Bhima Bowden may be the most recognisable man in Macclesfield…. at 5.30am on the Cat and Fiddle. Lycra-clad in custom 50/50 two-tone Macclesfield Wheelers lime-orange livery, he wears his day-glo kit like Cantona wore his United shirt; as an extension of the colourful character within.
Bhima B rides the Cat every day, sometimes twice, sometimes thrice. Impressive in itself, given the near-constant climb over 6.5 miles to the 515 metre elevation’s summit. But perhaps more impressive; he does all this come rain, shine, hail and snow, while most sensible people are still in bed.
Riding The Tractor, a chunky, custom 5-inch wheeled fat bike built for the ice road truckers of the bike world, this neon phantom of the high peak causes many a motorist to double-take at daybreak as they pass him grinding up the Macclesfield-Buxton pass.
Ahead of his summer series of sixteen weekly hill climb time trials, The Hill Climb Project, we follow Bhima on a blustery March morning training session, followed by a cup of ho-cho at Yas Bean on Buxton Rd.
TBU: What got you into riding?
BB: I think it was just 2008, 2009. I just had the worst mountain bike ever. I just got one in Manchester and I was getting around on it. And then I left it locked up outside. I went to this gig in Manchester, Northern Quarter, left it locked up there, came out at like two in the morning, where’s my bike? So it is standard Manchester. And then I went to the bike shop and thought I'm not going to buy another mountain bike. Let's get something faster. So I got one of these hybrid bikes, thinner tires. And then I was just addicted to the speed straightaway. But I was just getting around town on it. And then just literally commuting through Manchester, you'd see all these fixed gear guys come past, just whizzing past with almost no effort. And there's me out of breath. So then a few times, I just went out and thought let's just go out for a bike ride and actually start training and try and get fit.
And then in the end, I just decided, let's get a road bike. And then I just hung around Manchester riding around looking for these other fast guys. Eventually I found a few and just kind of literally stopped and then followed them out here and found all the good roads.
And did you move to Macclesfield because of that, because of the access to the hills?
Yeah, because I was doing a load of bike rides. I came out here and I was going through Shrigley quite a bit. Yeah, so I thought, you know what, it makes sense to just try and get a job out here so I can commute out here and then go on decent roads. So then I ended up getting a job at Shrigley Hall Hotel, which was like the biggest life hack ever, because then I got to work nights there, basically managing and running the whole hotel. And I got to commute to and from there in the evenings and in the mornings when there's no traffic and amazing roads to get out there. And then because of that, it just made sense to try and find somewhere to live out here. One thing led to another. And then, yeah, it was like a no brainer really.
Above: Bhima Bowden's intergalactic Strava profile pic.
What's the most number of times you've done the Cat & Fiddle in a day?
It was 7 in 2013 but last year I decided to do 8 on the 10 year anniversary of that record. A week later I did 8 again!
Why did the hillclimbing series begin?
So originally back in probably 2016, 2017, obviously I was doing loads of hill climbs myself, just racing. And then, I was looking at the hill up there to Tegg’s Nose, Buxton Old Road. I just did a session there one night, and it was when I was first getting into Strava. I didn’t know what Strava was - someone just told me - so I blasted it up there, got the fastest time on there and thought you know what, this is such a good hill, this needs to be a hill climb, so then I spent the next few years trying to figure out, asking people how do you run a hill climb, what do you do? And it turned out people made it out to be dead complicated, but you know, when you distill it down to the basics I thought you know we could do that.
So then the first one we did up there was 2019. So almost five years ago in May, we just did it. We planned it, there was so much stress and everything because we wanted to get it right. And it was such a success because - traditionally hill climbs are an autumn thing, September and October - so we thought why don’t we just throw a spanner in the works and do it in May? And everyone loved it so we thought great we’ll just do it again next year. The plan was let’s just do more climbs every year and slowly build it up but then, honestly, the reception was so good that I just thought right if one is good, 16 must be even better, so we planned to do 16. 2020 was obviously a total shambles. But in 2021 when lockdown ended I was straight on it.
How was it received?
In 2020, for the first event, we had over 100 people sign up. In 2021 for the first couple, for the Cat and Fiddle, we had like 60, 80 people. It was just bonkers. I think people were just so starved of events.
And you mention people coming from further afield.
Yeah, London, Scotland, Lake District. It’s often nice when people are visiting friends and family from other places they just get sucked into it.
Do you still manage to do the race yourself when you’re the organiser?
