Headwinds to Edinburgh: Ian McBride’s Unfinished Triumph at LEL 2025

In this UltraCycling interview, we sit down with Ian McBride of London—the sole rider to reach Edinburgh before the 2025 London-Edinburgh-London (LEL) brevet was suspended due to ferocious 100 MPH winds. As thousands were turned back at control points across the route, Ian was the only rider to reach the Edinburgh turnaround by the time of suspension.
Hear Ian recount the mental and physical toll of battling the elements, the surreal moment the event was called off, and what it means to ride not just for the finish, but for the journey itself. This is more than a cycling story—it’s a testament to perseverance in the face of nature’s fury.

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Ultracyclone. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Welcome to the Ultraycling Magazine Show. I wished I looked better. Unfortunately, I look skinny and sunken cheicked as is pretty usual after this sort of thing. This is an ultracl show. Uh Ian, you don’t have to make any excuses here. Well, hey Ian McBride, you kind of made the news here because of what happened on London, Edinburgh, London this year. As I understand it, you were the first person, wait a minute, the only person to make it all the way to Edinburgh checkpoint. Is that correct? Uh, I was the only one to make it all the way through the Edinburgh checkpoint before they called a close and said that we needed to return. I do know that many other people unofficially then rode up and rode back down again. I think there’s still some arriving now. So, several days later now. There was also the test uh the test rider who checks the route, the root checker who did it several days before. So, I’m not quite the Yeah, but you know, I mean, don’t start uh we have a thing here on the show in we don’t allow people to start putting themselves down and stay only and just and all that kind of stuff. Good lord, you you made news. Now, what I want to know, one news report said you were from New Zealand and another said you were from London. So get us straight now. Uh I’m a I’m a New Zealander living in London. So uh I was born in New Zealand. I was raised in New Zealand. I started all my sport in New Zealand and then I moved to London uh 1996 97 somewhere around there uh for a holiday for six months holiday and I never left really but I’m still class myself as a New Zealander. I should have been put down as New Zealand on this this year’s starting list. Last time around, Daniel Popanas New Zealand, but I forgot to remind him. So, I know that you’ done LEAL before. I see that that got delayed a year, didn’t it? Because of the pandemic. Wasn’t that how that happened? Yeah, that got delayed for a year. So, uh it was I think three was it three years ago. Three years ago rather than full. I know that you’ve done Paris Press Paris at least once because I saw your jersey twice. Okay. Tell me a little bit more about your cycling career and what you’ve been doing in the world of ultra cycling, Ian. Well, uh, I started off my my cycling career in triathlon actually back in New Zealand when I was a younger man. But I was never big enough, strong enough or powerful enough, uh, to do well. And when I came to England, I was living in central London and I gave up sort of doing that. It was very difficult to do. I was barely riding my bike. And uh in 2016, I was just riding my bike a couple of times a week for an hour around Richmond Park, which is a central London park. And uh I came across this group called the Fridays. And they ride their bikes from midnight in London to the coast, which is any one of a number of coastal towns. It’s about 60 miles to the coast. They have breakfast and then some of them ride back. And I thought, “Oh, that sounds like fun.” So I did a bit of that. And while doing the second ride of that, I was speaking to some people and they were talking about this London Edinburgh London event which was huge. It’s like one and a half thousand kilometers and I couldn’t get my head around it but they said it’s happening next year and we volunteer. We help out. We’re really well known for doing that. And I thought well I’ll go and have a look at that. I’ll I’ll help out. So I helped out for a few days and I could not believe that these ordinary people, people like me were riding what I think were fantastical distances. Some of them doing it on barely any sleep. Some of them riding three or 4 hundred kilometers and having a good sleep and some good meals. And I thought, I really want some of that. I’ll do that next year. And then I discovered it wasn’t next year. It was four years away. Yeah. And then Paris, Breast Paris came up and they said, well, that’s only in two years. And I thought, well, I’ll have a really good go at doing that. So, I applied myself to training quite hard and I rode I think I rode 60 65 hours 64 hours or something that and I thought that was great and I’ve never I’ve never been loved so much. The the the French people are incredible. It’s the middle of the night and they’re out in deck chairs sitting on some isolated road junction shouting encouragement to you. It was just so so amazing. So I thought I can definitely go faster and it’s two years till London Edinburgh London. So I entered London into London and I had a fantastic event. I was also you’re not supposed to race all decks but I like to race myself. I like to go as fast as I can. I like to go as fast as I can. So I was racing but I don’t care about anyone else. I just care about me. That makes sense. Well Ian, you put two people together on a bike on bikes. You’re likely to have a race. Yeah. Yeah. I like to go hard. this these long distances that for me if you both do well together you’re going to both go faster. So you’re really helping each other to go faster. I’m not you know I’m not going hammer and tongs trying to drop the guy I’m with at 800 km. I want him I want to draft off him and I want him to draft off me. We want to speak together don’t we? I think Odex and Ron the Nuring has a little easier time of getting permits and insurance and things like that than an actual race. I know that’s true here in the United States. I think