‘Is it a bike race? A running race? What kind of race is it?’ – even past winners struggle to describe Britain's most brutal cycling event

This Sunday, a bike race will take place in the Yorkshire Dales that is widely considered – by anyone who has ever been anywhere near it – to be the hardest one-day event in Britain. And probably well beyond.

It’s so nuts, there is some debate, even amongst former winners, about whether the 3-Peaks Cyclo-Cross race is actually a biking event at all. It's mostly off road, on very lumpy and technical terrain, but straight bars, suspension and chunky tyres are all strictly banned. At least six kilometres of the 67km (38-mile) course are deemed utterly unrideable, even by the organisers (who, to be fair, are famous for doing their own race).

Veterans of the event train for the race by carrying their bikes for miles, and it attracts almost as many runners as it does cyclists. Besides rough riders from all over the world – including Australian EF Education-EasyPost rider Lachlan Morton, back for his third attempt at glory – this year, the field will feature at least one elite triathlon, double gold-medal winning Olympian Alistair Brownlee, plus ultra-running tough guy Tom Evans, the current 3-Peaks fell-running champ.

“Is it a bike race?” muses reigning women’s champ and three-time winner Bryony Halcrow when Cycling Weekly asks her to define the 3-Peaks Challenge. “Is it a running race? What kind of race is it?”

On balance she decides it is primarily a cycling challenge, but for Halcrow – who considers herself a fell runner above all else, and tells me that she doesn’t enter many bike races – the difficulty is definitely part of the appeal. “It’s just really good fun,” she says.

“The atmosphere is amazing. Like, at the bottom of Ingleborough, everyone's there, crowding around. At the bottom of Ribblehead, the same thing happens. There's people out on the hill, everyone's cheering you on. It's so different from anything else. There are road bits, there are bits that you can't ride, there's bits that you can ride… it's just got everything that no other race has."

According to local lore, the race was born in 1959, when Kevin Watson, a 14-year-old lad from Skipton, rode a circuit of the Yorkshire Three Peaks – Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent – in six hours and 45 minutes.

Two other local riders, John Rawnsley and Harry Bond, subsequently turned Watson’s rugged route into an organised race, with the first iteration of the 3-Peaks Cyclo-Cross challenge being held in 1961. Rawnsley won, went on to organise the first 50 races (many of which he also took part in), and stayed involved until he passed away in 2019.

The race has attracted and produced some genuine legends, including Nick Craig, who won in 1991, 2009 and 2011, and Rob Jebb who, between the year 2000 and 2022, bagged an extraordinary 13 victories (the Jebb name appears again in this year’s start list). Louise Robinson has the record number of wins in the women's race, with five victories between 2002 and 2011, and she also holds the female course record, but Halcrow is hot on her heels on both counts.

Over the years the race has evolved slightly and grown considerably, with the original route being 25-miles (40km) long, but it remains steeped in history and tradition, which is partly why it’s so tough, with anything even vaguely resembling a mountain bike completely banned.

This year the rules have been relaxed slightly to allow 40mm tyres to be used (anything up to 40-622 / 700 x 38C is now permitted), so there will be more gravel bikes among the cyclo-cross steeds than ever before, but splayed bars (let alone straights) are still strictly banned. And there’s no getting away from the hike-a-bike element of the event.

"There's nothing else like it,” says last year's winner Jenson Young, who fought off a challenge from Lachlan Morton to set a new course record in 2025.

“To prepare for it, you've got to do specific things that you wouldn't do for any other race. There's such a variety of terrain. You could be a really good fell runner or really good at going up, but that doesn't mean you can do technical descents on a bike. Everyone struggles at something on the course – no one like excels at everything, which makes it pretty interesting.

“The first year I did it, I was really specifically doing running training and interval sessions. And then I realised that, actually, that approach didn't make me quicker at going up the hills. What you need is the ability to power walk up steep steps with a bike on your shoulder. The second year I did it, all my training was just walking up steep hills with weights or my bike on my back."

Young will miss this year's 3-Peaks, because he is heading to Australia to compete in the Gravel World Championships, but the guy who was on his heels last year, Lachlan Morton, is travelling in the other direction, and will be a big contender this year.

Like fell-running, there is a big community culture around the race. Will Scholey, who races at national level, took part in the race last year for the first time, and placed an impressive 14th in a large and competitive field, but it's been in his blood for years.

"It's right on my back doorstep, as I live just down the road in Settle, where my Dad's bike shop is," he explains. The bikeshop in question, 3-Peaks Cycles, has sponsored the race it takes its name from for the last ten years.

"Every year, Dad and I have gone up to watch. It's always been a goal of mine, and I always said to Dad that when I was old enough, I was going to do it," Will continues.

"I did it for the first time last year, aged 19. Unfortunately it didn't go my way – my descending was far from up-to-scratch, and I cramped the whole way down Whernside and whole way up Pen-y-Ghent. I hadn't quite got my nutrition right.

"I've only done it once, but it was the best race I did last year. I really enjoyed it, and I instantly wanted to come back for more, and to do better, which is what I'm hoping to do this year.

"It's called the world's hardest cyclo-cross race for a reason. It's a challenge, but it's a fun challenge. It takes in everything from road riding to grassy descents, riding down slabs downhill mountainbike style, hike-a-bike sections, especially up Simon Fell, which is close to vertical."

The technicality of the course, the steep nature of the terrain and the quality of the entrants all combine to make this a highly challenging event, but the elements can also play a big role in how the race pans out. Not that conditions overly bother everyone.

"I haven't actually looked at the weather yet," admits Halcrow. "If it was absolutely horrible, I think I'd survive better, compared to other people because I go fell-running out in foul conditions all the time."