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...
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