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Thuekr
I don't know why I always leave it so late in the year (Nov 2014, late Sept 2015, late Sept 2016) but I went out to try and get a 24-hour PB on Sunday afternoon. This time I was doing it on the fixed gear, because I haven't ridden a geared bike since my last 24-hour a year ago and because fixed gear is cooler... Also after becoming the first person to Everest on a fixed gear earlier in the summer, I kinda liked the idea of doing loco sh*t on my silly bike.
Wanted to start at 3pm, ended up starting at 4:40pm after being awake since 10am and unsuccessfully trying to nap. After doing London to Newcastle last year, I wanted to try and maximise distance so I had a look at some nearby TT courses to find something that was relatively flat and not too hectic in terms of traffic. This meant I wouldn't have to carry all my supplies, I could just stash them in a bush - saving weight / aero / comfort.
As I started so late, and there was an equal 12 hours of day / night, it got dark relatively fast. I quickly became lacking in energy due to the lack of light so just decided to keep myself moving, but not necessarily fast, just to survive the night. I was riding on the pads mainly lol! The hardest part of 24-hour rides is what it does to your head. I find myself constantly thinking of the amount of time left, how long til sunrise, what averages I want to hit, what amount of breaks I can have to hit that target. It's just time time time and it really f*cks with ya!
I was keeping up a pretty good moving speed of around 28-30kmh average until I started to fade off toward the end of the night. 3-4am was tough. It got pretty cold too. And was windy throughout the night. My stomach was also killing me. I never usually feel like puking doing physical activity, but I think a combo of Nakd/Trek bars and Coke was really screwing with me. It felt like a fire inside me. Anyway, I was just focusing on riding, not caring about hitting a certain speed. When I started to see the first traces of sunlight coming over the horizon my spirits lifted. I kept thinking about how many more 12.5km loops I had to do until I was bathed in sunlight. It was getting me excited! Although I was going to have a long day ahead of me with a 6:52am sunrise and a 4:40pm finish.
The sun was up (photo below!) so I stripped off some layers, took my lights off, and felt a rush of energy. Finally being in the TT extensions didn't feel too bad. I felt powerful again. I was back to 30kmh moving averages (I had to calculate it by keeping track of the actual time and remembering my distance travelled, as I was using Strava on my iPhone) so I was feeling good. I had some catch-up work to do though due to the sluggish night. I had a 600km target to hit.
As the morning went on, I was feeling good, but not great. Staggering around every time I got off the bike for a short break and water refill. Knees were really starting to feel the punishment. I also had the stress of hitting my goal and the horrible feeling of it slipping away. At least I knew that a PB (513.6km) was easily in the bag if everything went okay. But I wanted to far exceed that. This is when I decided I was going to start trimming off the last section of course because it was quite hilly. This meant I'd have to do a slow U-turn in the road though. The first attempt of which ended up with me getting hit by a car doing "70mph" according to the driver.
Somehow, I miraculously escaped death, and although my bike took the hit everything seemed to be fine. The wheels were true, no broken spokes, no noticeable dents in anything. Just twisted bars which were easily trued again. I was at 410km and I was already started to feel a bit down about the 600km potentially slipping away so this just gave my psychological state a bigger blow. I also picked up a few minor injuries which I'm assuming were from my bike being ripped from under me but I also discovered some abrasions on my butt. Not sure if from the car or the ground. I don't seem to remember falling so... Dicey! I felt like crying and curling up into a ball but I also didn't want to scrap this ride after putting so much into it. I decided to just take it easy and keep riding despite the mental and physical damage from the crash. I recalculated and set a new target for 550km.
The next 90km felt arduously slow. I wanted to get to the 500km marker so badly but it passed by at an agonising pace. Maybe I could have pushed harder, but I didn't really feel like it. I had deflated spirits. Then when I eventually got to 500 I felt renewed. I had just over 2 hours left on the clock and only 13km until I would surpass my personal best 24-hour distance. I only had 4 more 'reps' of the out & back course to hit 550km. I was going to do it in 2 sets of 2. The first set I was kinda cruising but also going kinda hard. I knew I didn't have to bury myself too much.
Then I got down to the final hour. This was it. Smashy time. It was now raining. Not super heavy, but not light. Luckily I had avoided rain the entire ride and I was kinda glad to have it at the end. It made me feel invigorated and primal. I was out here, 23 hours in the bank, doing it! I downed some Coke, took off the battery pack for the phone, put on my heaviest music and got going. I was on ~525km and knew I'd easily hit 550 so I now set my sights on 555km. I was out the saddle going hard up the 'climbs' and trying to stay in the TT bars as long as I could despite incredible butt pain (I now had two pairs of bibs on). I watched the 0.1kms tick up faster than I had seen them before. This energised me even further. Plus my buddy Jack who had given me a lift to the start had arrived to shout at me every time I passed him.
530, 540, 550... The end was nearing! 10 minutes to go and my phone started giving me warnings that there was 10% battery remaining... lol! Now not only was I racing the clock, I was also racing my phone's battery. 551, 552... I had now surpassed the PB of a buddy of mine... 553, 554... 2 minutes left on the clock... Push! Push! Push!!! And BOOM! 555km with a few seconds to spare. 555.2km within the 24 hours. What a relief! I felt like a traumatic experience had just occurred and had already blanked it out of my mind. Time for a lift home and some chip shop chips! Dang!!!
Also, for some reason I had decided to do a trial run of the course earlier in the week - which was a 252km ride. So I simultaneously got my biggest ever Mon-Sun week on Strava at 1042.5km which I'm pretty stoked on too!
My knees & butt hurt A LOT.
100% SOLO & UNSUPPORTED apart from my mate Jack shouting at me in the last 45 minutes.
47/17 gearing.
https://www.strava.com/activities/725719331