Titan

I wrote down some of my GBDURO experience, so grab yourself a drink and promise yourself to read all of this later at some point, to never actually do it. I’ll do it stage by stage to a release schedule that is as much a mystery to you as it is to me.

Day 0

Starting GBDURO was incredibly stressful. I’m not very used to travelling alone, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad to get there with the ferry and trains. Even though they cancelled my first ferry, I was able to rebook and still get the trains I wanted to. Travel from door to door took about 24 hours. Got lucky with a great Airbnb here, they even had a workshop where I could bodge a light mount I broke on the way. I donated my fuel and stove to them after getting a bit psyched out by another competitor I met in the train, who had maybe half of the kit I was carrying.

Stage 1

As mentioned, I was super nervous about all of this. And seeing the (lack of) gear other competitors brought, amplified it. But at this point, I’ve made my bed. And finally getting started after all these months of worrying will be a giant relief anyway.

I tried to go full race mode from the start, even riding top 10 in the first couple of hours, but this wasn’t sustainable at all. I got used to trying to stop at little as possible trough the randonneuring I did in preparation for this. Besides this, randonneuring was really good prep. Part of my training for GBDURO was doing a Super Randonneur series, you can refer to me as Super Barry from now on.

The route started off well by immediately turning to some really deeply rutted singletrack. I got ejected from the bike here for one of my two crashes along the way, but I rode away with only my ego bruised. The rest of the day the route was relatively well paved, but incredibly steep, totalling in almost 4000 meters of elevation for the day.

The first two days of the ride were during some immense heatwave that Britain is well known for, it got around 36 C during the day. I dealt ok with the temperature and being in the sun all day, but it did have me stopping a lot for supplies. I drank around 10 liters of water on each of the first two days. My food strategy was to stuff some type of food down every hour. My main strength is that my digestive system doesn't seem to care what I throw at it at all. So i treated myself to a well balanced meal of vanilla slices, yoghurt, snickers, huel, soda, muffins, sandwiches, and clif bars for dinner the first night.

Wildcamping is not something I’m used to at all, and especially this night would prove to be challenging. I just couldn’t find a suitable place that wasn’t a farmer’s field, who were very active during the late evening, because of the high temperatures during the day. I even got “can I help you with something”ed by a farmer on an ATV when having a look at a field. Eventually I settled on some field, but I basically spent 4 hours lying down, trying to convince myself every rustling leaf wasn’t the cops here to arrest me. After no sleep at all, but a lot of wasted time, I ran into a perfect camping spot 300 meters further along the route the next day.

Stage one is the hardest stage of GBDURO. On the second day, running through the Quantock hills and Mendips was so incredibly brutal. Climbing along them wasn’t too bad, I really like climbing. But the descents were incredibly rough. None of them were paved and they were so much more rocky than I could have ever imagined. I still can’t feel two of my fingertips

After a truly massive chippy in Bristol and crossing into Wales over the Severn bridges, I found a fantastic camping spot. While pitching my tent I was only stopped once by two men speeding through the forest in a pick up truck in the dark, looking for someone on a bike(?). I was tired enough at this point to not pay much attention to it.

Cycling trough Wales was an absolute dream, the south of Wales and especially the Brecon Beacons really stuck with me. I think I barely saw a soul there, which was just as well as I couldn’t pronounce any of the village names here anyway. At first I thought I was almost at the first checkpoint, as I saw “Ysbyty Yswyth” on the roadsigns.

The feeling of “almost being there” that ensued while cycling on to my actual destination “Ysbyty Cynfyn” was a bit of a slog, but I got there just before dark. Saving me just enough time to grab a load of food and get a shower at the checkpoint, which was an unexpected luxury that was a nice boost.

Trying to wash my clothes in the shower just before sunset was a rookie error, but I brought a second pair of bibs, so no big worries. I rode the rest of GBDURO in this second pair of bibs, never had a single moment of saddle sore, love them. They did turn out to be two centimeters shorter than the first bibs though, so from now on I will have a massive tanline showing, almost scratched then and there. I'm lucky it's a solo event.

I arrived at the checkpoint much later than ideal, but I did get there. I survived stage 1 of GBDURO in 60 hrs 42 mins. I bet it’s all smooth sailing from here (foreshadowing intensifies)

Day 1: https://www.strava.com/activities/7633550121
Day 2: https://www.strava.com/activities/7644137351
Day 3: https://www.strava.com/activities/7644138546