370km Bikepacking Race Training Across England – Pre VIA Race Ride

Hello my friends,

Welcome back to another week and another video. This week, I’m out for another great ride with my good mate Rupert. and a special guest Matt who I raced with in Bosnia recently. In less than two weeks now we’re all racing 4,000km across Europe so this was a great chance to meet up and get excited for the race. It’s also our last long ride before.

Not only that it was a really great ride across England, with a bivvy in there too, even if I was freezing! After VIA we’ll be back out again for a faster ride with no bags, so will look forward to that.

Have a good one,

Andy

This ride – https://www.strava.com/activities/15090933215
Insta – https://www.instagram.com/andyc_trp/
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🍏🍌🍓 Nutrition
Veloforte 20% discount! – ANDYCO20
https://veloforte.com/ANDYC20
Why Veloforte – https://youtu.be/OcOS6d9OhuY
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🚴💨 Coaching
Coach Giovanni Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIacLXCJ_yo
https://www.gprocoaching.com

Next news. [Music] Good evening. Welcome back to the channel and another ultracling related video with a a special guest. You remember Robert? How you doing? Robert was on the channel a couple of months ago and we did a bike packing trip in preparation for Via and Via’s in two weeks. Two weeks. So, we’re getting pretty close. The last trip we did is kind of honing our equipment and practicing bivvying and and now this time we’re out one more time to catch up and you know see if we can make any changes any improvements to our setup. You made some changes. I have yet but we got a good ride today. About 230 miles. So we’re already about 50 50 miles in. Yeah. About 50 miles in already. So, we got about 180 left to do and we’re planning to bivvie a bit later. But, uh, let’s do this climb because Robert Everest did this. Everest did or try to? Yeah. No, did it. 2020. Did Everest this climb? So, I think we probably need to It’s a bit skinny. Yeah. Let’s crack on and climb. Where were we? So, the route we’re riding, Rupert created again. I feel a little bit bad because the last one you created and that was on my way. So, you started in Hoveve, which is where you live, isn’t it? Hove. Yeah. And straight north to Crawley. Yeah. Up to Crawley. Crawley. And then east. We went east towards Polley Smallfield East Grinstead. Yeah. And now where are we? We’re coming into the Ashdown Forest. Ashdown Forest. And we’re going to hit Kits Hill, which is also known as the wall. That’s the Say that word again. The wall. So you’ll find out why in a minute. Great. Then we’re going to head kind of north towards Maidstone. Oh, Maidstone. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. before we drop down towards Folkston. Folkston on the coast. Yeah. Yep. Then Hyde. Hyde Hastings. Actually, when we get to Folkston, we’re meeting uh a friend of mine, Matt from Behard. So, you’ll see Matt S tomorrow as well. And he’s going to ride with us a little bit from um Folkston across to I think he’s with us until Hyde. And then we’re going to carry on and leave him back towards Brighton. Yeah. All right. So that’s 230 mi roughly and that’s going to be our last long ride before VR. Well, mine anyway. I don’t know about you. Yeah, I think so. 2 weeks. So just some tapering after that. So hopefully we’re going to bivvie somewhere near Folkston. Somewhere near there. We have no idea where yet. So on the beach. Yeah, maybe on the beach. Get some ciders, barbecue. But for now, let’s push on cuz we got some hills. Thank you. Certainly out. Yeah. Car back. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] Oh god, here we go. Feel like D Winon needs to jump out of a bush. Bring on the wall. Oh, that was soon, wasn’t it? Bear in mind, we have I don’t know. I think my bike was This is what I had in B Hard and when I checked it in with the box, it was about 21 kilos. So, it must be about 20ish without a box. Rup’s got a sleeping bag and I don’t. So, he’s got a slight weight penalty and I’m going to freeze my ass off later. You can spoons if you want. Uh, you’re okay. You warm. You don’t have to ask me twice. [Music] Wow. