Back to the drawing board
I write this fresh from scratching out of the North & South Downs Escapade. In fact right now, at the time of writing, there are still riders out on the course battling everything that the Downs has to throw at them. I tip my hat to you all!
But here’s what happened…
At 17:00 on a lovely Thursday afternoon, 40 riders, including myself, lined up at the start of the North & South Downs Escapade, which is a 300 mile (mainly off-road) route with 8000 metres of climbing starting near Canterbury that takes in the Norths Downs Way and South Down Way before finishing back in Canterbury.
I had completed the route back in 2020 when it was first run and after two years it seems I had forgotten enough of the torture that was about to unfold to be back on the start line. 2020 was my first ever ultra-distance race in which I made plenty of mistakes. Between then and now I have steadily been doing more long distance rides so I lined up at the start hopeful that in 2022 the race was going to be better this time.
This time, my bike was around 7 kilograms lighter mainly due to the overpacking I did back in 2020 but also due to refinements to my setup. Knowing that I would still need to sleep out I had sleeping gear but ditched all the camping equipment I took last time which weighed me down and didn’t really get used.
I also opted to add some aero bars to help combat any nerve damage caused by the pounding the hands take on a route like this. On any of the smooth roads they offered perfect relief.
We were set off by Kevin at 17:00 in perfect conditions — sunny and dry. I started riding amongst the same few riders, some on mountain bikes and others, like me, on a gravel bike. On the road sections I was able to press on at a comfortable pace and catch up to the riders who then pulled away from me over the rougher terrain where I couldn’t go so fast.
The North Downs does not top out very high. At best it gets as high as 250 metres in places but due to the nature of the byways and bridle paths that the route takes it was not long before my first hike-a-bike was needed. My gearing for this race was 1x 36t 11/46 which was much better than back in 2020 when I rode it with 1x 38t 11x42. However, even with the easier set up the punchy inclines were still too much for me. I’m sure most other riders will agree — pushing a loaded bike up a 15–20% incline is much harder than it sounds but without suitable gears that’s the only option. It makes for sweaty work!
At around 21:45 I was crossing the Medway river making good progress. By now the field had spread out and I was into my own rhythm having settled down from the adrenaline-fuelled starting pace. Darkness had taken over from the blue skies and the temperature was dropping.
My plan this time was to cycle through the night to checkpoint 1 at the 100 mile mark. Back in 2020 I had stopped for a few hours of sleep midway to checkpoint 1, but having done some other night time rides I was confident that I could make it this time without problems.
I arrived at checkpoint 1 at 03:16, some six hours faster than last time and the ninth rider through. With some of that time gain due to not stopping for sleep I was still around three hours faster on moving time than last time. A lot of that is due to my coach Tim Ramsden from Black Cat Cycling Coaching who has helped me up my pace no end.
By this point I had been riding for 10 hours with just over one hour of stop time for food and resupplies. There is no doubt that due to the lack of sleep and the overall effort involved that I was slowing down. On other ultra-distance rides my main problem has been suffering from nausea. It seems to be my Achilles’ heel. I’ve tried a few different tactics to combat this which I believe is caused by a combination of dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.
So far, I’ve found that having alerts set up on my bike computer to remind me to drink, eat and take salt tablets at regular intervals has worked well. Every twenty minutes for water, every thirty minutes for food and every hour for salt tablets.
At checkpoint 1, I refilled my water bladder and bottles so I was pretty sure that in the first 100 miles I had drunk around 3 to 3.5 litres of water. However, coming through the checkpoint I could tell I was starting to not want to eat as much as I should.
Directly after leaving checkpoint 1 there is a stinker of a climb up to Ranmore Common. By now this was my nth hike-a-bike which in itself took me ten minutes to push up, but the sky was getting brighter and the dawn chorus was under way. I was hoping that with daylight returning that I would be refreshed for what was about to come.
At around 04:45 in the morning I decided to take a break and get 30 minutes of sleep — some 12 hours after the start of the race. With a suitable park bench presenting itself in Shere woods I tucked into my sleeping bag wearing everything I had with me. The overnight temperatures had dropped to around 9℃ so it was still a bit fresh. Before bedding down I drank more water and tried to get some food inside me in the hope that it would settle my stomach while I was resting. Thirty minutes went by in a blink so I reset the alarm for another twenty minutes. Not long after I heard a vehicle stop nearby in the car park I was in. I thought it might be an early morning dog walker but it turned out to be the police! They had seen me dead still sleeping on the park bench and stopped to see if I was okay. I thought it best not to explain in detail why I was there other than to say that I had been riding through the night and would be off in a few minutes. They left me to it and shortly afterwards I too was on my way again.
Unfortunately, the short break had not helped on the nausea front. My legs felt good, my stomach not so much. I continued on having still not been able to eat anything of note. Knowing from my 2020 ride what was coming along the route, my mind started to think of random excuses to scratch from the race without blaming what was really the problem. Back in 2020 I managed to get midway across the South Downs before sickness descended. This time it seemed to hit much sooner.
I’ve not yet worked out a way to recover from nausea while continuing with the ride. No doubt a lot of rest and time helps to reset the body but when the clock is always ticking on an event like this it’s difficult to do.
Sadly, at 06:00 I sent Kevin a message to say that I had scratched from the race. With 280 miles still to cover I just couldn’t find the mental strenght to ‘power through’ this time. Having made the decision to scratch I headed for Guildford train station to make my way home. That was my race over.
It’s back to the drawing board on the nausea front. I know that this is a common problem for anyone in an ultra-distance event and that we all have our own ways of dealing with it. It seems there is no magic bullet to fix this but I’ll have fun trying in my next event which will take me from London to Edinburgh and back to London again in August.
The positives this time are that I was significantly faster to checkpoint 1 and even though I scratched there is a little more in the experience bank to call upon next time. It all helps.
Thanks go to Kevin Francis for putting on the Escapade. It was a joy to meet all the riders at the start and to spend some time riding with them. Like me, others may have had their ride play out differently but everyone that turned up to the start line is a superstar. A stand out performance was by Ollie Beresford who blasted around the 300 mile route in just over 26 hours — amazing!
Ride stats
Distance: 118 miles completed
Elapsed time: 13hr 27 min
Elevation: 3000 m