it’s true elsewhere as well. And but it it’s a great sport and a friend of mine lives in between Edinburgh and Glasgow. He’s a cyclist. He kind of alerted me to the fact that they were expecting a storm. So, I got looking at it and I thought, “Oh my goodness, this looks like a monster.” Let’s back off a little bit. You need to qualify for Paris best purse, do you not? Yes, you do. You need to um do a super rander series, a 200, right? A 300, a 400, and a 600 and in the same season, and then you get to go to Paris. But LEL requires no qualification to enter. Uh put put your money down and show up. Is there a limit on how many they’ll take or Yeah. Yeah. It’s always over subscribed and there’s a ballot for places and it doesn’t matter who you are unless you volunteered at a previous event to help then you will get a guaranteed place. You get a guaranteed place or because it’s a British event. If you’re a member of the um orex uh you get an entry as well. So let’s get back to this year. It started when Saturday did it last Saturday. uh Sunday morning for 4:00 a.m. and it was a wave start 15 minutes apart about 50 people a wave and they were by ballot as well. They used to have a a fast a fast boys start but uh that’s been taken away now. Fast boys the one thing we are learning a lot about in ultraclan is the women are winning events all the time. all the time. That’s been a thing our show 18 years we’ve been promoting that that women are great participants. We just need more of them. So when you left on Sunday morning, did you have a weather forecast then? Oh, we knew it was going to be bad. We were we were already racing the weather. So we’d worked out that the weather was was going to get the front runners. It was definitely going to catch us in Scotland. Um, but it was how far through Scotland it was going to catch us and whether we’d be able to turn around and it become more of a help than a hindrance on the way out of Scotland. So, we knew we were going to get soaked. We knew there were there was extreme amounts of rain forecast and high winds. So, my plan my plan was to get out of Scotland by uh Monday evening, which meant riding flat out, not stopping for meals at controls, just controlling and leaving the control as quickly as possible. So, uh, what direction was the wind when you were headed up? Uh, it was a it was a a fair headwind, headside wind on the way up, but you know, the the wind has a habit of changing, doesn’t it? So, you get a headwind out and then you turn and then all of a sudden you feel like you’ve got a headwind back. Uh, yes. I I’ve always said I had a tailwind once, but I can’t remember when or where that was for sure. Yeah, I I had some amazing tailwinds when we did get to the wind because it didn’t come it actually came with a lot of rain on uh when when the bad weather arrived and for me the bad weather arrived when I was in a place called Bmpton. Uh and that was when I became solo. The the the there were four of us together. Uh one person was was exploding uh and he was going to stop. The other person was somebody quite well known, a guy called Nick Dehan, um who was first at Paris Breast last edition. He stopped for a meal and asleep at Bmpton. He was there first. I rode in with the guy who was suffering and a very strong Frenchman called Benoir. I don’t know his last name. And he was super strong. He also, but he was big. And he stopped for food uh and sleep and and that left me. So I went, “Right, well, I’m going.” So I controlled and I left immediately. And then the minute I left it rained. It rained horrifically. Did you learn that it had been suspended before you got to Edinburgh or did you learn when you got there? I knew that it was going to be suspended. Um, and I knew that they were going to shut the controls and I was out of control just before Edinburgh at Moffett. So, uh, I knew that Daniel was going to call it at some point soon and that I needed to get on the road because they would then stop us from going any further. So, I knew I could make Edinburgh. And after that, uh, I thought it was just going to be a pause. So, I didn’t know it was going to be a a complete stop. So, when I left the Moffett control, I was very lucky. I had climbed over a mountain and then got a tailwind or a tail sidewind. So, that was some of the most exciting riding I’ve ever done. It was high winds and I was speeding. It was amazing. We’ve had Nick on the show, Nick Dhan. Talked to him ahead of time. We’re going to try to get a little chat with him before you went before he started, but that didn’t work out. It was my fault I dropped the ball. But anyway, they sort of got stopped there at the the control point before Edinburgh. Is that my understanding? But you’d already left. Yeah. No. So, um, when I was in at Moffett control, there was nobody at the control behind. They arrived at the control behind Moffett. So, that’s two controls from Edinburgh. Okay. They were stopped at that. There was the Frenchman. He was stopped at Moffett and then I was stopped at Edinburgh. Now, did they Nick Nick didn’t get out? He got a a place called Ho. Did they give you an official finish at I mean official arrival at They signed your card, did they? Yeah, I had my card signed when I got to the turnaround to Edinburgh. And I was told the minute I arrived there that we were suspended for 4 hours, which was quite good because I also knew that then that I had 81 kilometers over the guy behind because that was the next control behind us. That gave me plenty of time if you know to have a a good good sleep, good ride, wait for the four hours to come up for us to be told what was happening next and knowing that no one was moving. And um then they suspended it again for another four hours so I had a a second meal, dried all my kit under the hand dryers, then got dressed up and waited for 7:30 when we were going to be told whether we could move or not. And at 7:30 we were told it’s been canned completely. where to stay where we are for the night and then riders were to make their way south back to London. And because I was at the furthest point, that meant that I could go to the two controls on the loop because Scotland has a loop. So I