Cheshire Cat Sportive.. kitten or tiger?
66 miles and 5000 ft of climbing

Black ice at 8:00am left us huddled in our various vehicles waiting for the sun to rise. And it did. Miscalculations on the clothing front had me with surgical gloves over my inadequate ones and Jude lamenting her collection of warm tops neatly folded in draws.

At the first feed station Dave became Donut Dave but did not give in to Mike goading him to eat a 3rd. By the time we caught our first sniff of Mow Cop, donuts, nerves and sun had warmed us. Any lingering chills were seen off with the effort it took to ride up the 25% incline. 3 came away with medals for a clear run. As always, i was spurred on by the sight of men pushing their bikes. Sort your gearing boys!

After Mow Cop that we knew that hills were the order of the day ... and so their were ... relentlessly. Macc Forest had us threading the bike thru the eye of needle to avoid ice on the road but we gobbled up the challenges .. hill we love 'em! and yes there were even more boys pushing as i danced on my peddles. And that included Swiss Hill - a cobbled hill climb. The hardest bit was avoiding the charlies who gave up but then just stood where they stopped. Jude and I gave them clear instructions - MOVE! NOW! We got some unwelcome info from a guy at the top... cobbles played havoc with his manboobs seemingly.

The home stretch was flat and world champ Glynis powered us home for a 6hr finish - including stops - 5:15 worth of riding.

The "goody" bag was interesting - nothing to eat and mainly leaflets on how to torture ourselves some more . Any takers?