his own historical best by a monstrous 24.574 seconds, clocking an incredible 4:09.897 to secure 2nd place overall. Standing exactly 6.575 seconds away from the overall win, the comedy of his own mathematics was wholly revealed. With a monumental personal best that blistering, clearly the "overweight" excuse was exposed!

The only obstacle that stopped Tom from claiming the throne was the unstoppable, soaring force of Jack Morris. Ascending with his terrifying, trademark out-of-the-saddle violence from the base to the crest, Jack completely bent the mountain to his will. Yet his conquest was born of hyper-calculated equipment wizardry. To maintain unbreakable traction over unexpected roadside gravel whilst throwing his bike side-to-side, Jack deployed plush 30mm tyres softened to a mere 50 PSI! But the true scandal of the night occurred within his drivetrain. A notoriously brutal grinder who refused to drop out of the big-ring on the vertical wall of Barlow Hill, the vicious gradient of Pym Chair finally humbled him. To the pure, unadulterated shock of the witnessing crowd, Jack Morris was actively forced into the small chainring! Spinning to ultimate victory, he stopped the clocks at a mesmerizing 4:03.322, miraculously slashing 17.201 seconds from his own intimidating PB to unequivocally cement his title as King of the cliffs!

Lurking right on the rear wheels of these two titans was the undeniable, mind-bending proof of a generational leap. Junior phenom Edward Stubbs hurtled into 3rd place overall with a blinding 4:15.948. To truly comprehend the soaring insanity of his rapidly evolving engine: Ed didn't just break his PB tonight, he entirely vaporized it by a reality-defying 58.343 seconds! To casually wipe almost an entire minute from a fiercely technical 4-to-5-minute race indicates an astronomical surge into elite fitness that must leave his rivals terrified.

Sweeping directly in behind young Stubbs to lock out the supreme top 5 was a magnificent dual-assault from the mighty Chorlton Velo faction! Waging psychological warfare earlier in the week, David Price wildly downplayed his current form, attempting to convince rivals he was nowhere near peak fitness. Deployed onto the start-sheet immediately behind Bhima, David promised he would act as the "motivational boost" to hunt the organizer up the climb. With Bhima entirely imploding with dead legs, David launched like a missile, obliterating the tarmac in 4:16.002 to claim 4th, with enough energy to high-five Bhima on the line! Sandbagging firmly exposed, David’s fitness is clearly hovering at terrifyingly lethal levels!

Seizing 5th place in 4:21.244 was his valiant teammate, Daniel Herterick. Still heroically piloting a temporary replacement rig following his brutal crash earlier this year, Daniel notably upgraded his setup tonight, stripping away the heavy winter training wheels he slogged up Croker Hill just a week prior. Assessing his ascent with clinical precision, Daniel admitted he "paced a little too conservatively and let up in the flatter sections". Yet, the overarching news is incredibly ominous for his rivals. Fundamentally, his physiological recovery is reaching frightening heights: "legs felt great," he beamed. "Power PB, so heading in the right direction." Having been newly usurped upon the slopes by incredibly fast clubmates like Eddie Forster and now David Price, this immense power-surge officially ignites a fierce intra-club inferno to retake the supreme top-step!

Beyond the timekeepers, true salvation awaited our broken ascendants. Embodying the phenomenal spirit of our community, our start-line guardian Richard May also moon-lighted as the evening's baker! Bringing a massive haul of home-baked flapjacks to the peak, Richard humbly warned the ravenous athletes that attempting to out-do legendary series-baker Bluebell was likely a near impossible task.

For those who braved the unimaginable gradient, victory tasted distinctly of golden syrup and oats. Reflecting upon their magnificent triumph against both the gorge and their own fears, Mike Merchant flawlessly summed up the magic of surviving Pym Chair, warmly declaring: "Exceptional flapjack at the finish made the day."

Next week, however, our army of exhausted survivors will realize their compass barely needs to move! Round 11 summons the peloton to the sweeping slopes of Windgather. Offering a stark contrast to tonight's claustrophobic violence, Windgather is a much longer, more stretched-out physiological endurance assault. Yet, the sheer geographical comedy of this venue is that it crawls up the very same mountain! In fact, the ultimate finish line next Friday is a mere 30-second walking distance from where our warriors stood gasping and scoffing flapjacks tonight!

