The Race

Surprisingly, I don’t really have than much of an idea of where or when I was riding so the notes are a rough outline of the trip rather than a definitive journey.

Day 1
Start – England game, rubbish pasta, nerves. Opening Parade, keeping up with Dan and Paul! The race time – Overtaken immediately by the Austrians and seemingly everyone else. Bugger. All teams exchanging riders – seemed like only S4P riding through the stage.

Lake Henshaw - 34 miles and over 1000m ascent with 50% for the climb in the last 5 miles – very hot and very hard. After only 2 hours riding, felt like death. Nerves played a part but also it was also really hard to control riding. The heat came as a shock – coast was cool and fresh – mountains suddenly very hot and dry. Felt quite exposed and very concerned about the next 2950 miles! Ended the day with a bad headache.

Night riding through the Arizona desert – flat and fast. Still hard to control HR and pacing still an issue. Sky beautiful. Shocking how cold it actually gets in the high desert at night – nearly all kit deployed to stay warm.

Passed Grand Canyon National Park (didn’t stop) the ride across the Indian reservation at sunset still spectacular. Sky big, descents big, all pretty big.

Exciting night of racing – teams all quite close and exchange points at a premium.
Found ourselves locked in battle with the Redgrave Team – they run a different rider strategy and appear to have a cox in the support car barking encouragement. Very strange way to cover 3000 miles – I suspect if he shouted at me to peddle harder up a hill I would punch him!

We passed the RAF team

I started to struggle with eating and drinking which is a worry when you are burning the number of calories we are (about 1200 per hour)

Day 2

Big climb up Wolf Creek Pass in the Rockies – the first of the big passes. Couldn’t eat in the morning and problems drinking – switched to water but even this was a problem especially if I pushed HR up. Fortunately at altitude it was cool (cold).

Thunder in the hills and lightening but we miraculously moved in between the hail and rain (the Hoosiers 30 mins ahead don’t!) Temperature drops to just above freezing as we ride above the snow line. Karl closes out the climb and we hand off for our rest (planned to be a long recovery rest)

Evening, still can’t eat or drink – fall into my bunk and wonder what I have got myself into.

Managed a snack in the morning but main sustenance was Pepto Bismal and coke. A solution deployed travelling in Africa 15 years ago and working here too. Hydrating on water and switching to PSP (energy drink) not Go (electrolyte) Managed a sandwich later in the ride (happy days) but still not really eating well. Noticeably losing weight already

Riding across Kansas –flat (slightly downhill) hot and fast – Karl suggests dropping to 20 minute (6 mile rotations) rather than 10 mile c.30 min rotations. A good plan that keeps us out the sun and helps mitigate the effect of heat and boredom. Impressive as the mid west is for being big (you can see the curvature of the earth!) There is not much to look at....

Until the crop sprayers arrive in town for a hugely impressive aerobatics display – flying under the phone lines and skimming across the tops of the crops. A really impressive display that put the red bull acrobatics team into perspective – these pilots were just doing their job!

End of the session and the temperatures are up into the mid 90s. Taken round to the local pool for ‘active recovery’. I have a back spasm – can’t quite walk although it seems OK on the bike. Completely abstract pool experience when Gill and Dad turned up followed by Steve Redgrave.

Local press turned up impressed with the bus. We mentioned there was a man in the pool with 5 Olympic gold medals - I suspect this was the biggest news story they had had for a while. We had to lend him paper, a pen and write down the details – bless!

Discovered the therapeutic effect of scrambled egg on toast – nice to eat something

Would have been a great session but for a navigation issue that cost 20 minutes at a relocated time station (my error).


Day 3? (by now I have lost track of time and have no idea what day it is!)

Bus and team lost in Missouri. Eventually managed to get into the same place at the same time. Karl and I off for a night session

The remarkable things is the sounds of the frogs, toads and crickets chirping away. As you wait in transition the fireflys flit along the verges –it is very silent, very dark and very peaceful. There 2 minute postcards are the only time in the race you have to reflect, savour the atmosphere and observe the scenery. It is still a privileged to have the opportunity to collect these moments across the US

A long night – back still an issue and that caused problems with rhythm and pacing making the riding uncomfortable and unpleasant. Felt rubbish into TS31. The mitigation was dawn – mist sitting over the fields like candy floss, the dawn chorus and the sun rising slowly into our faces. Only fleeting but truly astounding – then hot!

New session
Legs tired at the start – Mosquitoes everywhere so transitions unpleasant . Then after Washington we start the climbs. Short sharp rollers. A huge relief after the endless flat stuff I hate.

