Super Six at the Finish (R to L Ray, Mark, Geoff, Chris, Peter, Wendy)
The Southport Super Six took on a new ride on Sunday around the Welsh borders. The Rise Above sportive cycle ride, supported by Mark Cavendish, aims to raise money for Help the Hero’s charity and offered 3 routes to test the legs of the 3000 participants. This was the first time the event has been held and excellent timing meant the weather gave the inaugural ride a fitting start. Southport club riders, Geoff (mountain goat) Caton, Ray (the brickie) Lyons, Chris (run out of gears) Stone, Mark (boy wonder) Baldwin, Wendy (where’s the hills) Scott and Pete (pedal on) Scott, headed out from Southport to make the early sign on for a closed road start in Chester.
Once off, the route rolls through some hills and countryside with wonderful views – all of which masks the uphill horrors to come.
The organisers had included one of the UKs top five hardest climbs, Bwlch Penbarras. It is hard to describe this piece of Welsh tarmac, its steep, very steep, the road just seems to keep on ramping towards the clouds with gradients over 25%. Whether it was ignorance or indifference the prospect of Penbarras seemed not to worry Geoff who managed an incredible 16 minutes from bottom to top, not bad for a man of a certain age!
As you see from the photo all six finished with a smile off their faces and a good sense of achievement having covered 120 Km with 2000m of climbing, well done all!
