Saturday February 10th I set off for my first ever time for the Cotswold Corker. It was 106km long with the hardest hills in the Cotswolds. I had been looking forward for this event for the last couple of weeks, but about 2 days before the event it started to snow and it looked as though it was going to be cancelled, but the night before we decided that we were going to ride it.
On the day when we got up the snow wasn’t as bad as it was the day before. When I arrived 7 other Evesham wheelers joined us. There was originally supposed to be 250 starters for the event but only about 50 people turned up for it. Once we set off we went up Bushcombe Lane - it was average of 25% for about a half a mile and it was the hardest hill I have ever been up. When we got to the top we went down the other side and then up Sudeley and back down the other side. There was lots of snow in the road but we carried on and got to the first checkpoint. For the next checkpoint we made our way down to Chedworth where we found it hard descending because of the snow. On the next leg we went on a tricky descent to Frampton Mansell and then went up a 25% hill into Bisley for the 3rd checkpoint where we all refilled with a nice bowl of pasta.
Then we made our way across the lanes onto the top of Kilkenny where we came across about 7 inches of snow all across the road and then we descended down into Andoversford for the fourth checkpoint. Then we climbed up to the top of Corndean Lane then went down a nice descent before we went up the final climb up Cleeve Hill and then we descended to the finish down Stockwell Lane and got our card stamped for the last time.
It was one of the hardest rides I have ever done but I really enjoyed it and I was happy to be one of the only ones to complete the course in 2007.