“I had two goals going into the race,” Isla Short told Cycling Weekly, the day after winning the 3-Peaks Cyclo-cross challenge, justifiably deemed as Britain’s toughest event of its kind. “They were kind of pipe dreamy goals because it was my first time and I really didn’t know what would happen. And I achieved both of them.”
Her first goal was to win the race. The second was to set a new course record. Not a bad Sunday’s work really, especially for someone who has barely ever competed in a senior cyclo-cross event in her adult life.
Having announced her retirement from elite-level World Cup mountain bike racing at the end of last month, four-time British national MTB champion Isla Short emerged victorious from the 3-Peaks Cyclo-cross challenge on Sunday, in her debut appearance at the infamously tough event in the Yorkshire Dales.
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The 30-year-old Scot beat three-time 3-Peaks winner, Bryony Halcrow, and also set a new women’s record for the legendary 61km (38-mile) course, finishing in 03:36:30, despite her lack of experience with dropbars.
“When I was younger, I raced a lot of the Scottish Cycle Cross series, and then I raced a couple of national trophies,” she explained to CW. “And I’ve done one race in Belgium, three or four years ago. But I would say this is quite different. It didn’t feel like a cyclo-cross race as such. It just felt like big adventure.
“I only got my gravel bike three weeks ago. And I’ve never ridden on the drops before either, so I’ve been putting my heart and soul into trying to be as prepared as possible.”
Halcrow’s Hope Tech Factory Racing teammate Madeline Moorhouse-Smith was third-placed in the women’s race, but as with the men’s race – in which Lachlan Morton beat Giles Drake in a thrilling sprint finish – it was the contest between the leading pair that defined the day.
(Image credit: Andy Jones)
While Short’s wealth of mountain bike experience was obviously invaluable, the strict rules around the 3-Peaks prohibit straight handlebars and place limits on tyre size, despite the high technicality of the course. It’s a unique race, and being a newcomer, the challenger was at a disadvantage against Halcrow, who is also an accomplished fell runner (useful when at least 6km of the route is deemed completely unrideable).
“I’d spoken to lots of people who had done the race and the chat was very much centred around it being awful and very hard, and how I would be full of regret while I was doing it and then after I finished, I would think: ‘Oh, that was amazing – I’ll do it again’. And because I went in with that mindset, prepared for it to be really brutal, it was actually way more enjoyable than I had anticipated.”
I do quite a lot of running, I would say, for a mountain biker, obviously not compared to Bryony, but I run on average 10k a week and then a little bit more in the winter and I do a lot of hiking as well. So, I felt, I actually felt reasonably prepared for those sections, and it was kind of nice as well, because all the, everyone was questioning that part of my skills, and I felt like a bit of a secret weapon.
But I have a metal plate in my collarbone, so I have been stressing and figuring out how I could actually tolerate having the bike on my shoulder for any length of time. I’ve been made fun of for having top tube padding, but honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to carry the bike without it, so needs must.
“Bryony is a very good descender on foot, I noticed especially, but also on the bike, on drop bars,” Short said. “And, [her] having ridden the descents four times before, versus me having never ridden them, there was a clear disparity in our level there.
“I think the biggest thing isn’t necessarily the drops, it’s the lack of suspension. I don’t ride a hardtail, I only ride a full-suspension mountain bike. When you hit rocks and stuff on a full-suss bike, the rocks get out of the way, whereas when you hit stuff on a rigid drop-bar bike, you move and not the rocks.
“I didn’t have a dropper on the bike. I wanted to fit one, but unfortunately the frame wasn’t compatible. I was speaking to Bryony at the finish and she said that was a change that she’d made that really helped. So I need to have a think about that for next year.”
(Image credit: Andy Jones)
The two riders swapped the lead several times throughout the race, but rarely found themselves together. “I summited every climb first,” recalls Short. “After Ingleborough, Bryony got me on the descent. The road section from Ribblehead back to Pen-y-Ghent was awful. The headwind was relentless and I didn’t have anyone with me. I was just riding, hoping that Bryony was also on her own.
I knew Pen-y-Ghent would be my strongest climb, because it was the most rideable, so I made sure I fuelled really well so I came into the bottom of the ascent able to give it everything. I caught her halfway up, and I just tried to get the gap as big as possible at the summit because I knew she was descending quicker than me. I definitely went faster than I would have liked to on the descent because I knew she was chasing me.”
In the end, both lead riders broke Louise Robinson’s course record for the race, which has stood since 2003, despite the ground conditions being really wet, and raging headwinds kicking in after Ingleborough.
“There’s a 3-hour 30-minute carrot dangling for both of us for next year,” says Short. “And I think both Briony and I have kind of got that in our sights now.”
First though, she is off to South Africa to race Gravel Burn. Since deciding to retire from World Cup mountian biking, she is focussing more on marathon MTB, but it definitely seems like Short is leaning into the gravel scene too, and in true style, she’s jumping in at the deep end.