Intoxicated by the incredibly close proximity of next week's battlefield, several restless warriors simply could not wait for next Friday to arrive. Taking advantage of the lingering twilight, fierce combatants including Nick Brownbill and the heavily scouting Seb Hines rode directly over the ridge, hunting the asphalt they must soon conquer to gauge its drawn-out depths.

The great hill prepares to unleash its second form. Ensure you're entered early, and we'll see you back on the mountain!

Full results: https://hillclimbproject.co.uk/race/?c=zYvmCcIT4o#R

Link to the next event, round 11, below

Winners:
Jack Morris (Cheshire Cycling Club)
Rebecca Richardson (Team Lifting Gear)

This week, our great campaign returned for a 6th consecutive year to the sprawling slopes of Windgather Rocks. Here, the tortuous ribbon of ascending asphalt serves as a razor-thin borderline. Stray merely inches over the grass or beyond the stone walls to the left, and you plunge instantly into an alien realm: Derbyshire, the territory of Buxton Cycling Club.

Long before our own weekly series summoned warriors to these Friday evening battles, Buxton CC laid the glorious foundational lore upon this very climb. Over a decade ago, on balmy, forgotten Tuesday evenings in August, they fired the opening salvos of a magnificent, friendly war between their elite and the Macclesfield Wheelers. To orchestrate this sprawling warfare today, a small but vital logistical change was required. Historically echoing Buxton CC's tradition, we hand out racing numbers from the sweeping expanse of the summit car park, as the bleak base of the climb offers barely enough tarmac to safely stand on. Yet, fetching a number this way often curses riders with the dreaded 'double ascent', occasionally resulting in panicked, leg-draining rushes back down to the start block with seconds to spare. To save sanity and precious racing wattage, the organizer sensibly launched a secondary outpost to distribute numbers at the bottom for the 18 wise warriors approaching directly from the lowlands. It elegantly spared their legs and blessedly prevented total traffic-jams within the narrow starting trench.

Above the starting block, the sky unleashed total, unrelenting cruelty. The scorching fires of another terrifying heatwave had brutally returned, hammering temperatures straight back into the 30s! Stifled beneath the trees, the highly charged pre-race chatter drifted immediately toward the grand, heavy reality of our boiling atmosphere. Debating the escalating terror of climate change, the warriors starkly acknowledged a grim omen. If these ferocious, tropical infernos continue to dictate our summer, perhaps the racers of future eras will marvel at inverted prophecies? Who knows, maybe in future years, these race reports will excitedly herald the miraculous arrival of a rare, shivering "coldwave" as the ultimate novelty condition for the climbers!

Navigating such terrifying temperatures demands highly calculated thermal warfare from the riders. During the infernos of 2025, Organizer Bhima Bowden miraculously conquered this exact furnace to strike an 8-minute time, securing the podium. He openly attributed this victory to wild hydration tactics, aggressively downing one whole litre of premium, chilled orange juice a mere 10 minutes before his launch. Proudly accepting a severe 1kg weight penalty for the glorious sake of icy, sugary core-cooling, he proved surviving the heat is paramount. This year, evolving his weaponry, he wisely swapped the massive juice payload for a deeply frozen, icy drink prior to setting off on the mountain, hunting the exact same thermal salvation, just without the horrific liquid bloat.

But when the whistle finally blew, the mountain executed a beautifully cruel optical illusion. Beneath the claustrophobic canopy of the starting line trees, the atmosphere hung dead and heavy, fooling riders into thinking it was purely a heat battle, identical to the stagnant air of the Cat & Fiddle weeks prior. Yet, the moment our ascendants broke free from the timberline and hit the monolithic, exposed rock faces of the upper slopes, they were utterly blindsided by an invisible wall of resisting cross/headwinds!

Because the riders instinctively held their wattage back on the brutally steep lower slopes, subconsciously terrified they would need the energy to slice through stagnant heat later, they suddenly found themselves horribly bogged down by the exposed gale with zero momentum to save them. Station South CC's Peter O'Hare brilliantly summarized the atmospheric robbery, putting down the second-best 10-minute power of his life to cross in 10:03.792, stating: "Good start. Class race. Probably could have squeezed out more power." His teammate Oliver Handley practically boiled over in 9:33.100, concluding perfectly for the entire peloton: "Hit target power. Too hot for this nonsense."

