Chase the Sun 2019

I might be a mountain biker at heart, but I just enjoy riding bikes, and as people who know me will confirm, I also really like a challenge. So there was only ever going to be one conclusion when last year a friend of mine mentioned “Chase the Sun”.

On Saturday in a stuffy Maidstone Travel Lodge room I was woken at 3am by my alarm. Chris had enlisted another friend, Nigel and the three of us lined up with 750 other starters at sunrise on the sea front in Minster on the Isle of Sheppey. We would be attempting to ride 205 miles, coast to coast across the country to Burnham-on-sea in Somerset before the sun set in 16hrs and 38 minutes time. The day of the ride is selected as the Saturday closest to the summer solstice in order to maximize the daylight available.

On my side there hadn’t been a lot of specific training beyond what I normally do. For the previous 2 months I’d increased the length of my usual Sunday mountain bike rides. Pushing the time in the saddle out to 5 or 6 hours on a couple of occasions. Meanwhile I’d been checking Nigel’s Strava and he had twice clocked up 200 miles in training and Chris had accompanied him to mile 140. So although I was feeling fit I was definitely concerned how this would transfer to the road. I’d settled my nerves considerably after a 6 hour 100 miler on the road bike with Nigel 3 weeks before the event. That day I’d finished strongly which boosted my confidence ahead of the big day.  

As we rolled out of Minster, the rising sun peeping above the sea over our shoulders, we remembered we’d forgotten to text the start code to the organisers! Chase the Sun is a free event to enter with minimal support. However, you do need to check in at the start, end and half way to ‘officially’ be classified. Once we’d slipped our phones back into our jersey pockets we were the very last riders to leave town and head out into the Kent countryside. This provided us with spectacular views of the entire peloton snaking through the morning mist.

750 riders is a big group, luckily the early start means that the roads are pretty quiet so there is minimal traffic disruption. It’s strange because you forget how early it is. Everything otherwise feels like a standard weekend ride and as you ride through a village or town you wonder why is it so deserted before remembering its still not 6 o’clock!

After winding through the orchards and crop fields of Kent for a couple of hours we began to approach London. Although the peloton had spread out there were still fairly large groups of riders at this stage, which got constantly dissected and then swelled in number by the traffic lights. Luckily the Saturday morning traffic was fairly light as riders swarmed around the black cabs and red busses.  The key really during this phase was not to waste any energy. There is really no pointing charging off hard to follow a group only to then grind to a halt at the next set of lights half a mile down the road. You have to accept the staccato nature of the ride and just keep rolling. Occasionally faster riders came surging past and we’d catch their wheels, taking a high speed tow. Eventually the traffic lights would split us up, but then another group would form. As I chased one particular crowd of fast moving riders I heard Chris call me back. He was right. It might have been fun, but what was the use of racing through mile 40 at 22mph and then crawling over the line at the end.

Surprisingly given the reputation of riding in London I never felt worried during this phase of the event. Undoubtedly there is some safety in numbers and you did need to concentrate, but the drivers were all very courteous. Rather than be annoyed several, including a bus driver, paused to wind down a window and ask us about the event. Although the stop / start nature meant the average speed undoubtedly dropped I felt the miles in the city ticked off quickly as there were so many distractions and other things to concentrate on. Luckily navigation wasn’t often one of these as there was almost without fail a group of riders ahead to follow.

We had our first planned stop at Bromley. Chris’ Dad had very kindly volunteered to be our support driver. The plan was he would meet us at predefined points on route approximately every 3 hours to allow us to have a break, take on some food and swap clothing etc. So it was that in a quiet street in Bromley three lycra clad cyclists could be seen sitting around a stove heating coffee and cooking up bacon butties! Certainly a strange sight for those Londoners up early enough to witness the scene.

Before we left London we joined the weekend cyclists lapping Richmond Park, then crossed the Thames and were soon back out into the rolling Surrey countryside. Although the average speed picked up I felt these miles really dragged. Miles 40 through to 50 seemed to take an age. I began to feel slightly uncomfortable in the saddle and was shifting around restlessly. I never thought I’d look forward to getting to Basingstoke so much! Actually our next stop was the mid-point was in Bramley just north of the city.

One of the ride highlights for me - pulling on a fresh pair of shorts with cool chammy cream! Ahhhh!  We basked in the sunshine and devoured our lunches. This is where our pre-event planning meeting reaped it rewards. We each knew when we were stopping and what the expectations were. So I simply lifted my food box out of the car, took the food I had planned for that stop, refilled my bottles and stashed a new banana and fig rolls into my pockets. 25 minutes a stop was perfect to not feel too rushed, but also allow a bit of down time.

In any ride of this length you’re bound to hit a bad patch at some point. After the pause for lunch my body really struggled to fire up again. I rode at the back of the group with wooden legs while the others spun away in front. We passed through picture postcard villages, but the miles were again dragging. Then there was a hill and strangely putting in that extra effort brought me back to life! Perhaps with lunch having also now recharged my batteries I was now feeling like a million dollars! At the next climb I had to reign myself back, as I just wanted to leap out of the saddle, but knew it was important to save this energy for later.

From then on the entire afternoon was glorious. We found ourselves largely on our own, flowing along peaceful lanes with the sun on our backs and even a hint of an tail wind. We worked perfectly as a group each taking turns pulling on the front while the others took a tow. It felt like we were counting down the miles now rather than up! The section through Wiltshire into Somerset would have been torture in a head wind. Open exposed rolling hills however were great with a breeze to our backs, how lucky we were!

We came to the next rendezvous with Chris’ Dad a bit earlier than we had expected which came as a nice surprise and allowed me to plug in my power pack just in time to keep my Garmin running. It is amazing how breaking the ride down makes it so much better. 50 miles to go sounds so much more manageable when you say to yourself it’s 25 to the van for the next stop and then ‘only’ 25 to the end after that.

The route on the whole is pretty flat, but the punchiest hills come as you approach the west country. Some of these briefly split us up, but once back on the flat we almost immediately regrouped and were pulling together again. The drop down Cheddar gorge was a truly memorable experience. We stopped for a photo before dropping down the sweeping road like stones, grinning like Cheshire cats at the bottom, high on Adrenalin. The end was now in sight and we put the pedal to the metal, buzzing on a high excitement and racing towards the finish at over 20mph! We were flying past other riders who seemed to be barely dragging themselves towards the finish in comparison.

With 200 miles in the bank and with only 4 miles to go we found ourselves on a wide, straight and beautifully surfaced road. Lying prone across the central white line was a rider. An ambulance was called and later we heard a broken collar bone and shoulder was diagnosed. It just goes to show that you should never take anything for granted. It put a bit of a dampener on our roll into Burnham as we put on our “sensible heads” and eased things back a notch. Still there were massive grins on our faces as we rolled side by side along the seafront to the applause and cheers of the crowd lining the street

Ride time 15hrs 45min – we had time to sit with our fish and chips and watch the sun set over the sea!

The whole team!

So how do I rate Chase the Sun to other epic rides I have completed? For most of my big MTB challenges I usually race solo. One of the standout features of Chase the Sun was sharing the experience as part of a team. That includes the build up in the weeks before, the nervous journey up to Maidstone and ‘last supper’ of pizza. The three of us rode together for the entire day, never more than a few meters apart, looking out for each other, taking turns on the front as well as offering support and distraction! Of course we were actually a team of four, the three cyclists relying on our support driver Steve. The breaks psychologically split up the ride into manageable chunks, and seeing the van with its fresh supplies at each stop and collapsing into the fold out chairs was such a highlight. I can’t imagine doing that ride on my own.