Report by Nick Coe
Three Verulam riders had a great day out on the Etape Dales on Sunday - blessed with a bright and dry day, albeit quite chilly; enjoying riding 110 miles and 3,500m of hills in glorious Yorkshire Dales scenery. Event was very well organised, and made better by limiting entries so things were not too crowded. There was also very little vehicle traffic. This is one of the toughest sportives of the year, often with poor weather, and has a number of climbs of over 17%.
We covered most of the well known climbs: Fleet Moss (wicked descent), Buttertubs, Tan Hill, Coal Road - b****** 20% climb, and a number of 25% descents; also riding down Swaledale and Wensleydale.
Mark Antcliffe - 7.11 (silver)
Nick Coe and Paul Moody - 7.44 (silver)
We all had some minor mechanical setbacks, but were delighted to be able to enjoy riding in this fantastic cyclists playground. Amusing incident of the day was that we had to ride a significant ford, which had been well publicised as being dangerous. Paul and I followed a nutcase down the hill only to watch him charge through the ford, well not completely as he took a flyer in the middle and ended up underwater. He was not badly hurt but with lots of onlookers seemed rather embarrased!
Due to a very wet time sheet, I'm concerned there may be a couple of discrepancies in the results, please let me know if you think your time is wildly wrong!
Some riders arrived at very last gasp, even after 9am, the official start time. Please remember that you need to arrive in good time to register, well before the start time, otherwise you may be refused entry.
Report by Doug Driscoll
We had a good turn out from the Verulam CC and thankfully the weather held out for us. Special mentions for Steve Maxted with a super 4:44 finishing time (14th overall,6th in age category, 8th in KOM) and for Christine Pout finishing 1st in age category - despite riding the last 20-miles with a broken gear cable. Who needs 11-speed gears!
I started off with the "racers": Mark Antcliffe, Gavin Bench, Nick Coe, Steve Maxted, Matt Pumo and Sam Skuce. Big mistake! Sam, Nick and I hung in for about half distance but were soon distanced thereafter. It was great fun though hanging in as we passed 100's of other riders with my speedo in excess of 25mph for a lot of the way. But boy, did I pay the price for it later!!
Other riders (that I spotted) and times:
Steve Maxted 4:44 (Gold & 14th overall and 6th in age category. Also 8th fastest up Uffington)
Gavin Bench 4:44
Matt Pumo 4:44
Mark Antcliffe (somewhere in front of me!)
Jonathan Sutcliffe 5:02 (Gold) 
Craig Stewart 5:02 (Gold)
Doug Driscoll 5:14 (Gold)
Nick Coe 5:26 (Gold)
Lucy Cuppleditch 5:35 (Silver)
Christine Pout 5:44 (Gold and 1st in age category)
James O'Neill 6:18 (Bronze)
Hazel Davies 6:34 (Silver)
Andrew Rice 6:34 (Silver)
Sam Skuce DNF
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