For Oliver and Peter's Station South teammate, however, the brutal environment and pre-race chaos proved fatal before the timing chip was even engaged. True heartbreak fell to Alberto Poltz Faggiani; his glorious debut was thwarted on the actual commute by the dark gods of vulcanized rubber, suffering a catastrophic double-puncture that entirely denied him the start block. The searing tarmac claimed victims across the starting sheet. Stepping valiantly into this boiling furnace was a spectacularly mighty, deeply competitive field of 14 women. Though sadly, this number shrank by one just before launch. Fatigued from a hard-fought TT the night prior, Tammy Lewis Jones had to rightfully invoke her own, now-standard extreme heat protocols. Having safely withdrawn from Croker Hill weeks ago for the exact same reason, she wisely bowed out again tonight to protect her loyal sideline-supporter dogs from the searing ground temperatures.

Heavily contributing to the air of pre-race commuter doom was veteran powerhouse David Watkins, who endured a mechanical meltdown on his own ride to the venue. Suffering both a wildly dropped pedal and an ejecting bottle cage, he was saved purely by his wife, who heroically deployed the family car to drag him to the start block. Miraculously, David managed to screw the broken cage and pedal back onto his bike in time. Yet, in a show of pure, blinding defiance, he actively refused to remove the heavy water bottle it held for his actual race! Hauling the sheer, pointless gravitational ballast to the heavens to clock 10:52.604, he boldly declared he was deliberately handicapping his 2026 time just to make his attempt at a PB vastly easier next year.

Further down the start sheet, a different brand of pre-race mystery had completely gripped the peloton. For the very first time this season, super-fan Phillip Coates was entirely silent on social media. Without his famous pre-race analytical sermon, riders nervously wondered what grand strategy he was plotting in the shadows. The terrifying truth? Utter catastrophe! Disassembling his machine for the car journey, Phil threw his carbon seatpost into a bag... and accidentally left the entire bag in his shed at home!

Arriving at the mountain essentially pushing an unfinished build from the local bike shop, panic seized the veteran. Bhima wildly floated the idea of riding the grueling, 10-minute mountain entirely out of the saddle (If Jack Morris could do it, why couldn't he?!), but thankfully, the glorious heroine of the evening, his daughter Lily, heroically surrendered her own bicycle. Squeezing his way onto her far smaller rig with literal minutes to spare, Phil hurled himself up the tarmac. Astoundingly breaking the sacred 10-minute barrier with a brilliant 09:57.705 to claim 15th overall, Phil's chaotic war effort secured legendary status.

Also surviving this pre-race panic to cross the line under the Coates umbrella was Phil's 'abducted' friend from last week, Nasar Rafiq. Making his highly anticipated official debut in 12:13.683, the great recruitment trap has fully ensnared him! The stage was finally set. With the warring factions drawn up, the sun cooking the tarmac, and numbers (mostly) pinned to fully functioning bikes... it was time to resolve the battles at the summit.

With the starting blocks finally cleared of panicked mechanics, focus sharply snapped to the ferocious fight for the Men's Overall Crown. Tragically, before the battle even commenced, the defending Macclesfield Wheelers found themselves suffering catastrophic depletion in their own ranks. Our reigning Club Champion, Tom Bowers, had seemingly abandoned his homeland defense, departing to wage distant, mysterious wars across the sun-baked plains of France. With other mighty local heroes similarly exiled on summer holidays, our ultimate raw firepower was theoretically slashed in half. And the timing could not have been worse; an invasion fleet from the north had just marched upon the overall leaderboard: the mighty Chorlton Velo armada.

These invaders do not strike blindly. Exactly one year ago, on a sweltering Wednesday evening in June, the Chorlton legion quietly marched their entire army to the foot of Windgather to ruthlessly enact a private, inter-club bloodbath devoid of any outside interference. Heavily preparing for a true takeover, tonight their frontline boldly deployed to crash our party. The Vanguard was highly formidable on paper: reigning invader David Price, fiercely flanked by physiological juggernauts Eddie Forster and Daniel Herterick. In reality, their highly anticipated militaristic sweep played out far more like a glorious, chaotic comedy!