would be the only one to get to visit those controls, which meant that I was the only one to get all the stamps. Now, the new story I saw indicated that the people who turned around, got back were given Finnish medals just the same. Is that correct? Did you get one? Yes, I did. So I But there was no Did you get your card signed at the end or There we go. There we go. So I’m the only one with every single slot filled. So the stop stayed open, did they? Uh yeah. Yeah, they kept everything open. Uh it was I mean it was quite sad because the two Scotland controls that I had to visit, I was the only cyst to visit them. So I left um I left my um control point uh that I was at in Scotland. I left there at 11:00 that evening and rode over the mountain to the other in a lethan control. They waited up for me and uh they st my card and I slept there for 4 hours until the morning and then I rode to the next control which also had no other cyclist to visit it. Uh they st my card and then sent me on my way and then they all packed up. So it was quite sad because I was the only one to visit those. Well, be sure and check the links in the description that you’ll see down below the videos here in YouTube or Facebook. There’s quite a few different links there we’d like you to take a look at. One of which is a news story that has a video in it with you finishing. I thought that was quite interesting. Here’s all these racks, you know, waiting for thousands of people and it’s just eon riding in. So, that that was a beautiful piece of video. I loved it. Yeah, I think that was probably Bmpton which um was was the next control I went to just before we climbed back over the mountain again. And uh to be honest as well that was again it was a good thing he Daniel shut the uh stopped the racing or stopped the event because even the next day it was what was it 24 hours later I climbed over a a hill called Yad Moss and I had to put every bit of item of clothing I had on. Uh I was still being blown all over the road. You know, there was no way that 2,000 siphers should have been going over there even then. Well, I did a little checking using AI, Ian, and I discovered that at one of the checkpoints during the ride, they recorded a wind speed of 136 miles an hour. That wouldn’t surprise me. Look, it was the worst conditions I’ve ever ridden in. And I’ve been riding bikes since I was 16. I’m 55 now. Um, I was blown off the road twice. I had to stop and put my foot down a number of times and wait until the gusts passed before carrying on. I had to walk two little sections because I couldn’t ride my bike. And every van that came down the road towards me um that day I was looking at going please be a London Edinburgh London van saying we’ve stopped the racing get in the van with your bike. But you can’t stop in the middle of nowhere. So you’ve got you’ve got to carry on. I didn’t want to ride anymore. Yeah. No van showed up. There were trees down on the There were trees down on the road. The wind was the rain was going sideways. Um, it ruined my my light, which I’ve had for five years. It ruined my big headlight for for overnight riding. I had to ride on my emergency lights the next night and a half. I would I wouldn’t choose to send anybody out and I didn’t want to be out in it. You know, you know something, Ian, when you get to be an old man like me, don’t think I’m far off it, am I? and you you you’ve had life has finally told you you can’t ride anymore and you stop and talk about things. This is what you’re going to talk about. You’ll talk about London, Edinburgh, London in 2025. It’s always the, you know, you never tell you never to tell people about the beautiful day where you had a tailwind, the sun was shining, and the temperatures were mild. No, you talk about you talk about this and you got something to talk about. Well, that’s quite an achievement, Ian. I really did want I trained for a year and a half for this. You know, the previous edition I rode uh and I just didn’t want to embarrass myself and I wanted to to ride well and I was really lucky. I rode with a man called Enko De Jong who was first home twice and we were the second group in but I had to push my bike up two little hills. I couldn’t ride it anymore at that point. I know I was slowing anko down a little bit. This time I wanted to ride to my limit and I certainly rode to my limit, you know, because even though even though it was called off on the way back, I still rode as hard as I could home. But even better was the last I don’t know 400 kilometers, I was now catching up to people who had turned around. So, I got to see people and ride with some people and and do a talk to some people at the controls, which normally you don’t get to do because normally I go into a control and there’s me and a few other people and and we’re gone again. So, it made it really interesting as well. Maybe maybe this is not the time to ask you this question. What’s next for you in cycling? I don’t know. Um Oh, yeah. The reason that look I’d like to step the whole idea of riding further interests me quite a bit and you know TCR and things like that but I I ride as hard as I possibly can on the limit most of the time in these events and these is this is like 70 hours of riding. I can’t ride that long. I’d have to get some better brains and be more thoughtful about putting in my effort. I couldn’t ride you know 14 days or something. I think I’d injure myself. So, well, I guess we have to see. Really? That’s not a very good answer, is it? Well, you know, you’ve you’ve only just started to recover from from LEAL, so I I didn’t expect much more. You know, what I didn’t say this time, which I said after the last was never again. Never again. Yes. Well, I do know I’m doing Paris Par Paris in two years time and I want to go under 50 hours. Ian, I I’ve said never again as I was making my hotel reservation for the next year. Yeah, I can get that. Well, listen, thanks for talking with us. We appreciate it having with us and taking this time out so rapidly after you just finished. That’s a pleasure. It’s a real pleasure. Hang in there. Thank you very much. This is Gregory Zuber thanking you for watching and sharing music by Kevin Mloud.