Around 30 riders set their alarm clocks half an hour earlier on Sunday 12th May for the May 100 mile ride. About twenty riders set off with a 5 minute head start on a group oneish bunch which picked up a few late comers.

The route headed out into a brisk headwind along the Kimbolton Road, making a direct route to Raunds. The two groups briefly met at Kimbolton and after a bit of confusion and cross pollination, a lead group of 12 riders steadily pulled away.

From Raunds the route steadily drifted upwards and, despite the wind still being against us, we made good uneventful progress. Like that was going to last. After Geddington, the next turning warned of road closures. This caused a bit of a dilemma for the route planner. We could turn back and head up the A43, but that is a pretty busy and unpleasant road. Alternatively we could carry on to Rushton and pick the route up at Pipewell, but that would involve a fairly difficult staggered crossing of the A6003. Again, not a great option. However, the closed road our route took did promise farm access, and besides, closed is a relative concept.

We pressed ahead. All seemed fine, but then we rounded a corner, the road continued downhill then - disappeared. In its place muddy construction site for a new Corby link road. We made it across and without any punctures, but we were still forced to make a cleaning pitstop to clean up mud clogged cleats and breaks. Still it ment we got to watch an small group on the ride struggle across. After a brief catch-up we left them to clean up their bikes, over fags and bananas.

After Corby the road continued to drag upwards, but we were getting close to the proper hills now, but first we had the fast descent into Middleton and into the Welland Valley. The first climb upto Bringhurst loomed ahead, not Tim Parish's favourite and a little warm up to the next two, but still enough to cause some splits.

From Bringhurst we turned right and descended into Great Easton for the next climb. Last time that we came out here we had turned left and ridden the climb up to Neville Holt. It is a hard climb and managed to force a couple of guys onto their feet, so this time I thought I would try a different route across to Uppingham. The Great Easton climb (also know as the Devil's Staircase on Strava) is a 100m ascent spread over 4.5km. It was a good steady climb where you could settle into a rhythm and enjoy some fantastic views across Eyebrook Reservoir.

We regrouped for the long sweeping descent down to Stockerston and reached the foot of the Kings Hill climb to Uppingham. Again the gradient soon started to make it's presence felt and again Joe was first to the top, setting a trend for the day.
 
We regrouped in Uppingham and with the wind now behind us progressed swiftly to Seaton and Harringworth, passing beneath the imposing Welland viaduct. Leaving Harringworth we tackled the final and steepest of the three big hills.