RAB write-up, day 5: Haydock to Carlisle

Planned route: 116.4mi, 5,558ft
Actual route: 118.15mi, 6,247ft

It was back to a 6.30 start for day 5, so I was up at 4.45, dressed, fed and prepped bright and early. I say prepped ... I was as ready as I could be, but I didn't feel ready enough. Day 5 is long, and also turned out to be the first in a sequence of days where the official elevation quoted was a serious under-estimate. For someone who motivated himself by watching the figures clock up on my Wahoo, thinking I had to do five and a half thousand feet but actually having six and a quarter to do ... well, you can imagine how I came to feel, later in the day.

Day 5 was also the last of the very hot days. So hot was it, in fact, that I appear in most of the official photographs that day with great globs of suncream all over my face, not properly rubbed in. It's not a great look, and one of many reasons you won't be seeing many photographs on here that actually have me in them. But here's a picture that's a bit more representative of day 5:

Because 5 was the day the landscape really started to change - without wanting to sound like the clichéd southerner I am, it started to feel like we were properly up north, and the hills got a bit more mountainous to prove it.

The day's route started by working its way through Chorley and skimming off the edge of Preston. The spire of St Walburgh's church in Preston really stood out, even from a long way off; I later read that it is the tallest church spire in England (i.e. not including cathedral spires like Salisbury and Norwich), at 91.4m. It certainly caught my eye and, like many places I cycled through on RAB, made me want to revisit another time when I could just be a sightseer: Perth was another such place, and Penrith. There were other places that didn't begin with P too...

At the day's first pit stop, I gave up on trying to manage the pain of my saddle sores by myself, and went to see the medic. At this point an attractive young lady asked me to step into her tent and drop my shorts, something that doesn't happen to me every day. She - doctor, nurse or medical student, I don't know, and at that point didn't care - proceeded to strap me up with gauze pads and Rock Tape, effectively adding an extra layer of protection to my blistered bottom, and reducing the chafing of some very sore skin. And if I could have bought her a box of chocolates or a bunch of flowers, I would, because the difference this made was immediate and significant. I won't lie and say it didn't hurt down there any more, because it did - but it was dialled right down and, crucially, stopped getting worse. For the first time in three days, I started to see a way in which I might be able to complete the event. It was a lengthy pit-stop, of course, and on a day when the briefing had warned not to dilly-dally at pits, but it had been time well spent. The lovely doctor, with her reel of Rock Tape, was my new best friend.

The scenery from then on helped my mood too, as the route wound its way through the picturesque Trough of Bowland, towards the River Lune and some scenic bridges. In no time, the second pit of the day hoved into view, in the pretty lakeland town of Milnthorpe. In the shadow of the church, a large banner proclaimed that we were now "over half way there", with only 480 miles to go to John O'Groats. I know this was supposed to me motivational, but when's the last time you cycled 480 miles, let alone in four and a half days? Still, after dallying just long enough to eat and get a photo with the banner, I pressed quickly on, knowing that the hills of the Lake District, and more specifically Shap Fell, lay ahead. And after briskly negotiating Kendal, and a quick blast up the A6, there it was.

All the worst hills have names; Shap, the ascent to Shap Fell, is pretty hard, but would only just scrape into my "top 5 hardest hills on RAB". Because it's long, rather than hellishly steep - it just goes on and on. And like some other hills on the ride I could mention (Cothelstone and the Lecht being examples), Shap starts with its steepest section, then flattens a bit, then just rolls upwards. As it turns out, for a hill I'd really worried about, the ascent of Shap was fine - not fast, by any means, and I did have a breather half-way up, but it was fine. Having a Deloitte cheer squad at the top was a nice touch too, to wave big flags and ring cow bells - it really added to the sense of achievement. Shap was done ... no time to stop and enjoy it though, time was ticking, and I was, as ever, keen to get to basecamp. Each day had a notional deadline of 7pm - if you weren't at camp by then, you ran the risk of being scooped up by the broom wagon. I did not want that to happen to me, and after my longer than usual morning pit stop, I was behind my personal schedule. I did stop at the extra mini pit stop laid on in Shap village though, needing fuel for the longer than usual third leg.

