Sunday 26th Oct = last Sunday of October which can only mean the National Hill Climb Championships, hosted this year by Matlock Cycle Club, the infamous Bank Road the climb.

3 1/2 Mitres, Cesare Masset, Robb Cunningham, Philip Waldman plus the 1/2 made up if you count Francis Schofield, the 2nd claim Mitre son that has eloped, riding in Cambridge Uni colours, made it to Matlock.

The whole town seemed to have turned out to cheer on everyone, producing incredible crowds and an atmosphere which blanked out the 4 degrees and occasional heavy shower. 460 riders gathered to take on Bank Road, a formidable climb. 834m in length with an average gradient of 14%, topping out at 20% (for reference Bank Road’s average gradient is just shy of the max gradient on Ditchling Beacon, and Steyning Bostal maxes out at 17%). It’s a relatively short, but savage climb. Matt Stephens was commentating from midway up, showing the climb nicely

Cesare rode an incredible 2min 49.9 sec to place him 5th fastest in the Juniors (the category won by the current junior Road Race World Champion Harry Hudson). We are left to wonder how much time he lost as one of his cleats unclipped as he powered away from the start and he had to clip back in again. Well done Cesare.

Francis rode to 108th overall (75th out of 142 in age category) with a 3min 4.7 sec. To put Cesare’s and Francis’s rides into perspective they both comfortably beat ex-Pro and GCN’s Conor Dunne.

Just behind Cesare and Francis was Robb who rode a 3min 20.6 sec, placing him 159th and 15th out of 29 in age cat).

Philip rode a 4min 1.7 sec placing him 247th (12th out of 17 in age cat).

It was a fantastic weekend – Matlock CC certainly knows how to throw a Hill Climb. The southern massive take-over was completed with Harry Macfarlane winning the event with a 2min 14.7, a considerable 5 seconds margin over Kieran Wynne-Cattanach in 2nd, and the infamous Andrew Feather 3rd a further second behind.