National Hill Climb Championship 2021

As we start a new year, I thought I’d look back on one of my highlights of 2021, the National Hill Climb Championship. The most epic day ever on the bike. Iconic climb, biblical rain, huge crowds.

I’ve always loved hilly rides and have done the odd hill climb in the past, but this year I decided to give the hill climb season a proper go with lots of events on my doorstep in the Peak District. The seed was first planted thanks to Macclesfield Wheelers’ Friday night hill climb series that runs through the summer, organised by Bhima Bowden. One of these coincided with our campout in July and a few of us rode the few miles from the campsite to take part.  I took part in a few more of these before entering some open events through CTT.

I didn’t intend on trying to qualify for the national championship, but after my first couple of open events I knew I’d have a chance which gave me a bit of extra motivation. It turned out that I only just scraped qualification as I was the 6th lowest ranked rider, but I was glad to have got a place on what I knew was going to be a special day. Fellow EPNP member Natalie Stevenson also joined me, though she qualified far higher than I did in the women’s event and had even taken the title of Scottish Hill Climb Champion for 2021 in her build up. There were also a few friends of the club taking part too, including David Scott and Chris Ward.

So on to the day itself and first up, the climb. The event was being held on Winnats Pass in the Peak District, venue for the national championships on ten previous occasions, for the first time since 1977. Since the more gradual Mam Tor road had been abandoned some years ago due to landslips, Winnats Pass became the only road heading west out of the Hope Valley and so holding hill climb events had become virtually impossible due to the mix of steep gradients and heavy traffic. However the organisers had done a fantastic job at getting the parish council to agree to a road closure, albeit only until 11am which made for an early start.

Next up, the weather. I’ve done lots of long distance events where I’ve had to deal with bad weather for hours on end making life miserable. That should mean I can deal with a few minutes of rain, but it didn’t stop me checking the forecast several times a day in the lead up to the event. Of course the weather settled for torrential rain for the duration of the event. My biggest concern was being able to do a warm up and actually stay warm, but Natalie and her partner James came to my rescue as they let me use their turbo trainer. They even helped keep me dry with umbrellas! This meant I arrived to the start warmed up, albeit already soaked through on the 0.5km ride to the start.

On to the ride. I didn’t have a real pacing strategy but had told myself to try and not go out too hard. I made it to the first corner and felt ok, but from then on any thoughts around pacing went out the window as I got sight of the wall of spectators lining the road. From then on the ride is a bit of a blur. Being roared on by the crowds I caught the rider who went off ahead of me, but then my legs started to scream in pain. As I approached the final corner I even remember thinking “that’s it, I’ve gone too hard, I’m going to have to stop”, but at just the right moment the finish line came in to view and with it the next rider ahead of me, so I gave it everything I could to the line in what probably looked like a really pathetic sprint. I collapsed in to one of the catchers before taking a few minutes on the floor to come back to life.

I ended up finishing 127th out of 181, punching well above my weight based on qualification. Everything worked out so well that I couldn’t have asked for much more on such an epic occasion – the climb creating the perfect amphitheatre, the rain adding to the drama and the roaring crowds making me push deeper than I ever have before.

I made my way back down the hill, pausing to cheer on every rider that went past, before getting in the car to try and warm up again and get in to some dry clothes. I then headed back on to the hill to watch Natalie. She looked super strong as she flew past and eventually finished in 14^th!

Next year’s national championship is taking place in North Wales. With some longer distance rides on the cards again this summer I’ll have to wait and see how the legs are feeling when the hill climb season comes around before knowing if I’ll have a chance of qualifying again, but one things for sure and that’s that I’ll be doing plenty more hill climbing in the future.