The bulk of the ride from there was following the A6 to, and through, Penrith, a town I've driven past so many times on trips to Scotland but never been into, much less visited properly. From there, it was a long drag to basecamp, just south of Carlisle, with a couple of saw-tooth grippy hills near the end, to finish me off. As it was, I rolled into camp at 6.05pm, more than eleven and a half hours after I'd set off that morning. I was properly, properly tired, but pleased to have beaten the broom wagon comfortably. I still had the joy of ripping off Rock Tape to come, of course, as well as the evening's duties: shower, eat, prep bike. To that list, I could now add "visit medic" for a rendezvous with the lovely doc who gave me two choices - either she could give me more pads and Rock Tape and I could attend to myself in the morning, or I could come and see her again at 5.30am when the medics' tent opened, and she could sort me out. Lovely as she was, I opted to take the supplies and sort myself out. I mean, how hard could that be? Read the day 6 write-up to find out.

As day 5 ended, the rain arrived...

RAB write-up, day 4: Ludlow to Haydock

Planned route: 106.9mi, 3,133ft
Actual route: 107.5mi, 3,048ft

Only in RAB-world is 107 miles the "easy day" but that's how I was viewing day 4, because of its relatively minor elevation, markedly less than any other day. This also made for another later start, and a few extra precious moments in bed; the gate opened at 7, but I was up, prepped, breakfasted and heading out from Ludlow racecourse at 6.49am. It was another cool, misty start...

I don't know whether I'm starting to equate grippy hills with memorable moments, but in some ways day 4 was less memorable. Sure, the route ran close by Stiperstones, a distinctive hill not far from Shrewsbury; then there was the Warburton Bridge, over the Manchester Ship Canal. Actually, it was a day of many river crossings, some big, some small, some with fine bridges to accompany them, some not. The thing that sticks most in the mind from day 4 though, more than these things, is the abysmal quality of the roads in Cheshire. Yes, the route took us on some minor roads, that's true, but honestly, the quality of the tarmac left so much to be desired. And let me tell you, when you've got your skinny tyres pumped up hard to avoid punctures, and your rear end is blistered and sore, every crash and bang over the uneven, rutted, pot-holed, cheaply-surfaced miles of Cheshire's awful roads was magnified ten fold. By the end of the day I was getting quite sweary. And it wasn't only my tail-end that was suffering - some of these lumps and bumps were so big as to cause my bike to change gear, triggering my front gear shifter and derailling me from my big ring to the little; this is funny the first couple of times it happens, but after the tenth... and twentieth... I wasn't laughing.

It was another day of pain management, of course, with soluble aspirin added to my water at every pit stop. They helped a bit... but any gain from them was more than offset by the discomfort and additional chafing that came from it being such a hot day. The heat was fierce, and the extra sweating and swelling really didn't help my blistered contact points. But enough of that.

What does stick in my mind from day 4 is my extra, personal, third pit-stop of the day. There were probably only fifteen miles left, certainly less than twenty, but as I've mentioned it was very, very hot and I was suffering. So when I came to a crossroads with a little Budgens on the corner, well, I just had to take the opportunity to get out of the saddle for a bit... and I bought an orange Calippo. Such was my need at that moment, that simple orange Calippo rates as one of the top ten food experiences of my life. It was pure heaven, the perfect combination of a desperate need and an icy cold, sugary sweet, lipsmackingly-good, orangey way to meet it. God, it was terrific.

Day 4's basecamp, reached after nine and a quarter hours on the road, seven hours fifty moving, was another racecourse, the slightly grander Haydock Park. Somewhat inconveniently, they were a a bit precious about the grass on the course itself, so whilst all the tents were laid out in the centre of the race course, there was a fairly long and very much unwanted walk around to the grandstand and other buildings for food, medics, and charging. Still, the racecourse also did the catering, which meant sitting up in the grandstand dining rooms to eat, rather than in the usual giant marquee. So, swings and roundabouts, I guess. But the incessant pain from my saddle area meant that I took the long walk back to Blue 98 very slowly that evening.

Speaking of Blue 98, this seems an apposite moment to show you what it looked like in use:

Lots to note here. Yes, I was drying things on the tent roof, like many other people. Yes, I was charging my solar powerbank. Yes, my cleats and crocs were outside, because both smelled. I had to surgically remove the fleece lining from the latter before the end of the week, as being stuffed back into a plastic bag wet every morning meant that they quickly became, well there's no other word for it, rancid. And they went in the bin at the end of the week too.

