Adam Kenway Looking Forward to Hill Climb Season

Adam Kenway (Vitus Pro Cycling p/b Brother UK) spent his birthday a week ago riding 100 miles in the rain in the Peak District on roads he knows very well indeed with an eye on the Hill Climb season

Adam Kenway Looking Forward to Hill Climb Season

The team’s Adam Kenway spent his birthday a week ago riding 100 miles in the rain in the Peak District on roads he knows very well indeed. So well, he lived only a mile from where we spoke and came up with the course his five teammates were going to ride in their first ride together in many months.

“It is nice to meet everybody again and catch up” explained Adam when he arrived on his bike. The long ride would see them go as far as Glossop (nr Manchester) before climbing a hill that featured in many a Tour of the Peaks, one of the top races in the country for so many years. Of all the hills he was going to ride that day, he said Snake Pass was one of his favourites.

“I do enjoy riding up Snake Pass and you never know what you are going to get on it. I did it one day and it was 50-16 (big ring) and another day, I was on 39-32 when it was absolutely blowing a gale in my face.”

Adam explained that he’s had a busy lockdown as he only had a couple of weeks off furloughed before returning to work as well as keeping up his training on the bike. Looking back, he says “I enjoyed the Everest thing and overall, just enjoyed riding my bike. For five or six years, I have just been racing my way through the summers, going from one race to another where as this year it has been good to just enjoy going out riding my bike with no stress, no efforts and so on.”

There will be more racing in 2020 for Adam (he did a couple in Feb/March) as the hill climb season beckons in a month or so (August the 5th). “It’s been a long time since I have only done a hill climb season during a year. I am quite glad they are on though and will do a few time trials as well. I hope the hill climbs are more popular and it will be interesting because the roadies won’t have all those miles in their legs so the specialists won’t have the same advantage”.

The former Hill Climb champion is also looking forward to the championships at the end of October where he is hoping his team will have more than just him in the race. “I did the climb two years ago and won it that year and it is a bit like Bank Road (a hill climb), constantly steep.”

Adam then finished by adding that “it will be tricky setting off (no-one is allowed to hold a rider at a start due to Covid19) especially on the short ones where if you miss your pedal, you’ve lost”.

Good luck to Adam and we’ll see him in some races in the coming weeks and months.