Ultracycling

Good job, I did it too but in a much longer time, didn’t roll in until 11.30! Lots of faffing around with punctures and feed stops with our group!

The organisation was pretty good although I was a little disappointed in the food options at zones 1 and 2. Stop 4 was great though!

Route was great, the big stretch of tarmac at the end was much appreciated.

@ILb I see you finished. Huge respect. How did you find it?

Cheers @Po - it was a wild ride, hopefully share a few more thoughts after some rest.

Was that you I met in Abergavenny? How did you get on ?

Still one or two riders out on the road, willing them on from here.

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Yes it was, harassing that poor guy at the petrol station at 2am.

I scratched at Barnstable after CP5. My achilles had been inflamed since Bristol and even spinning a tiny gear was aggravating it. Disappointed not to have finished but it was a great learning experience.

Had a sneak peak at next year’s route and I suspect I’ll be back to take care of unfinished business.

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Looks like an amazing event!! That “I’m done” ice cream picture…..was that taken in Woolacombe by any chance?

The first edition of Unmapping: Sweden starts now. Here are the dots for anyone interested.

https://www.followmychallenge.com/live/unmapping-sweden-2023/?fullscreen

It was! Good eyes.

(Ice cream was tiramisu and pistachio)

Ah sorry to hear that, how is the achilles now?

I mean it was a 24 hour garage so serving some fairly polite cyclists hopefully not too bad.

A little bit of post race reflection/ analysis then, now that I've some what recovered...

I had set out with a plan to ride through the first night and make it to Weymouth by the end of the second day. I had run and re-run the numbers countless times to work out what speed I would need to be averaging in order to make it by a reasonable time. It was 600k over very lumpy terrain and I knew I would have to bank some time early on, yet despite averaging over 30k an hour for the first two hours as darkness fell west of Monmouth my pace dropped off and the climbing began. For some reason I didn't take the main road to the bottom of Gospel Pass and made some silly routing errors in this section as well, which cost time.

Essentially the hotel which was meant to be a carrot quickly began to feel like scoreboard pressure - squeezing the fun out of the event. I was lucid enough to begin to realise this around day break at the River Severn and tactically changed my booking to Honiton, cutting the required distance down by c.100km. Nevertheless I still suffered badly that day, at times mostly from a sense of humour failure, with some low points including morning rush hour traffic in the Bristol environs and the ride between CP4 at Porlock and CP5 at Woolacombe. Those relentless Devon lanes with savage slope upon savage slope took their toll, I got a big feed in Barnstaple but it still took almost another 6 hours to reach Honiton from there at around 1am.

It's all relative but it often feels like other riders I bump into are enjoying these long rides more than me, I've certainly noticed I can struggle mentally until I'm comfortably beyond the half way mark. Which is something to look at and work on. Some other issues I had revolved around not spending enough time planning my route, and allowing Google maps to take the wheel when I felt my own efforts were not the best choice - doing this at night just seemed to be a poor choice as it made nav a lot harder (hallucinations between Tiverton and Honiton also didn't help).

Having suffered alone in the small Devon lanes on day 2 I decided to change tack on day 3 and hit some A-roads early doors to try and make some headway. This worked well and a day time route change to find a flatter way from Weymouth to Salisbury paid off as I picked up a few places heading into the final night.

Feeling increasingly positive and strong heading into the final night I had planned to simply keep moving until I reached the end to try and bag a top 15 finish. I was even on the ball enough to call ahead to Devizes to order food as I ticked off CP8 at Caen Hill locks. But hot damn that was a long final night with the inevitable dip in pace as the sunset somewhere in Wiltshire. Using a mix of caffeine, music and sheer will power I made it almost to Oxford by 3.30am - all the while knowing I was sailing close to the wind in terms of what I could handle. Right on cue at the peak of exhaustion I started getting terrifying double vision on the bike that I couldn't shake off, realising I would at best end up crashing into the verge or something far worse with the cars heading south out of Oxford being quite regular and veered off into a bus shelter. Lacking dexterity I fumbled my way into an emergency bivvy and closed my eyes.