Daniel Herterick practically parachuted onto the start. Stepping off a plane from Portugal at 3:00 PM, he marched directly to the mountain. Battling heavy jetlag, he hilariously warned his rivals before the whistle blew that if he somehow failed to claim the ultimate victory tonight, the excuse would officially be due to the time zones. His fuel tanks were equally disastrous; citing a poor holiday diet, he complained, "I feel like I haven't seen a vegetable in years!" Surviving his hectic transit only to ride straight into a savage pothole on the climb, his heavily fatigued 08:37.914 happily proved mortal limits do still apply to his soaring engine.

Meanwhile, his teammate David Price staged a masterpiece of pre-race sandbagging! Limping his bicycle to the starting area at a literal snail's pace to keep his powder entirely bone-dry, he casually rocked up with exactly 10 minutes until his start time. Panic immediately ensued, with Organizer Bhima Bowden hastily pinning his race number jersey as the clock ticked down. Surviving this delayed entry, David aggressively hunted the shadow of absolute greatness. Earning an elite 08:32.902 (good for 6th overall), he perfectly encapsulated the elite peloton's existential awe as ultimate powerhouse Jack Morris came slowly creeping up from behind to make the catch on the road. Heavily congratulating the King at the summit, David voiced the collective truth: "Proper depressing but well done!" Leaving the asphalt carnage behind, David delightfully retreated to the iconic rocks with his girlfriend for an actual rock-climbing session, concluding: "The pizza bit afterwards was fun!"

To top the timing boards tonight meant aggressively defying the grim physics of the mountain. While Chorlton Velo's Eddie Forster incredibly arrived hardened from a brutal tempo workout upon this exact climb in the blistering heat just 24 hours prior, a reconnaissance that successfully propelled him to a monumental 2nd place overall in 08:20.673, the rest of the podium was shockingly hijacked by a rider seeking biological surrender. Slumped over his bars before the race, Nick Brownbill solemnly declared, "I've basically done too much all summer. I never recover properly and always drop off." Stating he was purely looking forward to escaping on holiday, his competitive fires seemed utterly extinguished. Yet, his legs ignored the memo. Shattering the headwinds with incredible form, Nick stormed across the finish line to miraculously capture an "inexplicable 3rd place among some big hitters" overall in a sublime 08:22.299. Basking in the glory of the top steps and the "beautiful weather," he cheerfully reversed his melancholy, leaving his holiday exhaustion completely in the dust.

But overarching sovereignty unequivocally belonged to Jack Morris (07:53.671). Where massive waves of warriors crossed the line entirely baffled, reporting lifetime-best wattages only to receive wildly slower finish times due to the phantom headwinds, Jack miraculously fought the air to finish merely 3 seconds down on his own 2025 tailwind effort. This demanded an unbelievable 20 extra Watts over his historical baseline just to achieve it. To dodge the relentless wall of air, Jack radically adapted, spending unusually long, grueling chunks in an aerodynamic tuck rather than his trademark, violent out-of-the-saddle dancing. Shockingly, he confessed to actually utilizing both his chainrings! Staring at Jack in utter disbelief upon the summit, the 2nd-place Eddie Forster instantly transformed into a paranoid interrogator, demanding: "Really? Where? Which part?!" While the questions seemed mundane, the sheer suspicion and horror with which Eddie delivered them was purely hilarious!

Jack's supremacy seemed immortal, though hope remains for the mere mortals beneath him. The peloton believes they have uncovered a highly classified physiological weakness to exploit: Jack occasionally departs for holidays in the USA, and his climbing form notoriously plummets after American trips due to heavy diets and zero time on the saddle. Organizers are now desperately calculating if next week's finish-line flapjacks can be deep-fried to forcefully fatten him up...

While the younger elites fought their war at the sharpest end of the start sheet, an entirely separate, brutal siege was mounting for the Master Veteran's crown. Historically, few of Buxton CC's mighty squad have boldly crossed the border to test our Friday proving grounds, but their most fearsome modern export, the ultimate M VET Champion Sam Clark, is famously one such warrior. Alas, tonight his formidable throne sat entirely vacant. Imprisoned by the sheer mechanical demands of his day-job, Sam remained hopelessly tethered to the workshop of "Sett Valley Cycles," desperately wrenching the great bikes of mortal commuters in the blistering heat all day long.