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] It’s been a couple of months since the last ride. What have you been up to? You’ve been all over like Scotland. Wasn’t it an event on the Balaknabar? Uh, so yeah, there was a sport that I did mid work over over Batnabar. That’s the one. Ruper works for uh Kinesis if I didn’t did I said that already? I might have said that already maybe. But how was that? Yeah, it was. You were there for ages. Really hot day, which you don’t often get there. But I did notice it was blue skies. It was, but no rain, but the Mitches were a bit of a killer at night. Ah, so they had uh 500 riders for the sport. 500 and we were there. They closed below for that. They closed it for 2 hours the climb and the descent. So meant that everybody could get over it without any traffic coming the other way or up behind. That must have been chaos. It wasn’t too bad actually. It spread out pretty quickly. Ah, I think it’s that the longest the longest pass in the UK, I think. Is that right? The longest climb. Yeah, the longest paved climb that goes from sea level up to the 630 m. Ah, okay. That’s big for us. Technically the highest in the UK. Yeah, I need to go back up that way. Really? I just bought a car, so maybe we’ll do a trip up there or I can go and travel a bit more. Scenery is amazing. Yeah, Scotland is amazing. If you’re okay with midgetes and a little bit of rain, we’re climbing again, so bear with [Music] 5:00. Oh, [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah. Some of them really good. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] around most of the lines. Good evening. It is getting late. I think we’ve been chatting far too much and not really updating you, but I think we’re How far are we in now? 150k. So, we’re not that far away from sleeping really. It’s about uh just gotten 11:00 p.m. So, I think we got maybe 1 or 2 hours and then we’ll find somewhere to bed down. We’re in that horrible period where we’re seeing loads of good places to sleep. Yeah. And you know what’s going to happen? It’s just a bit early, isn’t it? Yeah. Way too early. But in a couple of hours when we’re ready, there’s going to be nothing. Uh, we’ll find somewhere. At least there’s no snakes here. Uh, no bears, so we should be all right. We’ve just been through the city of Maidstone. So, that’s I think about as far north as we go, I think. Yeah. And then heading south now towards the coast. And I think we got about a 20 mile drag. But I noticed you gain 50 ft of elevation along that 20 mi. So, we’ll be fine. Good morning. It’s bright and early. It’s half past 5. Yeah, roughly half past 5. And we just slept in uh outside the community hall. Little village hall. Billington. Something like that. Yeah, Bill. Bill Zington. And I froze my butt off. I was absolutely freezing. Never again. I had my bivvie bag, my air bed, and that was it. And what did you have? I had the same sleeping bag. I was well toasted. Well, like a thick sleeping bag. Yeah, I did. Honestly, at one point I was like, how bad does it need to get before I go and ask if I can climb in? I was so cold. I think I woke up every 20 minutes, something. We’re now rough I think about 105 miles into the route. So, still got aboutund 15 to go. Something like that. Yeah, we’re just heading south towards We’ve got a bit of a hilly loop. Actually, R planned in a bit of like a hilly section extra to get to the back of Folton. And then we’re going to meet Matt. So, put my live location on WhatsApp and we’ll bump into him at some point. Yeah. Hopefully for breakfast. Yeah. What’s going on? I’d rather this than the flies in Bosnia. Yeah. Anyway, I’m feeling pretty blurry now. So, put this away and go find some coffee for now. Practice some Italian. Let’s [Music] go a bit. Uh [Music] some fake car. [Music] [Music] Right. [Music] Yeah, I know. [Music] We’ve made it to the beach. That’s all the climbing done pretty much. And we met Matt along the way. So, put the old live location on WhatsApp on and he appeared on a climb at the back of uh Folton. So, he’s joining us now for about 30 40 miles, something like that. We’re going to keep the ocean to our left all the way back and I think we’ve got a tailwind. So, it’s really nice to catch up actually because it’s matting proof at the moment in there. Bosnia was as hard as I say it was. We just stopped for quite a big McDonald’s breakfast. I’m catching up for a little bit. I’m feeling a lot