Overtook Amy Xu – the female solo leader on one of the climbs – she looked in pain. Then caught and passed the Hoosiers (trying to set the record for the over 60s).

Climbs are steep, descents are fast. Came close to being taken out by a deer but finished the night feeling good. Back easing a little after repeated treatment by Andrew (the onboard Masseur, Osteopath, Dietician and general hero)

New Day

Stuck in traffic for 90 minutes as a heavy lead negotiates a bridge. Nice chat with the German soloist, the Hoosiers and the Spanish soloist. The Spanish support team take photos of the Rapha kit – nice kit! No time allowance is given even though we are sat next to a race official.

Then a race over the Iowa rollers with the Hoosiers – they run a completely different race strategy but it seems effective, changing teams every time station. I suspect they never sleep.

Absolutely nothing else memorable from the day except – I am eating and drinking again

The plan is for Karl and I to ride ‘long’ through the day to give Paul and Dan recovery time – so far they have had the worst of the daytime weather. Decision taken during the day to rotate the pairs (putting the climbers together for the Appalachians). Karl gets the short straw of an extended session riding nearly 12 hours through the day

New session

Riding with Dan into the Appalachians. It’s “hammer time”! absolutely no point getting to the end of the race feeling fresh so time to kick-on in the hills. We are back switching position with the Hoosiers which adds to the competitive edge and helps push harder. Then it gets steep and the hills bigger and Dan and I kick on. Small navigation error lets the Hoosiers back into the lead – Dan’s language on the radio is blue.

This session was the most fun to date on the ride – it was hot and humid but the hills allow for a change in rider position and the up and down becomes much more like riding at home. It was meant to be the second hardest stage of the race and I rode it at over 18mph – Dan would have been faster.

We were on a 4 hour rotation so pulled off the road to rest before attacking the hardest stage in terms of climb and climbing intensity in the RAAM later in the evening.

New session


Night – start a little nervously and not feeling too comfortable. Back has eased but both knees now a little sore and my right glut and hip flexor have seized. Andrew works his magic by sticking his elbow into the muscle and putting 14 stone of pressure through it. It works but it is really painful at the time.

We go into the first TS stage 11 minutes behind team 405 (Hoosiers have been dropped) and catch them by the end of the stage. Then it’s the big one! We hit the bottom of the first big climb and Glyn puts London Calling by the Clash onto the PA. We attack through a series of steep long climbs and very fast descents. Dropping down at 45mph plus relying entirely on the lights of the follow vehicle – you can’t see the road as you round the corners or crest the hills – brilliant fun if a little dangerous. This is where Steve Redgrave crashed out.

End of the second Time station stage and we have taken 14 further minutes out of team 405. 25 minutes is a massive margin in this kind of racing (over 10 miles) and sets us up for the run to the finish.

Final session


Dan and I ride through and off (both riders on the road at the same time) sharing the load for the first 10 miles Dan then takes on the bulk of the work. It is all I can do to stay on his wheel. Pace is relentless, and probably pointless, but we are determined not to be caught by 405. At this pace you can’t stop because you can’t get going again. The lactic builds up and takes 5 minutes to clear so one you have stopped you are out of the stage. Hanging on and helping on the few occasions Dan needed it was the only option.

With 10 miles to go we are joined by Paul and Karl, pace slows and we spin in. 3000 miles completed in 6 days 15 hours and 7 minutes. The timed finish is a petrol station on the edge of Annapolis, and then it is an escorted trip into Annapolis harbour for the official finish, photos, interviews and then off for a coffee.

So that was it. 3000 miles completed in 6 days 15 hours and 7 minutes. We won the club competition (first club team home), were 3rd in the 4 man open category (on standard bikes) and 4th including recumbent teams.


Final thoughts on communications

Before the start I had imagined we would have loads of time to update Facebook, Twitter and blogs. The reality was different. The main reason was the physical impact of the race. Broadly speaking we were on a 8 hour rotation so each day was ‘shortened’ to 16 hours. In the car we rotated every 20-25 minutes when ‘resting’ the focus was on getting fluid and food on board and getting sorted for the next session. In the coach the routine was to get recover drink, wash / shower, massage, eat, sleep. In theory there was time to do something, in reality after day 1 that something was sleep.

The second problem was the data roaming agreements with O2. For much of the US they don’t exist so using my own phone for FB and Twitter wasn’t an option (this was a surprise). The priority for the other phones was vehicle to vehicle comms so these couldn’t be used either.

I had hoped to to better but there you go. Lesson learnt for the next adventure!