With Sam absent, the M VET crown was left utterly ripe for the picking. Sensing the massive power vacuum, seasoned gladiators Paul Whittaker and the devout super-fan Phillip Coates initially prepared to joyously resume their relentless, razor-close blood feud for the top step. However, any hopes of a predictable, unchallenged war were completely shattered by the arrival of an even grander monster. Lurking dangerously on the start-list was Tony Cope, returning for the first time since 2021. Known across the realm by the fierce moniker "Top Cat", Tony possesses terrifying, blistering power forged at the highest echelons of the National Championships and the prestigious shorter hillclimb events leading up to it. Prowling from the rear to aggressively chase Paul down, his entry elevated the veteran battlefield into an absolute crucible.

Adding highly entertaining, chaotic crossfire into this clashing of Vet titans was a brilliant case of mistaken identity courtesy of Organizer Bhima Bowden. Acting as the bridge between these rapid VETs and the senior category containing the big boys, Bhima launched his campaign determined to conquer the conditions. Finally (almost?) finding his elusive fresh legs for the first time since Round 7, he generated his highest outputs of 2026, only to be struck down by the mountain's brutal phantom headwinds, crossing a sprawling 24 seconds slower than his historical best. Yet, driving upward toward an eventual 4th overall (08:26.902), Bhima suddenly noticed he was successfully closing in on the minute-man ahead of him.

Unfathomably doubting he could possibly be catching the legendary Tony Cope on a climb, Bhima simply assumed he was successfully reeling in the prolific Phillip Coates instead. The dark kit ahead was unquestionably that of Leek Cycling Club, surely. Discovering at the summit he had actually captured Top Cat himself made Bhima's painful lung-burning sprint to the finish all the more exhilarating. Reaching true VO2 Max for the first time in months, gasping for breath after the line, no words between the two could be spoken. Only fist-bumps and head-nodding were possible at those high altitudes.

Despite being caught on the road by a rampaging senior, Top Cat successfully ripped apart his five-year exile from the tarmac to lay down a towering 09:34.380. It was an absolute elite standard for the Vet category, forcing all remaining contenders deep into their pain caves. The legendary Paul Whittaker, fueled by total determination, answered back. Hunted by Cope one minute behind him on the road, Paul carved out an exceptional 09:37.543 that astonishingly kept the ultimate margin separating the two juggernauts to barely three singular seconds! With that brilliant defence, the resurrected Tony Cope successfully usurped the missing Sam Clark to capture the highly prestigious M VET victory.

Out on the punishing slopes, a magnificent and chaotic war for the Women's Crown was intensely waged. While the home club faithfully fortified their ramparts with a deeply lethal local militia, bolstered by multi-time club champions absolutely refusing to surrender their localized kingdom without a violent fight, the overarching battle for the ultimate top step was dictated by outright favourite Rebecca Richardson. Undeniably switched on, she was seen actively executing a highly structured, fierce series of warmup reps down the lane before launch. Pausing to briefly note she genuinely loved this specific tarmac but purely desired it to be a fraction cooler, she commiserated over the agonizing, boiling slog of Croker Hill weeks prior. Yet, with just two minutes to her launch time, the elite killer-instinct flicked instantly back on. Snapping onto the blocks, she blasted out of the gates as if this atmospheric inferno was just a typical day at the office. Seizing commanding sovereignty, Rebecca successfully captured the outright Women's victory in a phenomenal 09:51.079.

However... an astonishing, horrifying reality once again greeted her at the timing clocks: her partner Rick Bailey had bested her by almost exactly 20 seconds, logging a staggering 09:31.861. Incredulous spectators immediately begged to know if Rick had pulled this off despite famously executing "zero training" once again, to Rebecca's sheer, hilarious frustration. Her wry, heavily updated defence for his victory this week? "Yeah, he's done a ride I think" since Croker Hill. Monumental, breaking news!

