Teggs Nose has fond memories for me. I did my first ever Mountain Bike Score event there in 2005 or 6 with a brand new bike where the brakes failed on a decent towards the end!
This year I was late arriving having had battles with horrendous traffic coming through Stockport, so was a little flustered starting at 6.45.Would it still be light enough at 8.45 ? I stuck a little flashing red led on my camel back just to be sure.
I know the area around Teggs Nose and Macclesfield Forest very well and to be honest once I’d sorted an order in which to collect the controls, it was just a case of eyeballs out riding and very little nav, bouncing around on far too hard tyres on some of the rocky descents.
I felt great of the hills and enjoyed the fantastic scenery in the fine weather. I’m pretty sure I could even see The Wrekin and Shropshire hills in the distance as I climbed up to the Cat and Fiddle.
I started to feel a little tired on the climb to number 2 but half way up the hill from 3 to the finish my legs finally gave in and it was all I could do to keep going, watching the seconds tick away. I seem to remember the same thing happened in 2006 but then I was a lard bucket and off and walking !
In the end I had to miss the final 5 pointer out and was still 4 mins late, putting me down in 5th place.
Results available at http://www.darkandwhite.co.uk/results/2011SummerLeagueRound1overallplaces.html
Turns out we should have gone to number 2 first before number 5 – route is a mile shorter overall. Killian did it right!
That climb is a beast though. You were on fire on those hills, taking loads of time out of me