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?
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