I only "slept"for about 20 minutes, but I barely made any progress for the next 2-3 hours as I was still a bit out of it, and got stuck needing the loo in the middle of Oxford for what seemed like ages. During this period the close gap to 15th place became a lot bigger, and left me hoping not to be overtaken from behind before the end. Getting more sleep and feeling fresher is something to think about for next time.

Having lost so much time I necked a caffeine gel and forced myself to stay on the bike until I'd completed the final CP10 as I was just so frustrated with all the silly little stops I'd been making. At some point here I briefly thought about calling my other half for a bit of support - just the thought of her and our little boy had me bursting into tears, and this continued for several miles - a sure sign that I had everything totally nailed down and sorted...

After the final parcours and knowing the chasing pack were far enough behind I necked a cake and can of coke at a cafe before knocking off the remaining 20k. By luck the winner and other race hitters were at the finish line to clap me in, along with the organiser Liam which was a nice moment.

Apparently the route for next year is a belter - and with lots of things to be improved on I might be tempted back. The 600 miles of the race added 25% to my total mileage for the year up to that point; I know that some riders on the event had ridden over twice as many miles before reaching the start line. I simply didn't have the option to do that, and barely made it to the start line with all the illnesses that had been brought home from nursery during this spring - so overall I can be happy with the way it panned out. With some more training and better prep I think top 15 and even top 10 is possible in future.

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Dot watching for the Pan Celtic here - https://pancelticrace2023.maprogress.com

Leader Steve Morgan has apparently only ever ridden 300km before and smashed it to the ferry well ahead of everyone else, but next ferry isn't until mid-day so everyone up to 9th place is likely to get on it with him 🙃

Like people riding their first crit and think they're way stronger than everyone, but it's just the bunch dangling them out the front for 55 minutes and then they're swamped before the last three.

I mean, it could be strategy. Not a good one... but a one :D

Think how many beers you could sink while waiting though.

Like I said, it IS a strategy.

As an elite, time-saving racer myself I would obviously just be drinking them on the move. :D

Same people still seem to be chilling at the ferry port from this morning, pretty sure there was a sailing at mid-day... front end of the long route looking extremely neutralised now.

Issue with the ferry? Weather? Limited capacity for bikes or something?

Just had a look. That's a long old ferry trip to miss!

Fuck knows. But that chap who was in the ferry terminal at 9am GMT appears to be still there.

So that's at least 6 hours hanging around doing nothing preparing for another 6 hours at sea doing nothing whenever they set off.

My body would be thinking it was time to go home by that point...

Yeah, that ferry is mad in a race. If I was silly enough to have a crack I'd put a lot of planning into that bit. How many riders are expecting to be able to use it?

They've all got to cross there, and there's 3 x crossings a day. Still 600km to go from the ferry in UK up to Llandudno finish.

I guess you'd figure out a strategy for France which might involve taking it fairly chilled knowing you're likely to hit a certain ferry time, then just ride straight through on the final 600km once in the UK, putting the pedal down as much as you can. But then I bet tons of other riders will do that too, plus it's hilly so you're hardly going to leave anyone for dust

Could be they're all on the ferry and the bikes are below deck so not transmitting and at some point they'll all fire back up again in the UK.

Ahhh true. Hope so. Some of the 'short route' people seemed to magically appear in the UK so that might be it.

So two and a bit weeks on from the end of the Solstice Sprint and I still have numb toes/outside of right foot and very frequent pins and needles down my right calf and into the foot.

Any thoughts on what to do and how to prevent in future ?

Check fit, maybe bigger shoes, maybe different pedal system, more training before the next event, better diet, increase time between events.

Mm, I guess there are always many factors that can be causing the problem.

I had similar issues on the 600 I did before the race, but that was only 3 weeks out so changing shoes felt too risky at that point.

Take a look on youtube for nerve flossing exercises

Something isn't right if you're getting all that. I'd start with a bike fit, which would include looking at your shoes, and go from there.

Agree, T-3 weeks is not the time to change things. Need to do it after your last event of this season.