TCR no 7

The fatigue has just about faded from the race across Europe, if my hands were working properly and not typing so slowly with the incessant fizzing of pins and needles, I could be fooled that it was months ago. The scenery has already blurred seamlessly into one endless road. Life has carried on as per usual though with my motivation for lycra clad miles long since replaced with a hunger for koftas and a thirst for hops. The mind however is somehow still whirring a little, still slightly caught up in the race. The imagery and the emotions from two weeks on the road come and go at will. That prolonged feeling of intense activity, 13 days of sleep deprived, adrenaline fuelled pedaling took me to a new place both physically and mentally and has left me with an unsettling feeling of restlessness. People talk of the deafening silence after extreme experiences and I have spent many a dazed moment struggling to articulate some of those feelings rippling in the background. I’ll start here before the frame of reference ebbs away in millennial distractions and comforts and before the scattered memories of raw adventure fade into Friday night anecdotes.

I wondered how best to structure this text, chronologically makes sense yet a day to day account seems too pragmatic for how the race unfolded. In any case there are too many miles that passed by hunched in the bars with little other than an embarrassing playlist to document that it might be quite a dull account. Instead I’ll ramble with a loose timeline so forgive any lack of contextual bridges or large geographical leaps in the narrative.

I’ve also written previously about pre-race thoughts so I’ll jump straight into the evening of the first day and to the first stand out moment, already the first niggles of doubt and fear for the test ahead. The temperature in the day had been enough to make me very sick and leave me hugging the shade, sprawled out tending to a set of legs that were cramping uncontrollably. That was that. First day and not even 300km into a 4000km race and I was empty, fearing movement for the pounding in my head and all out of energy after hurling the last of the trail mix calories in dramatic fashion all over the handlebars. As a side note, projectile vomiting at speed whilst clipped into pedals is a very tricky little bit of bike handling. I would not recommend it but am nonetheless rather proud of the class and panache I imbued handling that last hairpin spraying the contents of my stomach at over 40km/h.

As evening fell I pushed the bike weakly into CP1, collected the first stamp and set off into the dusk in search of food, shelter and a place to recompose myself. On the silver lining kind of side, heatstroke was quite a familiar feeling, holding the wheels for too long throughout a few blistering Shanghai summers often had resulted in the scenes I was experiencing and I knew enough about how my body responded to know I had to act fast. I found a restaurant and quickly ordered the range of food from what I knew I could eat to what I should eat. Unfortunately, I was only a few mouthfuls in when a further wave of nausea hit and I was hurriedly clip clopping through a surprised looking dinner party in search of sweet relief. That wave was thankfully the last, I managed a bean stew and picked at some frites before heading off the hill. By now darkness had fallen and over the next twenty minutes of steady descending the feelings began to return. The road was quiet and no clouds obscured the ceiling of constellations overhead, I pedalled through the valley for as long as I dared and soon began to see the headtorches of other riders snuggling into nearby hedgerows and decided it was time to do the same. I unfolded my bivvy in a small crop clearing and zipped the mosquito mesh over so I could see the stars. A few fields over, a Balkan band was whipping up a crowd with traditional beats and accordion riffs. I was grinning. This was going to be mad.

I woke to the sound of dry chains spinning by. It was still dark, maybe 4am but many riders were already at it. I packed up the bike rather haphazardly and set off. Smooth asphalt quickly deteriorated into farm track, then worse. Long shadows cast from my front beam distorted small pebbles into sharp boulders and picking my way through the illegible scree took hours. I hadn’t packed breakfast and yesterdays empty stomach coupled with the incessant barking from disturbed guard dogs was doing wonders for my frame of mind. Eventually the lights of a village loomed closer and just by the side of the road, with little other than a collection of houses nearby a vending machine dimly glowed, the flickering phosphorescence offering slim hope of caffeinated relief. I fumbled for coins spread out over at least 5 pockets and helped myself to as many espressos as I could afford. That and the rabid dog sprint out of town sparked me into life and I kicked through the sunrise till I found a market open. I folded a large block of feta cheese into a fairly stale flat bread twice the size of my face and washed it down with a litre of milk.