Anyway, day 4 ended much as day 3 had done: with me feeling very sore and more than a little sorry for myself. Day 5 loomed, the longest day in terms of distance, and hillier again too. To top it all off, my worst blister was now weeping almost continuously as well. Suffice to say I got an early night, and spent most of a poor sleep wondering how I would cycle 116 miles in the morning...

RAB write-up, day 3: Bath to Ludlow

Planned route: 94.3mi, 5,318ft
Actual route: 93.71mi, 5,436ft

An extra half hour in bed, and a shorter day's ride. Joy! Starting the day with a scabby leg and a blistered bottom? Slightly less joyous, if I'm honest, but I was still in it: breakfast at five thirty, bag packed, decamped from Blue 98, kit bag stowed on the luggage lorry, bike retrieved from the rack and all ready to go, nice and early. And this isn't the greatest photo, but the slightly later start time made for some atmospheric views across basecamp, with plenty of long shadows cast by the floodlights:

Aside from the mist (again), it was a relatively easy start to the day, muscular aches and pains loosening up as the miles rolled by, in a reassuringly predictable way. The saddle sores hurt from the off, of course, particularly the right side, so I knew that the day's challenge would largely be about pain management. I had ordered the official photograph package - photographers were stationed at key points along the route, plus a pretty female photographer riding pillion on a motorbike, facing backwards, would whizz by periodically, snapping away. I'm glad I stumped up for this - I wouldn't have any pictures of myself doing RAB otherwise - but in the majority of the pictures I look like I'm suffering, in pain or at the very least in some discomfort. And that's because I was.

On the plus side, day 3 was much shorter than days 1 and 2 - indeed, after this year's route revision, it was the only day of the whole event to be less than 100 miles. So being in the saddle was painful... but it would be a shorter pain - that's what I was telling myself, as I trundled through the mist towards the Severn. For day 3 was the day we would cross (however briefly) into Wales. I had been looking forward to this, cycling over the old Severn Bridge, and was looking forward to getting some good photographs, as the mist lifted. Imagine my disappointment, then, on reaching the bridge to see that thick mist was lingering around the Severn, to the extent that from the middle of the bridge you couldn't see either shore. This really was the best photograph I managed, the first of two suspension towers just visible in the background:

I also took a minute, standing there on the bridge's cycle lane, to think about home and, more specifically, my son who, at that very moment, was arriving at high school for the very first time. This was the hardest thing on day 3, harder than the distance and the hills and the burning sun that would come later, harder than the many aches and pains, harder even than cycling on blisters - missing my son's first day at high school. RAB for me was originally scheduled for 2020, so this shouldn't have been a problem, but COVID put paid to that. To his credit, he seemed unconcerned about my absence, it was just me being a sentimental old man. I felt terrible, and wanted to be home and be with him more than I can explain. So I took a minute, just stood there on the bridge, to think about him, to think about what I was missing. I don't mind admitting I felt very emotional.

The day's first pit stop was just the other side of the crossing, in Chepstow. I had resolved to take more photographs (for which I was mostly using a Go-Pro knock-off, rather than my phone), and since the mist had gone within minutes of clearing the river, I got a nice clear shot of Chepstow Castle, which was adjacent to the pit.

Olympian Elinor Barker was riding along on day 3, and spent a lot of time posing for selfies with riders at the pit stop. I failed to get a picture, of course - perhaps I should be more pushy. Oh well.

Resuming after the pit was hard though, as the most significant climb of the day immediately followed. Compensation for this came shortly after in the shape of one of the most picturesque sections of the ride, not just for day 3 but for all of RAB, alongside the river to Ross-on-Wye. It really was glorious in the sunshine, almost (but not quite) enough to make a man forget his blisters.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful - pedal, pedal, pedal, pit, pedal, pedal, pedal, stop. Actually, it was notable for my personal introduction of a third pit stop, something I would do on most of the remaining days, splitting the last leg of the ride into two and taking five minutes to just get off the bike and eat a few snacks. I did this in Leominster on day 3, sat on a bench in a tiny park opposite a bingo hall. I captured the state of my bike there too, perhaps thinking that I might not complete many more days on it...