better now to be honest. We had a bit of a gap in the food front because the last food was I think Tbridge Wells last couple hours before bed sleeping rough and then about 2 hours to focus before we could find more food there. So feeling a bit rough to be honest, but now much better. But now we’re at 128 miles since home and I think that means about 90 miles to get home, something like that. And it’s all along the seafront. It’s gorgeous. [Music] Okay, so we are a little bit lost. Um, I’m sure we’ll find our way home. We started heading along a road and saw signs for the place that we slept in last night. So, definitely going the wrong way, but we’ll figure it out. But, it’s a beautiful morning, so I don’t mind. And quite nice to catch up with Matt after behard as well because he had some fun experiences. I think he saw a bear or a bear cub along the route which is a bit sketchy where there’s a bear cub there’s a mama that will kill you. On top of that descending the final ski resort towards the finish. Caught in a serious downpour storm basically a river down the road. had to hide underneath somebody’s porch for three hours with a foil blanket hoping someone was gonna come find him. Eventually finished and he finished ninth. It’s really good. So yeah, quite funny to hear the stories from the road. But now I think we went through a place called Ivy Church, wherever that is. I’ll check after. But we are now heading in the right direction. So I’m sure I’ll get home today at some point. Let’s see. some of the uh [Music] Just my legs. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. We are motoring. We’re now 181 miles in and we’ve Kuden Beach. I’ve never been this far up the coast actually. It’s gorgeous. It feels a lot like well, West Country to be honest. Kind of like um to talk Devon sort of. Yeah, really nice. We’re not too far from Berlin Gap. I’ve never been over Berlin Gap and that’s quite a big climb. I think two climbs maybe. Yeah. A little zigzag up to the top and then round the loop has a couple of climbs. Yeah. Okay. It’s all open so it can be quite warm. Yeah. But it’s been pretty flat this morning. So this morning’s been really good. Two more climbs over Burning Gap and then we’ll drop into Seven Sisters. Okay. And then see how we feel. We might go to Cadence at Lington. Yep. For a coffee. Yeah. And then once we climb out of there, we’re into seafood. Seafood. Seafood, New Haven. Okay. Brighton. And then I know where I am. Yeah, probably. Just just about. Just about till I get to home. Yeah. I was thinking I might ride home. Uh but I already bought the train ticket, so there’s no way. Well, it’s a tailwind that so far. We’ve been lucky. Yeah. I still know 181 miles. We’ll probably do. We’ll probably finish it. Yeah. Let’s crack on. It is warm. 29°. So, let’s crack on with this tailwind. You can see [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hey. [Music] [Applause] [Music] We are in Brighton. So close. Now we just got to get to the seafront and then make our way to Hoveve, which is where we started yesterday. And we’ve done quite a few miles. So see if we can get through here without getting any kind of trouble and get on that air conditioned train. [Music] We are back in Hoveve Station and I am knackered. That was 226 miles. And how many kilometers you do kilometers? Uh 366. 366 in about 25 hours, but then quite a lot of stopping. food, sleep, poor sleep. That was a really good ride. Thanks for Robert did all the route planning and navigated expertly and uh I sat on his wheel for quite a lot of it. So, thank you. It’s all right. That’s it. We’re done. Finished. We got two weeks now. Two weeks, roughly two weeks till we uh two weeks today. Two weeks. Two weeks today until we uh I need to get planning my route really. And uh but uh yeah, going to go home, have a bath, have some ice cream. But if you want to see Robert on another video again, then put a comment below. But we’re probably going to meet up soon on our fast. We’re going to meet up on We’re going to meet up on our fast bikes without bags. No bags. No bags. Arrow fast bikes and have a smash around. You just got You very nearly got It’s brilliant. It’s good luck though, is it? Yeah. So, if you enjoyed that, subscribe, like the video, all those lovely things. And we’ll see you all on the next one. Bye. [Music]