Providing his own triumphant, gasping testimony of the inferno, Rick brilliantly summarized his ascent: "Hot! Cramp! Slow!" He gleefully noted, "I may not have won the overall, but our household rivalry continues." Surviving this asphalt cooker was vastly helped by spotting well-known teammate Christian Fox on the sidelines, giving what Rick described sarcastically as his "usual mild-mannered, polite encouragement." Unable to find any time to actually ride his own bike lately, or even explain why he's so starved of time, Christian was there simply to unwind from the sheer chaos of everyday life. Usually heavily armed with his photography gear, he was sadly far too drained for media duty tonight, opting instead to purely spectate and soak in the brutal asphalt wars of his peers.

Directly behind Rebecca's towering triumph, the punishing elements and wild biology extracted a highly visible, grim toll. Reigning club royalty and ultra-endurance maestro Alison Dockney had finally stepped back onto the starting blocks after subjecting her engine to an unfathomable 45 hours of riding within a 64-hour window just three weeks prior. Now wired for sleepless odysseys, she was ultimately brought to heel by the blistering sun and threshold shock, capturing a solid 4th in 11:39.782 but totally unamused by the tropical microclimate. Deeming the ride her "Personal Worst", she graciously confessed: "Head and legs not in the game - sat up. Beautiful, but far too hot for racing up hills!"

Kathleen O'Donnell met a highly similar thermodynamic fate, wrestling the tarmac for a 17:16.762 after surviving arguably the most hilariously chaotic pre-race sequence in hill climb history. Describing the buildup as "unadulterated chaos," her frantic six-minute descent to the start block involved wildly ejecting her bike light onto the floor. Reaching the starting trench utterly blind to the time, she begged the crowd for a clock-reading, only to discover she had exactly two minutes to her launch. Abandoning her highly specific pre-race ritual of "sweet-eating carb-loading," she quickly necked her drink instead, instantly triggering a severe choking episode! Thankfully, veteran marshal Simon intervened, soothing the chaos by reminding her between coughs to change into her starting gear calmly.

With an incredibly brief 10 seconds remaining on her countdown clock, Kathleen cheerfully asked the bemused starters if she still had time to pose for a quick photo. They kindly suggested absolutely not. In a grand display of spirit, she turned her remaining seconds toward the formidable tandem duo of Sophie Merchant and her dad Mike. Pointing to their magnificent two-seater rig, she brightly noted she was purely sad they hadn't had time to officially place bets on the exact inch of tarmac where the tandem would violently overtake her!

Finally surging onto the brutal incline fueled by pure "I can do this" willpower, Kathleen's grand pre-race manifestation of an impossible 15:30 time faced yet another disastrous hurdle: her sunglasses abruptly ejected. Mercilessly "blinded by the light", Kathleen joyfully survived to reach the finish line where her dashed pacing dreams were instantly cured upon learning about the soul-destroying phantom headwinds. "Oh good," Kathleen laughed, entirely absolved of all timing guilt. "I now see why I couldn't possibly have got 15:30!"

However, do not let this cheerful relief fool you! Spectators were deeply suspicious to catch her actively undertaking a full second, agonizing repetition of the mountain in the twilight over an hour later. The official story for this secondary slog was that she was bravely riding back out into the wild to hunt down her ejected bike light and missing sunglasses. But we are firmly onto her! Has the intense racing bug finally bitten? Is Kathleen secretly using "dropped accessories" as an excuse to enact a brutal, nocturnal training regime, plotting to spring a massive surprise on the entire peloton very soon?!

Complete newcomers echoed these blazing sentiments. 2025 debutant Eva Harding brilliantly dragged herself over the line in 15:43.698 before laughingly ruling herself out of the furnace entirely: "Cooked! Not a warm-weather specialist, that's for sure." Rounding out Chorlton's invasion spearhead, a shattered Janine Sharma ground out a 14:24.374, noting her legs "blew" completely, but mercifully "the view was worth it".

Capitalizing wonderfully on this sun-baked exhaustion, absolute majesty unfolded among those rejecting conventional science. The mighty Egg Cameron fiercely ignored the sacred concept of a rest day, casually completing a steep morning walk up the Tegg's Nose fells (the actual peak, not our road climb) before enduring a heavy gym session mere hours before racing. Yet, the self-confessed 'workout-a-holic' ruthlessly forced her post-gym legs into an utterly brilliant 2nd place overall in 11:07.669.

