Wiggle Peak District Punisher - sportive report

Since moving up to Sheffield from Brighton at the start of the summer I have had to adapt to a lot more than just the twang of the Yorkshire accent. Whereas I used to huff and grunt my way up Ditchling Beacon or Devils Dyke to get back into Brighton after a nice fast flat ride, my rides now, in the beautiful Peak District, consist almost entirely of either going up or coming down a hill.

It took a lot of getting used to. I'll never forget my first ride out to explore the area. I came up against a hill that felt like doing all 3 of my local cat 4 climbs from Sussex back to back - it hurt like nothing before. Since then I've grown accustomed to that sort of pain and fitted a 28 tooth rear cassette for good measure and now consider myself something of a fledgling climber.

When I heard about the Wiggle Peak District Punisher I thought it would be a good opportunity to test out my new climbing ability and explore some of the parts I had not discovered yet. However, I knew what the terrain was like, and with the word 'Punisher' in the name I knew the route would be designed to include as many challenging climbs as they could find. With that in mind, I decided to opt for the standard route at an advertised 75 miles, instead of the rather harsh-sounding Epic route of 100. The standard route still included over 7000 feet of climbing, which sounded like enough to be challenging, but still keep on the right side of the line that separates hard from sadistic. As it turned out, I was pretty glad I made that decision.

The venue was well chosen and I knew it from this year's L'Eroica festival at the Showground in Bakewell. And it was helpful to be greeted by a marshal on the outskirts of the town who informed me of the best route to take to get to the parking area. When I got there everything was set up well and there was no queue either at the sign on or the start.

We all set off full of enthusiasm and misplaced ambitions of attaining the gold time, which meant keeping an average 15.5 miles per hour including any feed station stops. This seemed pretty tough to me, as it was the same speed needed to get gold on the last Wiggle ride I did, which was in the (comparatively) pancake-flat New Forest. We travelled over the first few bumpy miles in a fairly tight pack at what seemed a reasonable pace but I was only just hitting the required speed. Maybe the silver time was going to be more realistic.

I was looking forward to seeing what new Peak District climbs I was going to be introduced to. That was until I took a sharp left out of the picturesque village of Grindleford onto Sir William Hill. I was greeted by the sight of bikes and bodies strewn at side of the road and the sound of hacking coughs and cries of pain as more riders were pushing their bikes up a brutal gradient than actually attempting to ride up. It took a fair bit of technical skill just to weave a path through the carnage. After managing to squeeze past the crowded bottom section of the road, the climb continued on for a mile or so but at a much more manageable gradient. I started to enjoy the climb as I found my rhythm and I was rewarded as I reached the top with a fantastic view back towards the valley.

The next major climb we reached was the wonderful Mam Nick. This was the signature climb of the route, evidenced by the fact Wiggle predominantly use pictures of it in their promotional material for the sportive. Mam Nick really is a majestic climb, visible from the approach all the way back along the Edale Valley. You can pick out the course of the road ahead as soon as you climb above the tree line at the bottom. As you get higher the full view of the valley opens up below you. As you get close to the top the road takes you through a set of switchbacks and you know you are nearly there. It's a climb I do regularly on my local loop and I usually take a perch on one of the hilltops to soak up the view. Not today though, as I rolled straight over to journey towards the next one. This became a pattern: the climbs kept coming, one after the other, and I just kept on rolling. There were so many I had to look back at Strava to remind myself of them, and I know I'll have to journey out to these parts again before I could tell you which was which.

In sportives I had ridden before I'd really enjoyed how complete strangers bound together to form mini peletons, everyone working to keep up the speed and save valuable energy needed to complete their ride. But this one was different as the benefits of sticking together were almost completely eliminated by the hilly course: everyone climbs at their own pace, and descending, for me at least, is a matter of doing my best to keep out of the way of all other fast-moving things.

In fact, whilst the climbing may be something that I am getting better at, I realised my descending still has a lot of room for improvement judging by how how many riders flew past me at full throttle as I clung to the brakes. There was one rider in particular I noticed who I was going neck and neck with for a long part of the ride. And whilst I kept passing him on the climbs, he would inevitably whiz back past me with monotonous regularity on the way back down. So in a way I considered him my riding partner, even though we never benefited from any kind of mutual wind shielding and the only words muttered between us were "uhhh...you again!" as I slowly passed him on the way back up.

By the last third of the ride weariness was beginning to set in, and I must admit that I became less interested in completing in any particular time as just completing it full stop. I remember getting to the end of one particularly gruelling climb up to Thorncliffe and at the very top was the course split where the 'epic' riders would be heading off to fit in some extra hills before heading back to base (as if they hadn't had enough!). I wondered just how many riders would have swapped to the standard route simply due to the placement of the course split at the top of such a hard climb. Epic is a powerful word, but to those riders who took that turning I think it is well deserved.

By the time I rolled back into Bakewell I felt relieved that there was no way any more hills could be incorporated into the route and the only remaining challenge was to negotiate the awkward one-way system. The organisers had certainly succeeded in coming up with a course that was befitting of the name. Yes I'll ride out to find some of these climbs again soon, but I think I'll take them one or two at a time. No need to do them all in one go, I've had enough punishment for a while!

 

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