...because by this point I was getting along by adding soluble painkillers to my water bottle as well as isotonic sports supplements. It was working - ish - and getting off the bike for my personal extra pit stop helped too, but I didn't know if this was a sustainable approach. Still, it got me to the day's end, despite the fact that shortly after Leominster my bike decided that it didn't want to shift rings at the front anymore, and I could no longer get on my little ring. The derailleur needed adjustment, basically, but being quite near the end I decided just to push on - the absence of severe hills in the last ten miles meant I could do without my little ring.

Basecamp that evening was at Ludlow racecourse, which was nice. First stop was to the mechanics, leaving my bike with them to sort the derailleur. Such a joy to have them on hand to deal with issues like this: they could do in five minutes what it might take me half an hour to do, and to a higher standard too. When your evening is already full with the minutiae of keeping yourself on the road, having someone else available to see to your bike was a godsend.

After getting showered, I was then able to find a perch up in the deserted grandstand overlooking the racecourse to phone home, and talk to my son about his first day. He had a great time, of course, and breezed through it; my partner sent through the obligatory new uniform/first day photographs too, and they helped enormously. I will always feel bad that I hadn't been there though.

One other point of note for day 3; that evening's briefing saw the first mention of a D&V bug that was passing through the camp; forget COVID, there were some old-school bugs going around. I could certainly do without any of that, especially since those being struck down were having to sit days out. For the first time, I was actively glad to be alone on RAB, because it meant I could keep myself to myself; the risk of me catching the bug was literally in my own hands. Sanitise, sanitise, sanitise...

RAB write-up, day 2: Okehampton to Bath

Planned route: 113.9mi, 7,463ft
Actual route: 113.8mi, 7,635ft

Day 2: more of the same. Another tough day, with seven and a half thousand feet of elevation, in 114 miles. And to make matters worse, it's straight after the brutal day 1...

For me, it was another early start, up at 4.45 and having breakfast by 5am. I was aching quite badly in places, but felt a bit more confident than I had the night before, as I knew that the aches would loosen up when I got going. I was also trying very hard to take comfort in the fact that, although marginally longer than even the extended first day had turned out to be, the day ahead promised less elevation. Still a lot, but less... and it's marginal differences like this that I seized on throughout RAB. When you're hurting, you take your motivation where you can find it, right? The big change from day 1 was that the elevation was more concentrated - there are three big climbs on day 2, whereas day 1 is just lots of climbs. But we'll come to those three later...

Being a long day, the start line was officially open at 6.30am, though Strava tells me I was on my way at 6.25. It's cool, literally, starting in the dark and in a light mist - everyone has their back lights on, and it looks atmospheric. Of course the light mist is not so much fun for the spectacles-wearing cyclist - it is effectively doubled. The cooler temperature meant starting with arm warmers on again too, but I knew from the forecast that these wouldn't be needed for long, and that the mist wouldn't last either. There were a few grippy sections early on, especially near Cadbury (not that one), and by the time I got to the first pit stop, which was around 38 miles in, well, I was ready for it. By this point, my aches and pains had loosened up, and I was feeling okay. Not great, but okay. That was about to change.

Approaching the entry to the pit stop, I got myself unclipped in good time. Marshals were out in the road warning of a gravelly entrance to the pit stop field, so I rolled slowly through the gate, mindful of my tyres... a bit too slowly, as it turned out. My front wheel got stuck in a rocky rut and twisted, pitching me to the left. I was still clipped in on that side and had no time to unclip: down I went, with an almighty crash, and no small embarrassment. I got myself up, shaking off all offers of help, and went off to rack my bike and dust myself down. Only at that point did I notice that my big ring had chainsawed through the back of my right leg in the fall, making a nice deep three-inch cut. There was a good lot of claret running down into my sock too (I'll spare you the picture). A quick poke and prod revealed that the cut was deep enough to expose the layer of sub-cutaneous fat (a thin layer, I'm pleased to say) and, more worryingly, seemed to be full of chain oil. Whilst eating my pit stop fuel, I decided I probably needed to see the medic - the first of many visits. To his credit, the medic seemed unconcerned, and when I asked whether it needed butterfly strips to hold it together (it had opened quite wide at this point) he said no, and added that they would probably only come off as I sweated anyway. In the end, we opted to simply cover it with a very big plaster, to stop it getting any dirtier, and review it in the evening if I had any further discomfort. As for the fact that it was full of chain oil, well, there didn't seem to be too much grit embedded in the oil, so the extent of the cleaning was limited to a quick swish around with an alcohol wipe.

