Entries for Frome's Cobble Wobble III open at 8pm sharp tonight, but better be quick (+ 2010 videos)

Sunday 25 September sees the return of Frome’s Cobble Wobble hill climb, founded as recently as 2009 but already firmly established as one of the highlights of the cycling calendar in the South West. If you want to take part this year though, you’d better be quick – entries, which are restricted to 200, open online at 8pm this evening and are expected to sell out in double quick time.

The contest features the 179-yard climb of the cobbled Stony Street and Catherine Hill, and as last year, when Chris Akrigg picked up the title of King of the Cobbles, there’s a Charge bike on offer to the fastest person up the ascent.

Akrigg of course is still recovering from serious injuries he sustained in a crash in May, and earlier this week tweeted a picture of himself in his King of the Cobbles t-shirt with the caption ‘King of the cripples more like!’

This video produced by Charge Bikes of last year’s event includes Akrigg talking about the set-up of his bike, and also shows some of the more light-hearted participants – Sesame Street’s Big Bird roaring up the cobbles being a particular crowd-pleaser.

Cobble Wobble - 2010 from Charge Bikes on Vimeo.

 If you fancy having a go yourself, this helmetcam footage from Neil Thayer shows you what to expect. There, that doesn’t seem so bad, does it? Although of course, it’s always much easier to watch someone else do it…

Organisers expect the event to sell out in as little as one hour, and their advice if you want to take part is to set yourself a reminder to go to the website at 8pm sharp this evening to complete the entry form. They add that you must wait for the payment screen to load after submitting the form, since only complete entries (including payment) will be processed.