The rest of that day was spent eating similarly obscene portions. My mind had switched from race mentality to pure survival mode. Yesterdays efforts had left me very weak, the training app I used showed I’d expended an excess of 11,000 calories and whether accurate or not I had only successfully digested around 2,000. If I was to make it to France, I had to get some serious meals on board. I ate around 6 big meals that day, forcing it down was slow going, eating a large carbonara with bolognaise chaser and a side of 12 inch margarita is nasty business in 35-degree heat, enough to warrant a sincere apology to the two ladies that tended the table with curiosity and concern.

The next few days followed a similar pattern, miles ticked by as the body began to calibrate to the task at hand. I stopped less but more regularly and pedalling fell into a comfortable cadence as I found a sustainable rhythm. I started to trust my inner mechanisms more and more, I would crave certain foods when I needed them and often awoke a few minutes before my alarm. It was a funny feeling, as if slipping into autopilot or being tuned by the demands of the race without realising. After 4 or 5 days of it I felt that sharpness that only comes when such an objective takes over. Every decision was made in relation to fulfilling the ambition of finishing and the focus it required obscured every other worry or subconscious stress that might have been there. I was alive, firmly in the present and scenery and countries were passing by with little to no thought.

I’ve thought much about this sensation back in ‘real’ life, and having grown up with bookshelves full of the likes of Joe Simpson and Jon Krakauer I’ve wrestled with the idea that having a goal such as an unclimbed mountain or in my small way the TCR was a path to some sense of freedom, unburdened from the expectations and strains of daily routines. Whatever the feeling is it is an addictive one, un-apologetically narcissistic, perhaps even dangerous. I lack the words to articulate it without falling into the trappings of travel blog cliche.

The fourth, or was it the fifth day was one such day. I was in the ‘zone’, pedalling had been as smooth as the road surface I was on and the playlist was channelling all the right chemicals. The five family sized bags of cola bottles I’d eaten that day coupled with a breezy tailwind had me going well into the night. My eye lids failed on me at about 3am but after a bold bivvy at the Croat border truck park I was still on it the next morning. At about 5.30 am I stopped in a town to withdraw some new currency, I hadn’t seen anyone for the past 12 hours or so, the landscape hadn’t changed aside from a few telegraph poles and electricity pylons that punctuated the endless arable plains of northern Serbia. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a sudden movement and as I turned to see, a hand reached out. My heart rate spiked, I jumped back and pushed off failing to clip into the pedals but managing to get some distance between me and the assailant. After a minute or so of panicked pedalling I snatched a glance round. I didn’t know what was going on but suddenly the mask of the race slipped and I became very aware that I had no real idea of where I was and how far away I was from anyone. In that instance my only thought was that this was a perfect murder scene with not a soul around to hear my screams. When I finally dared to look properly behind, I saw the silhouette of a man barefooted in the road, hands outstretched illuminated by the umber glow of a street lamp. There was a large beige blanket wrapped over his head and shoulders concealing hollow eyes and a tangled beard. The scene is still crystal clear. I pedalled on for a little while processing what had just happened but it didn’t take me long to start piecing it together, the guy was begging. I carried on a little while further, thoughts churning away until I wheeled round and headed back down the road. There I was, expensive bib shorts full of currency I didn’t even know the value of legging it from the first guy I’d seen in a day. The situation was absurd and the headline images of refugees queuing at that very border flashed across my mind. The guy had probably fled war to be there and there I was lamenting my own self-induced suffering crossing the continent just for something to do. I emptied my pockets to the guy but truth be told I have no idea if I’d just added an extra 5km to my journey to give him 20 pence. I hope it was more. I set off into the sunrise with so many thoughts swimming in my mind. I’d had about 6 hours sleep in the past 48 and my composure unravelled quickly. The contrast between my journey and his was ludicrous and I was kicking myself for reacting the way I did, fearing the worst and riding away when the guy was clearly in such a desperate situation. Thoughts irrationally spiralled from there to global politics hilariously quickly like some stoned gap year conversation and I cried all the way to the first petrol station stop, only getting a grip on my emotions after the fourth Kit-Kat chunky.