Although I cursed my stupidity, I was lucky really. A bit lower and the cut would have been on my Achilles; a bit higher and it would have been into the meat of my calf muscle. Both of those would have been more painful and potentially problematic. As it was, the cut had no real impact on my ability to cycle. Just as well, eh...?

The first big hill of the day was Cothelstone, which my cycling sensei had warned me was a ballache. And she was right. I arrived at Cothelstone after about 57 miles, to the sight of many cyclists dismounted and walking up. Now I knew from studying the segment online that the steepest part of the hill is the first bit, so I took a cautious approach, cycled as far as I could up that first section, then dismounted whilst I still had enough forward momentum to unclip without taking another tumble and making an arse of myself again. Then I walked up the rest of the first section, before saddling up for the remaining two thirds. I feel some regret in this, but no shame: better cyclists than me, with nicer bikes too, were walking up that first stretch, and I still powered myself and my bike up, and that's what matters, right?

After Cothelstone, I was certainly ready for the second pit stop, which prepped me nicely for the day's next challenge: cycling up Cheddar Gorge. Now this wasn't as steep as Cothelstone but it went on... and on... and on. A roadsign at the bottom of the climb warned of walkers and road-side parking for the next three quarters of a mile, so I went into it expecting three quarters of a mile of climb. Foolish me. The ascent was more like two and a half miles of up, up, up. And it was really hot by this point too. Still, I got my head down, wiped the sweat and sun cream from my eyes, unzipped my jersey a bit and got stuck in. And I can say now it was one of the highlights of the ride for me. Here's the gorge from the air (which is picturesque but gives no real idea of the incline):

After Cheddar, I started to hurt in a new place. Long distance cycling is all about managing your contact points: hands, feet and rear end! And my rear end was starting to feel sore. Certainly by the time I got to Bath, I found I was rising out of the saddle more often, and for longer, and that lowering myself back onto the saddle was getting painful. Not good.

The day had another sting in the tail too. On previous RABs, day 2 was shorter and ended at the University of Bath, where riders would have a room in the student accommodation, rather than a tent, a bed rather than a sleeping bag, and their own en-suite shower. But COVID had put paid to that, so we had to cycle through Bath, and out the other side, on to a regular basecamp. This was a shame, as I'd been looking forward to a proper bed. Also, cycling through Bath was supposed to be nice, because of the architecture, but it was not: there was far too much traffic on the road, far too many junctions, far too many hill starts at traffic lights (never fun when clipping in and out of pedals) ... and all at the end of a long, hot day. I was glad to put Bath behind me.

The final kicker was a hill that in previous years had begun day 3: Bannerdown. A hill big enough and steep enough to support a local gliding club. Again, I had to surrender part-way up, and walk for some of this; again, I was far from the only one. It might well have been do-able at the start of the day, but not after 110 miles.

I was relieved to make it into basecamp: two days done which, 24 short hours earlier, had seemed near-impossible to me. I was sore but happy, and that happiness lasted until I got into the shower. Lovely, hot and relaxing... until bending down to wash the grime from my lower legs, I felt a sudden, acute pain from one of my saddle contact points. So sudden and acute was it that, at first, I wondered whether a wasp had joined me in the shower. A tentative exploratory feel of the sore area came away with a slough of my own skin! And that's how I discovered that not only had my saddle sore blistered but that the blister had split wide open. It hurt like a bugger, I can't put it any other way. Annoying too - I'd invested in decent shorts, and diligently applied chamois cream, all to no avail. Damn.

That evening, I did all the usual: phoned home, ate, updated my socials (hark at me), prepped my bike, drank tea, got to bed early. And through all that, all I was really thinking about was how I was going to cycle for seven more days and 750 more miles with a blistered bottom. A return visit to the medic to check the cut got me a liberal spray of iodine and a fresh plaster. Foolishly, I didn't mention my blister problem. On the plus side, I knew that since day 2 had been longer than in previous years, day 3 would be shorter, and started later too - I'd actually get an extra half hour in bed. Small mercies, right?

