It Seemed Like a Good Idea: Riding My Own Gravel Ultra

I designed The Wrecker as a 740-kilometre gravel route from Land’s End to London. Then I decided to ride it myself, in one hit, alongside the people who had been daft enough to enter.

The Wrecker began as a slightly silly idea. Draw a line from Land’s End to London, stitch together as much interesting riding as possible, give everyone a tracker and see what happens.

I had ridden the route before, but only in three separate recce trips. Riding all 740 kilometres in one go was another matter entirely. I was genuinely daunted by the prospect.

There also aren’t many events where the organiser sets everyone off, deals with the inevitable last-minute admin and then gets on his bike and chases after them. I left Land’s End about an hour behind the main group. For the first few kilometres I was still thinking like the organiser. Had every tracker started? Had everyone got away safely? What had I forgotten? Oh gad, what if...

Then I began catching people and became a rider.

From organiser to rider

That was one of the unexpected joys of the whole event. I knew the names on the entry list and had briefly met everyone at sign-on. Now I was finding them one by one among the Cornish lanes, mining tracks and bits of landscape that appeared to have been tipped up at an inconvenient angle.

There was Ruud, an Austrian schoolmaster who had attached The Wrecker to the end of a seemingly endless pan-European, or possibly pan-Celtic, bicycle journey. He wasn’t sure he would finish, but seemed perfectly happy to be there.

Lisa was riding her first ultra and was understandably nervous. Her normal riding involved a road bike with everything stuffed into her pockets. Suddenly she had bags, spare clothes, hotel bookings and 740 kilometres of Britain ahead of her.

She fell off five times on the first day, got lost, lost some of her belongings, found some of them again and ended the day wondering whether she was cut out for this. She kept going magnificently, resolving a seemingly endless series of problems en route.

Then there was Max, who made possibly the most sophisticated entrance ever achieved by a Frenchman at a gravel ultra. He rode across Brittany and then persuaded a friend with a yacht to sail him to Cornwall. Now that’s class. Bloody strong rider too. He absolutely nailed it.

Cornwall, coffee and future me

That first day through Cornwall was hard but great riding. The Tin Man Trail was rather tricky in places and obviously not the most popular route, as it disappeared into the heather with unnerving frequency.

The weather behaved, the old tin-mining country looked magnificent and I made a minor, completely justifiable detour to my sister’s Sunset Café for a sneaky Cornish pasty.

There was the King Harry Ferry, woodland trails and the gradual realisation that I was having a pretty good day. I surprised myself by riding about 180 kilometres before deciding to stop just short of Bodmin.

On an ultra, you are constantly negotiating with your future self.

I could have gone farther, but this is where ultras become something more than simply riding a bicycle for a very long time.

If I continue, where will I sleep? Is there food ahead? Where can I refill my bottles? If I pass Bodmin tonight, will I find coffee tomorrow morning, or condemn myself to miles of miserable fasting?

Stopping where I did gave me a chance of breakfast. This felt like excellent strategic thinking.

I found a quiet spot in a nature reserve opposite a tor and put up my new tent. It took rather longer than it should have. Note to self: try these things before setting off across the country.

The tent worked, though. A full moon lit the tor and, for a brief moment, sleeping in a field seemed like an extremely sophisticated life choice.

Into Exmoor

The second day brought another 180 kilometres and rather less agreeable weather in the evening. I crossed paths with Helen, a vastly experienced rider who appears to have done everything. We discussed the route, possible improvements and the various ways Cornwall could be made marginally more unreasonable, but definitely more exciting.

Then came the enormous climb near Bude. The geology is spectacular. Unfortunately, you have to climb directly over it. Parts are around 30 per cent. I rode it, although I’m not suggesting it was elegant.

The Tarka Trail offered tunnels, old railway infrastructure and all the things boys are supposed to like. I met my great friend and fellow club rider Dax in Instow for a pint and briefly imagined we might ride onwards together. He wasn’t wearing Lycra or carrying lights, so that clearly wasn’t happening.

Ahead lay Exmoor and a thoroughly unpleasant forecast.

The opening miles out of Barnstaple were tough. It was wet, grey, windy and exposed. My Tesco dinner had also failed to survive being bounced down a technical descent at 15 miles an hour. Rather than leave half of it scattered across Devon, I decided an early dinner was better than going hungry later.

This is what makes these off-road audaxes different. Plans, including mealtimes, remain highly provisional.

Darkness changes the clock on these rides. You start living by daylight rather than conventional hours. Stopping when it gets dark and waking at five begins to feel perfectly normal.

Some riders stretched their days much farther at both ends, but riding rough Exmoor trails while exhausted and unable to see seemed an excellent way to derail my cyclocross season by hitting a root and going over the bars.

Exmoor itself was remote, beautiful and challenging. Paths disappeared into grass, mist and bog, plunging down steep gullies only to climb the hills again in seemingly impossible ways.

It forms part of one of Britain’s least light-polluted landscapes, where stars aplenty can apparently be seen. Naturally, the cloud was so low that I couldn’t see any sky at all, let alone stars.