The first year I didn’t, I didn’t try to race. Because it was a new risk and there was so much paranoia of something going wrong, I just couldn’t get in the zone. You’ve gotta have that killer instinct. But I do now if the conditions are right. I do it an hour before.
Do you have an independent adjudicator and what would you say to the conspiracy theorists that note you are both organiser and champion?
Some friends were out walking a dog once and they saw me do it. But Strava doesn’t lie mate.
Above: Bhima at the top of the Cat & Fiddle, 7.12am, early March.
Is hill climbing getting more popular in the UK?
It's been getting popular in the UK for the last 20 years, steadily every year, year on year. That’s the main reason we started doing the series. Because this is our territory, we've got all these hills. Why don't we just take advantage of that trend of more and more people wanting to do them? And, sort of celebrate the terrain that we've got, you know, because it's like a no brainer.
Tell us about the hill climb panda.
Oh, yeah. Matthew Larkins his name is. He's traveled all the way from Far East. We supplied him with about six tonnes of bamboo, and he's grown up now, and, yeah, unfortunately, he's too fat to do hill climbs anymore so he just runs alongside everyone shouting.
He’s quite a famous panda though now isn’t he?
Oh, I think actually it was about two and a half years ago. It was a time trial event that's near Christmas time. It's a fancy dress. And he decided to do it in that suit on the windiest day ever. And then the year after, he took it to the national hillclimb, and me and him, I was in my full polka dot spotted outfit and stood next to him as the panda. And obviously there's like a million photographers there. So the whole thing went viral. And then obviously we had to repeat that again last year at the Nationals. And now it's just the running joke, you know, where's the panda?
You know, you have put Macclesfield cycling on the map for the panda outfit.
When he's, not been lounging around eating bamboo, he does transform into an actual fast Macclesfield Wheeler who turns up for races.
Tell us about your kit.
It’s a pretty unique design, isn't it? If you're going to do it, you might as well have fun with it. So it's obviously Macclesfield Wheelers colours. Their colours are orange and green, but the green isn't too well known. So it’s half and half because we’ve gotta give that green some love. I go out in the mornings and evenings so I’m all about hi vis and we might as well celebrate those citrus colours. I just couldn’t find the kit that fit me properly or that popped so - I mean, it was all too dark or it just didn’t fit. I'm pretty slim, so I get cold up in the hills.
But I had a friend who - he had a spare sewing machine that was getting rid of. And then I had another friend who told me about all the fabrics and who ran a company in Manchester that was doing printing on these fabrics. So it's a process called sublimation, which basically is like a normal printer that you have in an office somewhere. You just print on the fabric and then you cut the fabric out. I mean, sew it all together. So I tried doing it through the help of these friends. And I sort of started making some kit and I was quite happy with it. Over the years I've just improved it and fine tuned it.
And tell us about The Tractor.
So that’s the mountain bike. I got that in 2016 as well actually. Technically it's a fat bike designed for snow and ice, and it's got five inch wide tires. So I got that purely because I just wanted to make my sessions a bit harder. It was October and I thought, oh, this winter is going to be horrible. It's always cold and I never enjoy it. So I thought if I can just slow everything down, then you won't get the wind chill. You have to work harder and I'll just end up being warmer. It's a legit strategy, you know? So that's typically what I'll do. If it's cold, I'll just ride that. So you can just even ride in the worst possible blizzard. You’re just goin so slow because you can let so much air out of the tyres.
Above: Bhima rides The Tractor on a morning Cat & Fiddle training session.
The combined image makes you something of a style icon.
Yeah. It's just like, go enjoy it. And that's the way I enjoy it, so…
Who is Bhima Bowden off the bike?
Cycling is obviously a very physical thing. And so I'll do that first thing in the morning. Just wakes me up. And then, like we've done a ride this morning. Well you haven’t. You were following in the team car. But then mentally, I'm ready to go. You know what I mean? So then off the bike, I work doing a lot of stuff with computers. It's a lot of programming. A lot of logical stuff requires you to really just have your brain switched on, but not physical. So it's a good balance.
Above: Bhima B with a warming post-training session Yas Bean hot chocolate.
And as we come to the finish line of this conversation, tell us about the atmosphere on the finish line of the hillclimb project.
It's just like a Friday night party. We've got punters turning up. It starts out quiet because I'm the only one there. But then as more and more people finish you get more and more carnage of people passing out and whatnot. It's just a laugh.
Follow Bhima B:
Sign up to The Hill Climb Project
Or just get down with a pan and spoon and make some noise for the riders. First rider departs at 1900, with subsequent riders at 1-minute intervals.