The evening ended on a high note, with an appearance at the briefing by Olympic silver medallist Elinor Barker, on hand to present riders who were on their third RAB with commemorative gold jerseys. It was nice to have something to cheer after a tough day.

RAB write-up, day 1: Land's End to Okehampton

Planned route: 105.7mi, 8,236ft
Actual route: 110.1mi, 9,711ft

Day 1 is brutal. Simple as. That's the most used word to describe it. A baptism of fire, you could say, but just brutal is how nearly everyone described it. It's the elevation, you see: hardly any of the route is flat, you're either climbing or descending virtually all the time. So although there were no particularly awful hills, day 1 is the day with most elevation on the whole RAB route... and that's before things go wrong and you get re-routed back the way you've just come...

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Day 1 started for me at 4.45am, give or take. I was awake before both my alarms went off, so got dressed in my bib shorts, fleece and crocs, and paddled over to the mess tent for breakfast at 5. And this is where the serious fuelling began. Breaky for me is normally two slices of toast; breakfast on day 1 was a croissant, a bacon roll, a banana, a little porridge and a cup of tea. Start as you mean to go on, I say.

A quick wash and brush-up later and I was back in Blue 98, ditching the fleece and getting my cycling jersey, helmet and cleats on. Then it was just a case of getting everything packed back into my kit bag and vacating the tent. The kit bag then had to go on a lorry, colour-coded according to tent allocation. Let me tell you, finding the lorry with a blue flag next to it, in the dark, at 6am, was not easy. But the luggage handlers - mostly Russian, by their accents - were friendly and helpful throughout. I was relieved to be shot of my bag anyway - it was pretty heavy.

Then it was just a matter of finding my bike in the racking, and heading over to the start line. The gate was due to open at 6.30am - I was waiting to go at 6.17. With all apologies for poor photography, this was the scene...

Strava tells me I set off at 6.26, so they must have opened the gate a little early. And it was a great start, watching the sun come up perfectly framed between two clouds, cycling back towards Penzance and seeing St Michael's Mount in the dawn light. The only snag was the headwind - strong, and gusting even stronger. Right from the off, it was clear that day 1 was not going to be easy.

Still, received wisdom about RAB days is to treat each one not as 100+ miles, but as three rides of about 35 miles, broken up by the excellent pit stops laid on by the crew. At the first pit stop, everything was good - I hadn't been as fast as I'd hoped, largely due to that headwind and the cumulative effect of lots of hills, but I was ticking along nicely. Pit-stops throughout RAB involved stuffing lots of snack food as quickly as possible, refilling my water bottle, topping up suncream (at least on the first five days), visiting a portaloo, grabbing a few more snacks and/or energy gel sachets to consume on the next leg and then back on the bike - 20 minutes tops. Any longer than that and I'd start to stiffen up. I was pretty slick at pit stops, right from the off.

The other thing that became apparent right from the off was that I was not the most confident cyclist on steep descents. Others would be flying by at 40, 45mph and I'd be trundling down with both brakes on the go. I got better as the days passed, but still not good. This meant that whenever I started to ride with a group, as soon as it came to a steep downhill I got dropped. The net effect of this is that I rode the vast majority of LEJOG alone; since one of the selling points of RAB is the social interaction, the ride banter, and the encouragement of being in a group, maybe I missed out. I do think doing it alone made it harder, a mental challenge as much as a physical test. Luckily, I like my own company.

As day 1 wore on, the sun came out and it got very hot. The headwind kept up too, though the stronger gusts diminished as the route moved inland. But what really changed day 1, making a tough day into the brutal day I headlined, was the accident. At about 66 miles in, near Bodmin, we suddenly encountered an unexpected "Road closed" sign and the single-track road blocked by an unmarked police car with its blues on. As some cyclists ahead that had been turned back made their way to us, word filtered back that one of the RAB participants had been involved in an accident, some kind of collision with a car or van, possibly when going very quickly down a descent and into a blind turn. We knew an ambulance was down there, which suggested things weren't great. Then the ambulance made its way back past us, and both paramedics were in the front, which suggested either no-one was in the back or that the accident had been fatal. Then we watched the air ambulance arrive...