I wasn’t alone in finding it slow. The WhatsApp group filled with messages from riders sheltering in barns, diverting to hotels and reconsidering their life choices. One managed 25 kilometres in four hours. Another reported 50 kilometres in eight hours with the words, “What a vibe.”

Somebody crossed shouting, “I AM STRONG, I CAN FUCKING DO THIS,” believing nobody was around. A man on a motorised monowheel heard the whole thing.

A trail you could actually see

The Quantocks, by comparison, were an utter delight. There was a trail. You could see it. You could even ride quite quickly along it. I encountered a small herd of longhorn cattle filling the path. Beautiful animals, albeit with some pretty substantial curly horns. Thankfully, they moved peacefully aside.

I caught up with Will later, who told me he had found a friendly farmer to move them.

Quantocks 1, Exmoor 0.

Will and I discussed our plans near Burnham. I was knackered. Those had been about the toughest 100 kilometres I had ever ridden, so I stopped in a pub exchanging a few more hours in the saddle for a shower, a warm, dry bed and a proper night’s sleep. He was keen to get as many miles under his belt as possible, kip briefly and complete the rest of the ride, close to 300 kilometres, in a single push.

I must admit the idea of getting home the following day was attractive. 

I learned later that Will had carried on long after dusk, kipped on the Mendips and then finished as planned on Sunday with a phenomenal final ride of roughly 260 kilometres, arriving at Herne Hill at about three in the morning. His message to the group was concise: “I’m in so much pain.”

I felt remarkably refreshed after my deeply heroic night in a proper bed. The Mendips were glorious. There was a brutal climb, an irritating descent immediately afterwards, a lovely railway path and then another climb back onto the hills. The sun came out and everything became quite jolly.

The plan keeps changing

My plan changed repeatedly. Perhaps I could ride through the night. Perhaps I could finish tomorrow. Perhaps, with enough pasta, I could do almost anything.

For future reference, Marks & Spencer does excellent pasta bowls.

The Kennet and Avon Canal provided some recovery. There were too many people to ride quickly, but that was probably beneficial, forcing me to ease off before the next stage and further convincing me that, if I could ride The 360, I could ride through the night and be home for breakfast.

It was 4pm and only another 180 kilometres to go. What could possibly go wrong?

Then came the Ridgeway, the final real lump on the Wahoo gradient chart. Leaving Devizes in the early afternoon, there seemed to be plenty of time to get over it, go Neolithic at Avebury and reach the flatter ground of the Thames Valley and perhaps even catch that Will fellow on the line?

Alas, my mental landmarks stubbornly failed to fall at the required rate. While the riding was benign compared with Exmoor, it was still challenging. A hill is still a hill, and tired legs make every climb feel longer, harder and, somehow, more technical.

I had already ridden nearly 200 kilometres that day, crossing the Mendips and coming to within ten kilometres of the end of the Ridgeway section, but I still had another 115 kilometres remaining. That was at least another six hours.

As the drizzle set in, I passed an inviting place to stay and my brain switched almost instantly from, “Yes, we’re riding through,” to, “No, let’s not be ridiculous.”

It was the right decision.

Only 114 kilometres

That left 114 kilometres for the final morning. Saying “only 114 kilometres” sounds glib because, under normal circumstances, that is a long ride. After nearly 200 the previous day, with a mostly flat route home, it felt like dancing on sand.

The Thames was absurdly beautiful in the early light. Reading Festival was chucking out, leaving the route filled with bleary-eyed young people dragging, and frequently abandoning, tents, sleeping bags and other possessions. They were quite a contrast to the equally knackered but surprisingly purposeful riders coming the other way from Land’s End.

Across to Maidenhead, past Eton and through wonderfully scruffy Colnbrook, the finish was suddenly just around the corner.

The Grand Union Canal gradually became smarter, busier and more recognisably London. Once I reached Brentford and the Thames, I knew I was home.

The joy of arriving at work has never been so delicious. There were no track sessions on Bank Holiday Monday, so I took the chance for a sneaky Paris-Roubaix style victory lap. Pete caught the grin on camera as I crossed the line, four and a half days after setting off from the other end of England.

Everyone created their own Wrecker

I was stoked to finish and to have finished, relatively speaking, so strongly. But the best part wasn’t proving that I could cover the distance.

It was watching everyone create their own Wrecker.

Andrew Broadway won by a country mile, setting the first fastest time and then waking up because his legs hurt too much to sleep.

Riders broke phones, computers, brakes and luggage racks. Jackets were lost and recovered farther along the route. Two riders reported being hit by bats on the London towpaths.

“I loved it all, and only hated some of it.”

Lisa eventually reached London in five days. She had deviated from the official route and knew she wouldn’t appear as an official finisher, but she had still ridden all the way from Cornwall.

The sight of deer in Richmond Park at sunset made her emotional. It made others in the group emotional too.

That is what I hadn’t fully appreciated when I drew the route.

The riders were often physically alone, sometimes for hours, but the trackers, WhatsApp messages and brief encounters created a strange, fleeting community. People passed each other, separated, met again, shared plans, changed those plans and encouraged riders they had barely known a few days earlier.