I was woken by the weather on the night before the Cotswold Corker. There seemed to be an awful lot of it. Bits of free-flying tree went pock-pock into the window while rain rattled horizontally into the glass.

The drive to Cheltenham began inauspiciously, with buffeting wind and abrupt squalls, but gradually bits of blue sky began to appear between the rainclouds. In Bishop's Cleeve the car park was full of riders wearing waterproofs and eyeing the heavens suspiciously. Andy Seviour was riding fixed. He hadn't ridden the Corker before. (Spot the connection between those two sentences The last time I saw fixed fundamentalist Steve Abraham riding his geared Moulton was on the Corker.) I was riding my Longstaff tourer, rather than the recumbent trike. I've ridden the Corker before.

The two hundred or so entrants were set off in batches of thirty. I chatted to Dave Collins, my (uncredited) partner on an overnight dart to last year's AGM. (Dave, displaying the tenacity we have come to expect from members of Dave CC, also rode the whole way back from the AGM into the teeth of a headwind that had me pedalling hard downhill.) The chit-chat was a fruitless attempt to take my mind off the first hurdle on the Corker, which you encounter within a couple of miles of the start. It goes by the inoffensive name of Bushcombe Lane, but is a single-track road to perdition that points itself uncompromisingly at the sky. The road signs claim it's a 25-percent climb. Road signs speak with forked tongue.

In itself the hill, about 180 vertical metres in, ooh, not very far at all, would be difficult enough, but when the road, such as it is, is pretty much obstructed by cyclists wheeling their bikes, it becomes a real challenge. Dave C. had cunningly had a practice solo run at the lane the previous weekend. I engaged bottom gear and gritted my teeth. And knees.

Towards the foot of Bushcombe Lane, when the gradient was a piffling 20 percent, I encountered a horse rider coming down. "I don't like to worry you, but it gets much steeper," she said, brightly. "I know," I said, airily. Well, wheezily, to be strictly accurate. Teetering on the verge of stalling, but aware I no longer had enough forward momentum to be able to make a controlled stop, I inched my way past randonneurs hiking up the hill, occasionally summoning enough spare lung capacity to say: "OutofmywaypleasePLEASE." The gradient gets steep enough for compulsory wheelies at a left-hand bend. I was now irrevocably committed, and pedalled grimly on through a waterfall of sweat. "Hello, Pete," a hiking Dave Lewis said, adding considerately, "don't try to reply."

Once you reach the top of Cleeve Hill you lose all the painfully gained altitude by whizzing down into Winchcombe, the first of a clutch of picturesque villages along an extremely rural route. If you've looked at the map or ridden the event before, your enjoyment of the descent may be tempered by the knowledge that it will later be the last climb of the ride. But by then you'll be past caring.

There's another big hill out of Winchcombe. While I had sufficient breath I distracted myself by chatting with Chris Avery about his sub-aqua experiences on last year's Albion 600, with Jack Eason about the bus shelter he'd slept in last night, and with Dave Lewis about his malfunctioning gears. Then it was back to silent grovelling in bottom gear.

I stopped at the top to shed my waterproof and wipe my glasses. I seemed to be sweating about half a litre per hill-I'd never make it round at this rate. Ah, that was better-I now felt just a bit too cold.

The Cotswolds aren't high, generally no more than 250 metres or so, but the top of the plateau offers little shelter. We were now heading more or less into the blustery wind. Climbs, in the lee of the hills, were spookily silent, but as I approached the crests the tearing noise of the rushing air became louder and louder. As I battled my way to Northleach I wondered whether it would be possible to claim extra AAA points for all the invisible hills created by the wind. If you can count contour lines, surely you can count isobars? Must ask DAAAve L. when I next see him.

Apart from the wind, the weather was pretty much perfect: Sunny and clear, showing the Cotswold stone houses in the villages to their best advantage. Because of a closed road, there was a brief stretch of A46 before Frampton Mansell, where there is an info control. The place is so small there are only two possible questions to ask Then there is a tricky descent on a potholed, gravelly single-track lane to cross the River Frome, followed by a lung-busting climb to Oakridge. As I twiddled up I heard a car approaching from behind. Almost before I had time to swear (wheezily), another car, this time heading downhill, appeared in front of me. There was no option but to stop. The car in front reversed up the hill and pulled off the road. It was only at the fourth attempt that I managed to move off again. How embarrassing The car behind found a bit of road wide enough to pass me and roared off up the hill. I followed, somewhat more slowly, eventually discovering that my memory had mercifully blanked the really steep bit at the top.

As you approach the control at the Stirrup Cup in Bisley there is a wonderful view of stone cottages nestling in a verdant valley. When you reach the control there is a wonderful view of a well-stocked bar and an inviting menu. By this stage there's little argument which view you're happier to see.

There's only one granny-ring climb after Bisley, but some of the roads (Roads? Roads?? Ha!) stretch the usual definition to destruction. The surface is broken, there are drifts of mud and gravel, and even the potholes have potholes. Treat descents with great care. Nevertheless, this is a magical section, with a sense of remoteness belying its actual proximity to the big city-all things are relative-of Cheltenham. Perhaps my favourite bit of the whole ride is the gentle climb through the woods past Hilcot to Kilkenny, where there is a sudden vista over the Severn valley towards the Malverns. I was caught here by a rider on his first Corker (or was it his first audax event?). "And it's going to be the last," he said vehemently, before launching into a paean of praise of the scenery. Heh heh heh, we'll be seeing him again, even if he doesn't know it yet. I complimented him on riding the Corker on a double chainset. Bottom gear of 42/23 (my knees twinged in sympathy. I wondered how Andy was getting on).

After a quick cup of tea and biscuit at the village hall in Sevenhampton, I set out on the final leg, a piffling 14 km or so. You contour up the side of a grassy valley along the edge of a hanging wood called Humblebee, then plummet down into Winchcombe. As I turned onto the main road for the final climb to Cleeve Hill, my worst fears about the wind were borne out as it tried to blow me to a standstill. At the moment this presented less of a challenge for the wind than it would usually have done. Fortunately, before long the hill itself began to provide a little shelter. I honked past a sign: One mile to car park. One mile to top of climb, presumably. Drat But no, the hill lost heart before I did, and before long I was doing my best to make a dent in the EU sandwich mountain at the finish.

The Corker is a classic event with wonderful scenery and with a time allowance more than generous enough to make up for the hills and its early-season date. Ride it and you'll be able to spend the rest of the season saying: Pah! I encountered worse hills than this in February on the Corker. Unless, of course, the rest of the season includes the Crackp*t (the Ride Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken). But that is another story.

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