Meanwhile, all the RAB riders were backing up - the narrow country lane was jammed with lycra and carbon:

...whilst RAB control (yes, they have a control room, like a blue light service) and the ride chaperones busied themselves trying to organise a different route. Eventually they decided we had to go back the way we'd come... which meant faster riders were now stacked up behind slower ones, as the queue did an about-face. Quite apart from adding 5 miles to the day's ride, and a whole lot of extra elevation, this also meant going on some quite busy roads through towns and villages, whilst faster riders tried to overtake slower ones, and cars tried to overtake everyone. The next eight to ten miles weren't very nice, in other words, but credit to all involved in getting it sorted. The second pit stop, by then desperately needed, was a subdued affair too, as rumours circulated about the accident, what had happened and to whom.

It all made an already hard day even harder, and the afternoon heat was fierce too. I finally rolled into the Okehampton basecamp at about 5.30pm - eleven hours on the road, of which nine and half were on the move. 110 miles was hard, naturally, but the kicker was the 9,711ft of elevation I'd recorded. This was next level for me - the most climbing I'd ever done in one day before was 6,000ft, and that was on a cool day. Reader, I was feeling broken, and it was only day 1...

Still, things to do. I racked my bike, collected my kit bag and retreated to Blue 98 to lay down.. and update Facebook. I avoid that platform generally but so many people had sponsored me, and asked for updates, that I felt duty-bound. To be fair, the daily updates that I gave helped to generate even more sponsorship, and the messages of support and encouragement were genuinely helpful. People I hadn't seen for years were rooting for me, and pledging money - it's become a bit of a cliché these days, but it was actually a bit humbling.

Anyway, much as I might have liked to, I couldn't lay down all evening. Instead, I went to collect my daily towel allowance (yes, really) and queued for a shower, courtesy of Posh Wash, and God, did it feel good. Then I went to the mess tent to get fed and listen to the evening briefing for the next day's ride. We were told that the injured rider was in hospital, comfortable and stable. We were reminded to ride safely... and that was all. Only later, when the rider in question posted to the unofficial RAB Facebook group, did we learn that he'd been airlifted to hospital in Plymouth with a suspected brain injury and was in a coma for six days. I'm happy to report that he is recovering well and, probably thankfully, remembers nothing of the accident.

I didn't need an ambulance, of course, but I was feeling broken. I phoned home - I made all the right noises to my son, then expressed all my doubts and concerns to my partner: that I was in a bad way, I didn't think I could do it again for another day, let alone for eight more days, that if there was an easy way out I'd quit... Far from being euphoric at having started RAB and conquered a tough day, I was feeling very low indeed. I wanted to escape, but couldn't see how to get out. My wonderful partner said all the right things back, thankfully: not dismissive of my concerns but not pandering to my wanting out either. A healthy serving of encouragement with a side-order of realism, basically. Had I really thought it would be easy? And though I hung up the phone still feeling low, I was resolved more than ever to making my family proud, and I knew I wouldn't do that quitting after one day, however brutal.

That just left time for bike prep (tyres pumped up, water bottle on) and a last cup of tea in the mess tent before retiring to Blue 98 - I was in my sleeping bag by half ten, knowing I'd be back on the bike in eight short hours to do it all over again...

RAB write-up, day 0: getting there

The trouble with doing any kind of Land's End to John O'Groats event is that you have to get yourself and all of your gear somewhere pretty remote, just to get on the start line. Some people go down early and stay in hotels; others let the train take the strain; the luckiest have a support crew of family or friends to drive them. I had none of these things, which is how I came to rent an SUV, sling my bike and 90-litre kit bag in the back and drive to Land's End the day before the Ride Across Britain was due to start. On the plus side, this meant getting there was entirely in my control; on the flip side, it meant an early start and a long, long drive in an unfamiliar car. Even so, I arrived at Land's End around 4pm, after a fun journey, and started the check-in process quickly, mindful that I was supposed to be returning the hire car to nearby Penzance by 4.30...

It didn't take long to get checked in - someone spirited my bike away to the racking area, I got in a short queue for registration and my wrist band, then another queue for my tent allocation (Blue 98, since you ask). One of many COVID measures new for this year is that each rider had the same tents for the duration of the event. Then it was just a case of finding Blue 98 amongst the row upon row of identical pop-up tents, dumping my bag, then heading back to the car park and vamoosing the hire car back to Penzance. Some kind of site map might give you an idea of how things were set up, and how much trudging I was doing with a heavy bag, so here's an aerial view of the Land's End basecamp - you can click to make it bigger if necessary.