I kept returning to that scene over the next few days, putting my own hardships within that frame of reference certainly helped see the adventure and enjoyment in some difficult times. Probably for the best really as I took a battering over the next few days as thunderstorms, headwinds and alpine passes became daily fare.

By the time the 4th checkpoint came along I was feeling strong, having overcome some of the worst weather I’ve experienced on a bike and having completed some serious miles through the pau valley at an average speed I was proud of I had gained around 80 places in the standings since CP1. I was beginning to think the finish was in reach. Just the small matter of Mont Cenis, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier and Alpe d’Huez to overcome then a quick clip through France and I’d be smugly pocketing a completed brevet with cold beer in hand. Of course, it wasn’t so straightforward a snapped gear cable at the base of the Galibier saw me zip tying the rear mech up and tackling the climb as darkness fell. The Galibier had been one of those stretches of road I’d been really looking forward to. The number of cyclists whose careers have been defined by such a road has made this climb the stuff of legend, it was first used in the Tour de France in 1911 when the high peaks of the alps were seen as mysterious and remote even to the French, that year only three riders reached the 2634m summit without walking which put my own gearing concerns into some perspective. After the disappointment and panic of breaking a vital element of the bike and the time it would cost me subsided, the climb up the galibier was something special. The stars were out, framed on all horizons by the jagged outline of the mountains. My light source was connected to the front wheel dynamo which was now turning agonisingly slowly and all other power sources had been blown up by biscuit dust and rain. The moon was pretty much all that was guiding me, bathing the road in its dim milky glow and reflecting off retreating glaciers and their trails of compacted ice nearby. Occasionally the front light flickered, illuminating the names of famous French riders chalked in capitals all over the asphalt switchbacks and limestone outcrops. I imagined what it would be like to race these mountains, hemmed in by screaming fans both sides whilst dancing on that thin red line of maximum effort. The night was perfectly still, the road was completely my own, a pure moment of solitude and peace in the race that brought tears to my eyes and will forever stay with me.

After that last duel with the alps France passed by with little incident. Some big days of climbing had made the rolling wheat fields of the Loire seem like child’s play. The issue I was having was the route I’d chosen was very rural, opting for country B-roads and avoiding large towns meant finding food was surprisingly difficult. I was at the mercy of village life opening hours, small épiceries and GCSE vocabulary which resulted in a diet of a lot of pain (French for bread). Despite this and the unforgiving headwind that frayed the legs every afternoon I was making good progress. Thoughts of the finish line, family and fiancé were becoming less and less easy to control and the kilometre countdown had not long begun before it took over completely. At this stage I had gone all in, ideas of sustaining myself to last the distance had been replaced with how fast I could get there and I had given up on all protocols of self-preservation. I was pretty much purely eating sugar by now, no complex chains of carbohydrates or useful amino acids to speak of, just main-lining the glucose, and a lot of it. A disgusting amount. My teeth felt like they were dropping out, I had fizzy cola bottle ulcers and I was filling my 3l water container with lemonade every 3 hours. It was working though, I felt fast considering my knees had just gone through a rapid aging process and with finish line fever consuming me I definitely didn’t feel like sleeping.

