Cycling 488km in 30 Hours OFF-ROAD

Harry takes on the Great British Escapade, an almost 500km loop of the South East’s finest gravel cycling.

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[Music] [Music] this is the Great British Escapade number eight My number four Oh there’s a photographer tomorrow aren’t you Yes Paparazzi out in force I’ve tried to make a video on this event three times now And each time something has stopped me from doing so but this is it I’m determined both to do a good time and to make a video of it and Insta3 have very kindly sent me the Ace Pro 2 So every shot you see on this video is from the Ace Pro 2 I’ll give a full review at the end but at the moment I’m very impressed All right I’m about half an hour in now Feeling good 1 hour complete out of who knows now that I’ve done the first hour first 22 23k I’ll let you know my strategy for today and tomorrow I’ve done the route a few times now 2 and a half after a DNF last year but it’s split into three sections You got the first section over the north downs way into the evening and overnight and then up onto the South Downs way early hours of tomorrow morning and then uh quite roadheavy section to the finish So the main the meat of this ride is the South Downs way Basically all off-road loads of climbs So in my head this first 200k run to checkpoint one is kind of a warm-up It’s not the actual ride South’s where you push on try and make good time fight against the wind and then roll home with whatever you got left Can’t really read too much into how I’m feeling right now You know 10 hours time It could be completely different or exactly the same but feel okay right now The dream is 24 hours The target is 26 And you know if I do sub 30 I’ll be happy Yeah So much can happen It’s hard to hard to plan too much Let’s crack on One of the fun things of this event as with some other ultras it starts at in the evening Starts 5:00 p.m So heavily encouraged to ride through the first night with no sleep which is what I’ll try to do and then finish some point tomorrow evening This is one of the first landmarks This is a bridge over Jade’s Crossing And after this it’s the first kind of proper steep off-road climb This is kind of the start of the the the real deal But feeling good Coming up to 3 hours on pace despite the headwind Yeah let’s have [Music] [Music] it Here we go Second point of interest Uh going to about to descend down into Rochester Uh there’s a McDonald’s there which lots of people like to stop at but it’s a bit too early in the uh bit too early in the ride for [Music] me This is Rochester I think probably the only main city that we actually go through in this event Hazelmere is probably a second It’s not really a city Yeah the last two times I’ve gone through here I’ve done it in exactly 4 hours Uh and right now I’m 20 minutes ahead of that on what should be the slowest part of the course cuz there’s been a pretty stinking headwind So either this is going very well or I’ve gone way too hard Uh and I don’t think we’re going to find out until tomorrow morning at some point So fingers crossed Well into the night shift now I think it’s like half 10 I popped the first caffeine gel of the night and I’m riding that high at the moment And then as soon as that starts to drop I’m popping the next one And I’m getting through this night shift on pure caffeine straight to the veins I’ve got an audio book going instead of music or podcasts just cuz it kind of uh it’s harder to get into harder to follow but it takes more brain power and it kind of takes you somewhere else mentally which is which is what I need right now Still feeling good The night shift is coming to an end The sky is turning dark blue rather than black It’s been a super mild night Still in the short sleeve I’ve been riding non-stop I had to stop at the checkpoint to get my bre card stamped for 5 minutes but apart from that cracking on Unsurprising you know going into an event like this that those few hours after 12:00 to before the sun comes up the hardest cuz your body is telling you go to sleep you idiot You know I told myself I didn’t have to smash it through that section Just kind of drag my body through I’m not actually that tired cuz I think I’ve been dosing myself with caffeine pretty regularly So I I mean I really really want to stop right now but I’m not tired Nothing’s in pain So I think I just want to stop because I don’t want to ride my bike right now And that is not that is not a valid reason to stop at the moment cuz I’ve got a finish to get to I think I might actually be a couple of K away from being at halfway Oh no 7 km away from the halfway point It’s the halfway point in terms of distance but this second half’s a lot harder and slower cuz we go over the South Downs Pace is still good 24 hours is looking extremely optimistic right now I got the uh morale boost when the sun came up and then uh my stomach just started playing up So I thought you know I need to I need to stop to kind of give it a bit of a reset I thought well if I’m stopping I might as well have a nap So had a quick 30 minute nap Stomach feels better legs have kind of shot off a little bit but this is the this is the massive climb to get onto the South Ans way and then just got to ride home now Well back to the finish About 200 and something K easy [Music] [Music] [Music] Jesus I forgot how I forgot how brutal these descents are The climbs are fine They’re just the same as any other off-road climb Gee this descent is so rocky Ticking off the kilometers Not very quickly but not stopping The stomach is playing up Uh I just can’t I can’t really eat at the moment So no energy to push the pedals which is uh not ideal but keep it going Hoping it comes around at some point [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I’m on a cuckoo trail 130k to go and I’ve just punctured the tube that I put in a few hours ago So I’m putting in my last tube [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Final 30 km Oh I just want to be done now This last 30k is actually pretty slow There’s quite a lot of off-road The last 50k has been very quick So it’s a bit of a slog to the finish but yeah we’ll get it done Rolling back into HQ Annoyingly I felt really good right now and I have done for the last hour or so So felt really good at the start really good at the end Just didn’t come together in the middle But yeah good event Not a win technically but a win against my mind So I’ll take that Really Yeah that was a bit of a drag getting to the finish [Music] [Music] Great now Yeah So that was the Great British Escapade I completed it just over 30 hours about 27 and 1/2 hours riding time which is actually pretty similar to my other two completed attempts I sit here now 36 hours after finishing Most of that time spent asleep I’m just going to give a quick rundown of how my body feels right now I feel like that would give an interesting insight into doing an effort like this I’m going to start at the head I’ve got a splitting headache right now and I have done for the last 36 hours because I didn’t drink enough because I was having stomach problems Uh which is a little bit annoying Luckily the headache didn’t start until I finished But yeah that’s slowly going away My eyes really hurt cuz I rode a decent section in the middle without my glasses on because they were hurting my nose a little bit and there just so many bugs about at the moment that my eyes got filled out with bugs Uh and they really hurt I’ve also got two massive bags under my eyes I don’t know if you can see that on the camera They’re not black eyes I’m just tired My nose is completely blocked Uh that’s not really ultra cycling related That’s just cuz I got a hay fever My arms my arms actually feel great despite kind of being battered over the south downs uh without any suspension Yeah they feel fine My gu my undercarriage is also is also pretty fine to be honest Mixture of a sham a good shami cream good shami cream from Shami Butter and this new physique Argon adaptive saddle No problems there at all really Legs basically every muscle in both of my legs feels tight right now It’s aching pretty uniformly over the whole leg There’s nowhere that’s really like painful or injury feeling It’s just that everywhere all over them is aching which I suppose is a good thing I don’t know You’d rather have that than just like one bit one muscle injured And my feet feel fine as well Got some nice physique tempo shoes that uh yeah that fit nicely Even walking up a bunch of the climbs they didn’t uh they didn’t cause any problems which has happened in the past with uh SPD shoes So I mean overall before I started talking about all that I was feeling pretty sorry for myself that all my body was hurting But talking over that as uh yeah I think that’s pretty good after riding for 28 hours non-stop Something else that went very well is this camera This Insta 360 Ace Pro 2 is perfect The little screen that I’ve got that’s popped up above it at the moment so I can see myself whilst I’m recording this is great the microphone I haven’t actually heard the microphone yet so I’ll have to let you know when I’m editing it uh how well it sounds but I’m very very impressed and it’ll be coming along with me on all of my ultracling adventures going forward So thank you to Inst 360 for giving me this camera and I shall use it wisely