Leg Breaker - 100km

I knew that today was my last chance of getting in 100km. I also wanted to get out in the hills a bit to build some strength back up. I decided that I would do a loop of Leeks Legbreaker sportive but cut it short at the 100km mark.


As I rode up through Ipstones the temperature dropped and it started raining. I hadn't got a coat and I was only in shorts. At this moment I very nearly turned around and came back home again. I'm glad I didn't though. By the time I was climbing out of Foghall it was raining hard and the wind had really picked up. I decided to go through Threapwoods towards Dimmingsdale instead of along the road so that I could shelter a bit under the trees. I was freezing and getting very wet. Lord knows where the paths are through this wood. Every path I followed just seemed to go around in a loop. I ended up coming back out of the woods in the same place I went in.

Climbing up to Stanton I engaged the lower gears of the MTB and started to twiddle up. I suddenly remember that the last time I rode up here I broke 2/3 spokes in my wheel and the time before that the road had collapsed due to subsidence. Maybe I would actually get up this bank indecent free this time. Third time lucky and all that.

I got to the Ashbourne road. The legbreaker route goes right but Leek (home) is to the left. At this point I was wet and cold. I wasn't sure which way I wanted to go. As I stood at the T junction the rain stopped and a few rays of sun came through the clouds. The sun didn't last long but I knew I would seriously regret cutting the ride short if it brightened up so I had to turn right.

As I was riding down to the Ford at Butterton I was debating what I was going to do. Should I ride through the ford or not? I was on a MTB but I had naff 23mm tyres on. The cobbles in this ford are often horrendously slippy and there's some rather large gaps in-between them. More often than not trying to ride a road bike through this ford results in either a foot down or a large splash.

I had decided to play it safe and push the bike around it. But once I got there and saw there was hardly any water crossing the ford I just rode straight through. I had forgotten that it hasn't rained for weeks!

I continued on my way to Longnor where I stopped and eat the only food I brought with me, a bananna. Then the long long climb up to Flash. I ran out of energy on this climb and at one point even made use of the granny ring on the MTB. I was crawling my way up this climb. Once at the top of Flash I cut the ride short. I rode straight back to Leek along the A53, knocking about 30km off the distance.

My ride was 62miles not including the little off-road bit and I think it took the best part of 6 hours including all the stops. I am now well and truly jiggered.

Mapmyride said there was only 3000ft of elevation on this route, then again it also said the maximum gradient was only 4%, which I can assure you it wasn't. There's a few hills in there that have to be over 14%.

As the official 130km route (Mine was only 100km) has close to 10,000ft of climbing in it, i'm guessing my route has about 7500ft of climbing. Not too bad for a MTB that doesn't seem to like climbing and fat bloke who can't climb.