Chase the Sun is an annual event with four rides running concurrently on the summer solstice. We rode the route from Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey to Weston Super Mare in Somerset. Other rides took place on the Scottish Borders, Ireland and Italy.
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Heat. Heat. A rare road event for me saw me saddle up my canyon ender race, sling it on a train, and head up to London from Guilford, then across the sheer nest on the aisle of Shepy. With the durase battery fully charged, extra sealant added to the tires and a new pair of brake pads front and back, I was ready to chase the sun. The ride takes place on the summer solstice and the mo of the challenge is to arrive in western superare before the sun sets. I set myself the challenge of completing the ride in 12 hours elaps. But first I had to sign up and on in sheer nest where I met Ollie the founder of the event and as he told me this wasn’t the only event he was overseeing today. Chase the sun now has four routes running concurrently. Right. I am here registering with race director
Ollie Moore
founder
founder founder director. Yeah. Uh Ollie um how’s everything going thus far? It’s about 9:00 uh in the evening as of most people come and signed on. Yeah, we’ve had uh close to a thousand people signing on for this year’s ride. It’s probably going to be the biggest well it is going to be the biggest South Route ride to date. Um weather’s great here. The weather’s looking brilliant for tomorrow and it’s going to um there’s probably going to be about 500 in the north. The north route is absolutely spectacular. It’s across Dunfus and Gway in the south southern uh borders of Scotland. Um and then we’ve got Belfast setting off from the Prow Titanic uh to ride across Northern Ireland and into Ireland finishing on the Wild Atlantic Way in Nis Cone. So that’s a growing ride. We’ve got 275 or so there this year. And of course you just mentioned Italy. So we go across Tuscanyany past through Florence and past the Tower of Pisa to finish with a dip in the Terranian Sea.
Okay.
All right. Um yeah, can I change my mind? I want to go on to the Italian next year.
After signing on, it was time for the fun part. Little bit of car loading.
All else fails. Get yourself into a grill. I would like the most calorific thing on the menu. Right. Can I just show you what happens when you cycle 2 miles with a very large pizza under your arm?
It looks like an accident. Well, we are going through Cheddar Gorge tomorrow. It’ be wrong not to gorge on Cheddar, wouldn’t it? Right. Okay. just registered and picked up all the usual bits and bobs. Tracker number um ribbon that’s become sort of emblematic of uh chased sun over the years. Um, yeah. So, I’m all all ready to go is to ride across the width of the country from Sheress in the on the aisle of Shepy to Western Super Mar um under 12 hours. Right.4 to 11 now. Got to be up by about 3. Well, that was a strong contender for the worst night’s sleep I’ve ever had. And this is a strong contender for the worst breakfast I’ve ever had. Leftover pizza. Um, yeah. I will see you at the start line. All right, 10 5 set off. Plan is I will be western super 206 miles away by 10 5 in the afternoon. After a fast start, I’ve been averaging over 20 mph for the first 90 minutes or so. And then came London. And with London came traffic lights and cars and people. Thousands of them. The 12-hour target was in jeopardy. Just to the west of London, we hit Bagshot in Surrey. I refueled with the uh obligatory Cornish pasti. Couple of bottles of Lucasade, sweets, you name it. Anything bad for you, I consumed it. And then we started rolling fast. So, we were buzzing through White Horse Country now with 130 mi on the clock. The target was back on. Then bad stuff started happening. Of course, say a few prayers here. What I’m actually doing here in the church is looking for a water tap and um yeah, there aren’t any pubs or anything in the area and and yeah, if I don’t have a drink soon be joining the people who are resting here uh on a very definite basis. This anyone there? Hello. No one at the inn. What else fails? Knock on random doors. Nectar. Really? I forgot I had this. I forgot I had this. There’s a rec reason it’s got a nuclear style wrapper on it because it turns you atomic. I’m going to neck this. It tastes bad. Cheers. Tastes worse than abs. The 30° heat and lack of water was clearly sending me dooi. But the saga didn’t end here. With around 20 mi left on the clock, my gears decided to pack up. Q. Lots of swearing, lots of walking. And just as we made it onto the flat and final part of the course, lo and behold, my gear started working again. It was a setback that saw me roll over the finish line outside my target time by some margin, crossing the line eventually in about 15 hours. Riding time 11:50. So every cloud and all that.