But she was being furiously pursued by the younger generations. Flying the colours of the Clancy Briggs Cycling Academy, F JUV newcomer Seraphina Green utterly disregarded the blazing heat. Slicing over the summit in an electrifying 11:31.370, she violently usurped more experienced riders to seize 3rd place on the overall women's podium. Unfazed by the gravity of her incredible debut, she radiantly recalled that her most vivid memory of the ride was simply "the cheering and supporting from everyone. It was really good fun!" The phenomenal youth successfully spearheaded a gritty rear-guard of spectacular finishers who bravely refused to bow to the weather, with Station South's Sarah Andree claiming 5th in 13:08.398, narrowly holding off a wonderful surge from High Peak Tri's Bethany McAtee (13:36.517) alongside MAD Tri's Catherine Voyce (14:39.235).

Seraphina's masterclass in downplaying generational dominance was perfectly matched by wildly-gifted youth phenomenon Seb Hines (10:37.549). Seeking an explanation for his own heavy performances against Ed Stubbs lately, Seb hilariously revealed he'd basically "been ill all year without realising," but joyously declared, "I don't feel rubbish for a change!" Demonstrating phenomenal mental fortitude, he openly joked that leaving key items at home - his Garmin last week, his gloves this week - was simply brilliant "extra weight saving!" Looking around the valley he mused, "Next week, who knows?!" Putting his entire climbing world into glorious perspective, Seb cheerfully pointed toward the ongoing Tour de France, equating the gulf between local climbing limits and grand tour juggernauts with flawless, hilarious humility: "My Zone 5 is their Zone 2!"

Behind the elite timing skirmishes, an entirely different form of diplomacy was enacted upon the jagged middle sections as the famous Gittins brothers resurrected their thrilling, familial blood-feud. Lined up for launch, Billy ominously stated he prefers to be chased, but fate dictated otherwise. Launching exactly 60 seconds behind his brother Rob, Billy possessed the pacing to conquer, heavily eating into his sibling's lead as the incline dragged on. Approaching the roaring finish line, a spectator excitedly screamed to Billy: "You can catch him!" However, looking at Rob suffering desperately just meters ahead, the bonds of brotherhood ultimately proved thicker than timing-chip data. Perhaps sensing that enacting a highly public, humiliating mid-road pass, right on the line, in front of the paparazzi, might permanently elevate their fun rivalry into "deadly serious" territory, Billy astonishingly soft-pedalled across the line! Whether he suffered a sudden mechanical, fell apart at the crucial moment, or tactically backed off... he crossed in 13:06.164, almost a full minute ahead of Rob's 14:03.612, safely avoiding the physical pass and peacefully securing the Thanksgiving dinner table for another year!

Standing just beside that battle, an extraordinary psychological victory unfolded. Missing for a few weeks, Alex Taylor dramatically reappeared at the mountain with a profoundly beautiful shift in his aura. Before his recent retirement from a tough but successful career, Alex notoriously suffered extreme start-line anxieties. Tonight, gazing into the setting sun, he radiated an impenetrable, calm readiness. Openly stating his absence followed a tough personal meeting and highly emotional psychotherapy, Alex heroically transformed his vulnerability into raw wattage. Yet, the cruel gods of machinery still sought to break his zen. Pushed off the blocks, Alex suffered a completely dead power-meter, forcing him to ride completely blind. Worse still, extreme, searing cramps seized his hands and fingers on the bars despite downing a heavy payload of electrolytes.

Ignoring the agony, Alex methodically reeled in the asphalt. Cresting the summit in an immense 12:43.711, he joyously exclaimed: "I was really pleased with a PB here, as my previous best time was from a few years ago. I was actually 4 minutes quicker than the last time I rode it! A big turnout. The views were sublime. Lovely stuff." That previous cursed 2023 edition he speaks of saw the entire mountain washed out with torrential rain, notoriously forcing him to race in a deeply unaerodynamic, fleecy winter cycling jacket! His breathtaking, jacketless run perfectly fulfilled an unspoken pre-race prophecy. Organizer Bhima Bowden had noted Alex's total psychological turnaround on the line, casting a deeply knowing look at him as his minute-man ahead, the powerful Warren Jackson, panicked and struggled to clip into his pedals. Warren eventually survived the climb in a spectacular 12:46.406, cheerfully brushing off his mechanical blips because tonight was substantially "better than last night's disaster". His "disaster" was a ferocious chaingang group-ride the night prior, an ordeal he vividly summarized as taking "a kicking from the A-Team"! But the prediction rang completely true; Alex miraculously snatched their epic battle by less than 3 seconds. Imagine if the organiser bought a lottery ticket every week instead...