I got the car back to Penzance, brimmed with fuel and in fine fettle, at 5pm on the nose. I later discovered the rental company charged me an extra £35 for going over my allotted time, and I'm currently in the process of trying to get that back, but never mind. I then walked back into Penzance, along the beautiful coast path, with views of St Michael's Mount and late summer sun across a calm, sandy beach... and made it to the bus station five minutes after the last bus to Land's End had gone: bugger. I tried calling some taxi companies but none were answering, all busy: bugger again. It was almost like there was some big event going on in the area! So I made my way to the train station, and waited and waited for a cab that wasn't booked... luckily, I was able to hook up with two others cyclists who'd got a train down, so when a free cab finally showed up we were able to split the hefty fare. I made it back to basecamp around 6.30pm.

Next up was getting the obligatory pre-event photograph with the Land's End signpost. Some people took their bikes down to the sign for this, some even got kitted out in their cycling gear. Not me though - I think a picture without bike and in regular clothes gave a nice "calm before the storm" vibe.

Then it was time for dinner in the mess tent - this was basically a giant marquee, longer than a football pitch, maybe not quite as wide, with catering at one end, a small stage at the other and row upon row upon row of tables and chairs in the middle. It was also home to the charging area, where 1,000 people tried to charge their phones, lights and GPSs every night. An organised chaos of cables, basically. But back to the food - basic but hearty, and carb-heavy, exactly what you wanted before a day's cycling. I ate whilst listening to that evening's briefing, a run-through of the next day's route, with emphasis on areas that were "grippy" (i.e. difficult climbs) or "challenging" (lairy descents). By the time the briefing had finished, it was getting dark, so I prepped my bike my torchlight. Prepping was the same every night, pretty much: fill my water bottle, add an isotonic tablet to it, pop it on the bike, then pump up my tyres to around 95psi using a track pump from the mechanics' tent... and, er, that was about it. It's a pretty simple, old-school bike, after all. I then washed and got myself off to bed in Blue 98, set two alarms and settled down in my sleeping bag for an early night: after all, I had a big day to look forward to, right?

Recovery

So, the Ride Across Britain has been done! And it was very hard, harder than I had anticipated (and my expectation was that it would be very difficult).

It all stills feels a bit raw, if I'm honest, physically and emotionally, and I think I'm going to need some time to process the enormity of the ride, and the fact that I managed to do it all, despite wanting to quit after day one.

So when I have taken that time to process, I'll write up the experience and post it here. Until then, here are some basic stats:

• Start line crossed on day one: 6:26am, 4th September 2021
• Total distance recorded: 974.15 miles
• Total elevation climbed: 55,666ft
• Elapsed riding time: 93hr 4min 12sec
• Moving time: 80hr 5min 33sec
• Average speed: 12.2mph
• Maximum speed: 49.4mph
• Finish line crossed on day nine: 3:33pm, 12th September 2021

T minus 1

By the time you read this, I'll be driving down to Land's End in a hire car, back seat folded down and with my bike in the boot. I wish I could explain how I've felt this last week - nervous, bordering on anxious, would be a good start. There is so much to do and so much that can go wrong. Plus the weather forecast, at least for the first half of the ride, is far from ideal - there will be headwinds, and my rain jacket is going to be getting a lot of use.

Above and beyond all that, though, are the unavoidable doubts: firstly, that I haven't trained enough; secondly, that I'm just too old/unfit/weak to be able to do all this; thirdly, that I'll be too slow unclipping my cleats on a steep incline and so take the slow, undignified fall of shame sideways onto the tarmac (or into a ditch... or under the wheels of a passing lorry); and lastly, mostly, that there are more important things in life that I have neglected, and continue to neglect, in doing this.

But anyway... in for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. Or three thousand pounds plus, since that's the sum I've raised for The Alzheimer's Society so far, in doing this. Subject to phone battery and network coverage, I'll try to post some kind of updates here, and on JustGiving. Plus there's always ResultsBase, where I'm assured a very numbers-oriented update will appear for me here. Oh, and it'll all be on Strava, of course, if that's your bag (and assuming I have enough phone signal to sync my GPS device).

So, in summary, here are some links if you want to follow along:
JustGiving • ResultsBase • Strava • The route