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