Well, the big day was Sunday and it was a great one. The weather gods smiled on us as we donned peaked hats and rain capes to protect us from Lakelands worst but it never came.

Starting out at 6:30 wasn't so bad and the boys stuck together for the best part of 50 miles and over kirkstone, honister and newlands passes before whinlatter finally did some damage to the CoG train. 

These were all just hors d'oeuvres for the main event of hardknot and wrynose, the most brutal and quite frankly silly roads in all of Englandshire. The former ramps up at 30+% in places and it's a challenge just to stay upright and moving never mind after 95 miles and 3000m of ascent. Mental but in a crazy, happy kind of way - a bit like Dory from Finding Nemo or Howlin Mad Murdoch - I loved it.

Finished in 7hrs 13 minutes, 147th out of 1700 and pretty spent. I got a certificate with 1st class written on it - they give ones with Elite if you go under 7 hours. There's always next year......

Thanks for your donation, I appreciate the support massively, £540 and counting with over £1200 raised and donated to the St Andrews Hospice from Carse of Gowrie Velo already. Well done, I salute you.

Well I've been doing events for years now, running, cycling, running and cycling. Even racing sometimes!  So doing an cycle sportive in May is nothing new but this time its the big one - the Daddy of them all, the Fred Whitton Challenge.....

Its also about time that I contributed a bit to the fundraising world so along with my team mates at Carse of Gowrie velo I have decided to support this hospice in Airdrie which does a lot of great work improving the quality of life and relieving the burden of illness for people living with life shortening diseases.

Please consider giving something to this well worthy cause...

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