Meanwhile, perhaps nobody grasped the wild contrast of modern mechanical supremacy quite like James Summers. Waging war on a literal unicycle last week, James practically felt like an astronaut taking to a multi-geared road bike tonight. Openly admitting he was purely being "lazy" by opting for an elite steed instead of one wheel, his "laziness" amazingly churned out big power to capture 9th place in a mighty 09:27.520. Spurred upward "by the promise of a sweet treat and a cold drink at the end," he happily summarized: "I made the most of the luxuries like gears and a second wheel."

Another astonishing feat of endurance belonged to complete newcomer David Meanwell. Embarking from the furthest, torturous reaches of physical effort, David began his day at 8:00 AM crossing Manchester to navigate heavy business engagements entirely on his bicycle. Desperately seeking brief motorized relief to ferry him to Whaley Bridge, he quickly realized he had to conquer the notoriously steep asphalt climb rising out of the valley just to reach the starting blocks. Conquering his debut on totally obliterated legs in a highly respectable 11:22.830, a profound hero was minted tonight.

While Kathleen secretly battled the twilight mountain, a vital piece of post-war diplomacy was quietly unfolding back at the start line as the organisers removed the roadside signs. Dodging passing vehicles before launch, our massive, gathered army accidentally spilled over the asphalt borders, inadvertently turning a resident's private, grass-banked driveway into a waiting zone, moving its bordering rocks in the process. Astoundingly, a remarkably generous local had even offered organizers the use of his own driveway beforehand to alleviate this exact issue, a golden alliance Organizer Bhima Bowden fatally declined in the rushed, pre-race panic, wildly underestimating the sheer, sprawling volume of his upcoming crowd! While organizers extend a massive apology to the affected homeowners (and huge thanks to the resident for stepping in to help us safely adjust our logistics), it serves as a crucial strategic lesson for future campaigns. These magnificent grassroots wars rely entirely on the grace of our local hosts, meaning private property is strictly out-of-bounds! Moving forward, regardless of the start-line traffic squeeze, riders must hold their positions strictly upon the public tarmac. Protect the local driveways as fiercely as your racing lines so these brilliant, weekly battles can continue!

When the chaos finally settled over the Derbyshire horizon, a thick, breathtaking silence rewarded our battered combatants. A radiant, golden sunset began actively painting the vast stone blocks and heathlands, capturing perfectly what returning regular Afzal Khan gracefully defined: "Great turnout tonight! I think everyone came for the sunset vibes. Me included." Fully owning his brutal mid-pack 12:09.111, he humbly confessed, "Done too much this week, I am cooked. Totally worth it for the view," though he famously lamented one glaring tragedy at the summit: "the lack of flapjacks!"

Another brutal test safely vanquished, our recovering climbers must now radically prepare for an extreme gear shift. Next week, our great tour demands we plunge from this 10-minute drawn-out war directly into the savagely short, explosively sharp, sheer cliff-face of Nabbs Road in Wildboarclough. Similar in vicious duration to Smith Lane, elite giants like Eddie Forster and Jack Morris have quietly warned it is actually vastly steeper and infinitely more cruel. Anointed as the 'poster boy' to promote this upcoming bloodbath, Eddie's explosive fitness is soaring right now. Have the stars aligned, or is it a coincidence? With Jack not confident about it, will next week belong to Eddie instead?

Shorter, steeper, meaner... ensure you enter early. We'll see you on the starting blocks!

Full Results: https://hillclimbproject.co.uk/race/?c=aSiFd9HQ4M#R
Photos from various people's phones: https://hillclimbproject.co.uk/shots/2026-07-10/
Photos from Paul Jones (soon): https://www.photodesport.co.uk/time-trials-1

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