So today was Buxton cc open hill climb. A dry run for the national later on in the year. This is a climb i haven't been up before so on arrival i got kitted up for a slow ride up the climb to check it out. On reading a few reports on the climb i was expecting it to be flattish but the gradient is not to bad. It will defiantly but a strong testers course. The wind was a head wind for most of the climb which meant speeds would be down on last years time's. The climb is roughly about 4.5miles long with a gradient of about 3%average.
The hq was Whaley Bridge bowling club which has a very large car park which is needed as there is very little parking on the climb and only a few viewing spots so i think that crowds will be sparse at the national.
I felt that my warm up was ok but was still unsure how i was going to tackle the climb. I was on my road bike but i did where my tt helmet. I had planned to keep my cadence above 95rpm and try and keep an average speed of between 28/29kph.
I started ok and quickly got into a rhythm with a good cadence and the speed i was hoping for. Certain sections had a terrible head wind and the speed did drop. There is one slight down hill section but the headwind was so bad i was actually going slower than on some of the uphill section's. After this section you turned to the left and hit the only tail wind and it felt good to get the speed going again. Even tho i had been up the climb once i was a little unsure how far to the finish from here so just keep ed it going but this is were you really need to push on and i didn't quite do this. At the finish i averaged 27kph so was semi pleased but felt i didn't give it 100%.
My finishing time was 15.57.1 in 20th place.
Winner Tejvan Pettinger 13.49.3
Total starters 70
http://connect.garmin.com/activity113483595
Thanks to Buxton CC for putting an excellent event on.
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