The Sunday just gone was the last group training ride for our little team of work mate who are attempting the C2C and back at the end of the month. The plan was to meet up near Burton-on-Trent and ride north into the Peak District, take in a few climbs and circle round back for an 80ish mile ride. The route to be taken was similar to the Midland Monster sportive, and the aim was to get some serious hills under our belts. The forecast was bad, real bad. How wrong predictions can be. The torential rain came early, and all though we did have a stiff head wind to contend with as we headed north we made reasonable progress, until we got into the foot hills of the Peaks.
After struggling into the wind and up some long drags north of Waterhouses, we decided that it would be prudent to cut out the top corner of our route, about 10 miles and some seriously undulating terrain. After see the field of the Polka Dot streaming passed us in the other direction we cut across and headed toward Grindon and on to the "Wall at Wetton", measured at over 22%! After folks had recovered fromo their bouts of cramp and lack of oxygen we ambled thru the rolling countryside, taking in some spectacular views before taking a stop ate Ilam to refill bottles and scoff 99's before the ascent out towards Mapleton and Ashbourne. It was here at one of party could take no more and called for a the broom wagon, in the shape of his brother-in-law, to meet him by the chippy in Ashbourne Market Place. The rest of us only had the torturous climb out of ashbourne the a wind assisted run back to Burton, where we met up with our weary collegue again, who bought us a well earned pint.
The folks now have their eyes well and truely opened in readiness for our trek over the Pennines, where we will be taking in most of the major climbs in one made day from Keswick to Edmonbuyers - may the Madonna di Ghisallo smile upon us :)
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