940 people snaked through the trails of the North Cotswolds for the 21st running of this event. Apparently 700 did the full 100km, which many said was one of the toughest yet.

For me it was a great day’s riding on some superb trails, with the mix of bikes taking part just adding to the uniqueness of this organised mass ride.

As the police escorted the riders through Winchcombe, anyone who had studied the map was desperately trying to get to the front. Ahead lay a killer climb up Cleeve Hill – the very narrow track which started it was to prove a huge bottleneck for many riders. Even up at the sharp end I narrowly missed being flattened by a falling rider as soon as the trail climbed, then one unfortunate rider’s tyre just exploded off the rim.

The sun broke out as we settled into the climb. As sweat poured off my overdressed body I contemplated why I’d chosen a 6in travel susser instead of my nice light cyclocross bike, as several ‘cross boys steamed off. It was a novelty to be able to see the leaders wind up the open grass climb, about 20 to 30 riders snaking ahead – I wondered if they would even bother with the tea and bun stop.

The first descent, and bike choice worries were forgotten as I picked off several riders. It’s not a race of course, but we all like to test ourselves. The first mud pit section luckily had an alternative singletrack trail alongside it, which even on the semi-slicks I’d fitted for some Tarmac speed was a blast.

Each rider is given a very well produced map and route card, although I bet only about fifty people even looked at them all day. The long snake of riders seems to get to the end in a follow the leader fashion, but up at the sharp end there are no such luxuries.

The organisers provide a Tracklogs file of the route, and I was on GPS guidance. As I struggled on my heads-up beast with the windy road sections, it was amazing how many new friends I collected en route – I felt like the Pied Piper.

A sizeable group formed and I had to chuckle as two cyclocross riders stated that they’d like to go a lot faster, but they lazily had to concede to following bouncy old me.

An hour and a half into the event and things got bizarre. We could see a large group of about 20 riders ahead – blimey, it’s the leaders. We caught them on a fast descent and, as their group seemed to have no conviction in route finding, I found myself at the front of the pack.

Hang on, partway through the HONC and an old git with a sofa for a bike is heading the field… Wahoo! OK, so it only lasted a minute as they powered away up hill and then roadtrained into a head wind away from us. But we had the last laugh as they arrived at a T-junction and we watched a six-man group go completely the wrong way.

The numplumz Pied Piper posse then battled on to the tea and cake stop for some welcome lard. The route briefly joins the masses on the short 50km route here, proving very busy, but the volunteers cope admirably. I was very tempted to sneak off before anyone noticed in order to teach the others how to read a map, but they all kept me under close guard so off we set again together.

The second half passed by more steadily, with a couple of us blasting all the descents, watching the ‘cross bikes and one lad on a slick-shod MTB push themselves beyond their limits to keep up. The big soft sofa bike eased my body from the bruising that the cross riders were suffering and soon we tailed off weary riders. It was good proof that for maximum enduro fun, soft is best.

In total, 4:40 of superb riding for me, and an excuse to eat loads of current buns at the finish.

Richard Wood (on a ‘cross bike) was first in the showers in under 4 hrs, so he must have got to grips with the map eventually.

As a final aside, I spotted Jon Whyte riding round on a very interesting new prototype, looking very light with masses of mud clearance – his creative mind never stands still. Good to see new bike ideas being tested in real events…