THE RECORD breaking winner of the world's hardest cyclo cross event continued his tradition.

Course legend Rob Jebb won the 2014 Three Peaks Cyclo Cross for the eleventh time on Sunday, September 28.

The 39 year old from Staveley finished the 34 mile race over the mountains of Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-ghent with a time of two hours 59 minutes, three minutes ahead of veteran three time winner Nick Craig.

He was just seven minutes outside the course record time of two hours 52 minutes that he set in 2008.

Jebb said: "It was quite nice considering when I first set out I would have been happy to just win one. I'm satisfied with the win because there's a lot of pressure - you know you are the race favourite and you have sponsors to keep happy. They even brought over a Swiss professional this year so that makes you try a bit more."

Despite his domination of the race in recent years, the conditions do not always suit Jebb.

Cyclo-cross involves competitors spending most of the race on their bike, although they have to run with it at the start of the race or over any obstacles throughout the course.

This is not ideal for Jebb, whose main talent is fell running.

"I have to use bits of the course to my advantage and the bit that suits me is right at the beginning so I go hard from the start," he said.

"The main running bit is right at the start so I'm absolutely killing myself to get into the lead and I try to hold that place until the end but you never know you've won it until it's finished.

"Many people do fell running all year round but for me it's not too much of a problem because I use my bike for training."

He even had to overcome two punctures on route to his victory.

Mark Richmond, event organiser, said: "Rob is an outstanding athlete of our era. Eleven victories in the race speaks for itself. This year we had riders who, in recent years, have featured on the Cyclo-cross World Cup podium and he put daylight between them and himself. It was superb to look up at Simon Fell on the ascent of Inglebrough and see the gap that Rob had opened up so early in the race. As a competitor in the race myself I could really appreciate at that point just how good rob really is."

Cyclo-cross events normally see their competitors cycling 10 mile courses around parks or on other flat terrain but the Three Peaks is totally different.

Athletes tack a course three times as long and are forced to scale three mountains.

Mark said: "The precarious terrain makes this event unique. It’s particularly interesting to hear the reaction of oversees riders on the terrain we cover. This year we had a large delegation of Swiss and even they were surprised by the difficulty of the terrain compared to their native alpine events. There really isn’t anything like our race anywhere else in the world."