With 600kms to go and after a rather memorable night in a small village tennis club (a story for another time) I decided to go for broke and do the last session in a one-r. Thinking back now to that last day on the road I honestly can’t remember very much detail at all, there was no stand-out towns to speak of and the pale yellow hay-bale scenery was the same as it had been for the past 800kms. I do remember listening to ‘What’s the story morning glory’ an ungodly amount of times though I can’t say I’m any more the wiser as to the lyrics of champagne-supernova. I do also remember when things took a turn for the worse in the early hours of the morning, its weirdly haunted me since. That night it rained a lot, one last middle finger from the race just as I’d started to dream about sitting in a chair that wasn’t 4 inches in width with a non-Haribo based meal. At about 4am my Oasis induced sugar trance was broken by a rear wheel puncture. I repaired it fairly swiftly but heard it go again a short time later. I stopped again and eventually found the shard of glass that had caused it. The second time it took me much longer to fix, my hands had pretty much failed on me after 12 days of bashing them on the bars and I fumbled frustratingly in the cold rain to get the tyre back onto the rim. Stopping for so long had slowed the heart rate significantly and the break in concentration suddenly made me aware I was incredibly tired. In my delirious state I’d put the old inner tube back on the wheel and couldn’t work out why it was not pumping up, after trying to fix a pump that wasn’t broken and patch up a wet tube in the rain using various ad-hoc techniques I finally realised that I’d not in fact used all my tubes and had a spare packed away at the bottom of the bags. The road-side shenanigans seemed to last hours and by the time I got moving again I was shivering from the cold and could barely keep my eyes open. I was less than 150km away from the finish by now and determined to keep going, stopping now would just make me colder and those healing rays of sunrise were surely only a few hours away.

The next 3 hours were bizarre, I fell asleep whilst pedaling a number of occasions before finally crashing into a kerb and going over the handlebars. I was screaming into the wind and hitting my helmet hard to keep me awake. I’d read a fair amount about sleep deprivation before the race and knew the risks, I’d even started training and adapting a little bit for it before realising I worked for a small architectural practice and not the SAS. In those hours of extreme tiredness, I hallucinated a lot, it felt like I was having the most vivid dreams only I was still awake. In honesty I couldn’t even be certain that I wasn’t sleep pedaling for minutes at a time and when I did feel awake, I was in a kind of repetitive Deja-vu loop that lasted till dawn. Eventually darkness gave way to some cloudy resemblance of daytime and at some critical level of daylight it was as if someone had flicked a switch and I felt suddenly awake. I didn’t know how long I had pedaled in that state, time was somehow distorted in the rain-soaked haze and there were no recognisable landmarks to pin any distance on. I had gone through the night and it had been without a doubt the hardest test of the ride. In hindsight it was perhaps unnecessary, I could have finished a few hours later and safer, it was probably the difference between 32nd and 35th but somehow, I felt like I owed the TCR that effort and in doing so understood the race just that little bit more. I know I’ll draw on this night when I test these boundaries at some stage again.

In the daylight and after a warm coffee, 70 kilometres were all that separated me from the finish line in Brest. Although headwinds put an end to what I had thought would be a mere victory lap my mind was buzzing with the fact that this was it, the end of the journey. The last night had left me a little shell shocked as I pulled into the finish, my knees were bleeding from having woken up barrel-rolling down a pavement and the puncture debacle had me looking like I’d done a shift in the mines. The organisers always say that the finish is as unassuming as the race, but Kelsy was there as were my parents and previous finishers and dot-watchers had turned out who understood what the past few weeks had demanded, the winner Fiona was also there to congratulate which was a very classy touch. I didn’t need anything else. It was perfect. My Dad gripped me firmly, I’d not seen him for over 3 months. He’d been away exploring his own boundaries, sea kayaking from Land’s End to John O’Groats through some serious stretches of open water and tidal races. I knew from his grip that he understood the feelings I’ve struggled to articulate; adventure has been his lifelong pursuit. It was too much for the two of us emotionally stunted northerners and we wept with pride and joy.

‘You’ve peered over the edge; you might have to realise that life may never be quite the same’ were my Dad’s words to me when he finally regathered his hard mountain man persona. Those words have stuck with me these past few weeks, not least for the Yoda to Luke style they were delivered but because I think there’s something big there. I’ll bow to that wisdom and leave it there.