Le Tour de Huddersfield
The town lies below me in the valley, a star-shape of grey slate and stone framed by the green hills. I’m anonymous in the peleton , hidden away by my team. The break-away at the front is just for show, and the task of the moment is a safe, high-speed descent to the ring road and into town. The wind, loud in my ears, almost drowns out the noise of the crowd. I glimpse flags and faces through the pack of riders. Hunched over the bars and hiding in the slipstream of the bikes ahead of me, I rest my legs for the climb that I know will come all too soon. It’s a climbing day. It’s not the Pyrenees, no, but the laws of physics and human biology dictate that I will spend much more time going up than going down. All too soon, I’m on my way back out of the town. The climb starts gently enough, a smooth incline waking up the muscles for the torture that lies ahead. The gap between one bike and another grows, centimetre by centimetre as the strain begins to tell. The nonchalant smiles of t...