Weaver Valley CC 'Cat and Fiddle' Hillclimb - Sun 27th Sep 09

Weaver Valley CC ‘Cat and Fiddle’ Hill Climb, 27th September 2009

I had one of my best ever time trial results on the Cat and Fiddle last year, finishing 20th in a field of 90, so I definitely wanted to ride this hill climb again.  The road climbs out of Macclesfield and is 6.5 miles long with an ascent of 335 metres.  The field was even bigger this year, with 115 riders on the start sheet, and with many of the top hill climbers in the country lining up it looked like it might be difficult to manage a top 20 performance.  I was looking forward to seeing how much I’d improved since the previous year after living in the Peak District for a year, and a nice tailwind helped blow me up in 21.34, 1.26 faster than in 2008 and good enough for 19th place.  The National Champion Matt Clinton won the day. 

If you ever fancy trying a hill climb up north then I really recommend this one – a big field, great organisation and with the average gradient being just 4.5% (with some downhill sections) it’s quite fast – my average speed was 17.7mph.  So really it’s quite easy.  This year I wasn’t even sick at the top.

Full results from CTT website here