The Dirty Reiver Gravel Ride (NOT a RACE)
I have signed up for some silly things in the past, but this one really takes the biscuit.
200km off-road, on a drop barred bike. Sounds OK. Oh, and near 4000m climbing as well. Still sounds OK. I know, I will enter.
Time has passed and the event is here. I have looked at finishing times for last year, it's gonna be a long day in the saddle as 10+ hours does not seem unusual.
I drive up Friday, All the gear I think I may possibly need arranged perfectly in the back of the car.
get my tent and chair set up at the campsite. Eat a big tea of rice and chilli. Yum, yum. Off to the Anglers Arms then for a quick pint.
Next morning the bike is ready, big tyres are on. The ground is dry. Loads of food and compulsory safety bits are in the frame bag, time to go.
7:00 is the start time.
Off you go then. This is strange. I am quite used to cx starts, chaos, pushing, grunting and HRs to max very quickly. This gentle clipping in and rolling through a neutral zone to the start timing gate seems odd, HR just ticking over.
What follows is hard to describe. Time seemed to both stand still and fly by at the same time. The day became chunks of effort.
Initially it was all about punctures. I don't think I have ever seen as many people changing tubes in a single km. Why were they not tubeless? Why were people trying to overtake through the sharp middle section of gravel? They soon learnt.
As far as I was concerned, I was going to start easy, getting my head around the different type of gravel here compared to Dalby or the moors. Much sharper with good race lines following wheel tracks.
Aims for the day: Do not fall off. Do not puncture. Do not break anything on the bike.
As I got used to the conditions my descending speed picked up, 40mph was approached several times. As feed stop 1 came into view I was happy, going well and looking good for 8:30 finish - top banana (which is what I ate at the stop).
The distance ticking off strategy
I have my own mental strategy for coping with chunks of time or distance. I will use it for interval training or any set distance ride. It is really simple, yet seems to alleviate lots of pain when riding.
As I progress through my allotted distance I break it down into easy fractions, then as I complete each fraction I say to myself "Only (something) times that I have done to go"
For example, after 10km of this ride I said to myself "Only got to do that 19 more times" and after 50km I said "do that another 3 times"
Bringing the future pain into relation with past efforts really makes daunting tasks much less daunting for me.
On to Section 2, I remember some great rocky farm tracks and feed 2 suddenly appeared. Still on for 8:30, this ain't too bad. More banana and away we go.
Straight into a hill. The course took us along a valley one side of a stream, crossed and went back along the other side, climbing and into a headwind for ages. Then there were some massive climbs, like really massive that seemed to just go on and on. I was no longer very happy. It all seemed to start to hurt and my distance ticking off strategy seemed to stop as I was not travelling fast enough. 8:30 was now looking unlikely. On I slogged, it seems that I was running low on fuel as well. Time for some emergency gels and stuff. Fuelling strategy down the pan!
Fuelling for a mega ride
I have never ridden past about 6hrs so what I thought a good fuel strategy probably was not. With hindsight something like this happened:
Each time I ate I topped up my fuel resources, but continued to deplete these resources until I was running on vapours.
The problem is, eating whilst riding on gravel, either crawling up a climb eating my stem or hurtling downhill clinging on to the drops and brakes, eating is quite a challenge. But accept that challenge we must.
On we go again. Up another hill and there I see a sign. The most evil sign I think I have ever seen. It has 2 arrows, each pointing a different direction and asks the question "200km or 130km?" Things were hard right there and looking at that sign as I dragged myself up the hill to the choice seemed to take ages. My body was saying "turn right you fool" whilst my donkey brain was saying "Do not stop now, you can do this"
Without being over-dramatic, I decided to go for the full 200km, turned left and very soon regretted that choice as the hills got bigger and bigger. 8:30 as a target had long gone, 10:00 was the new target.
Mind over body
I have become a great believer in mental strength strategies, but this one was new to me. Cramp hit my quad quickly and it hurt. My reaction was to clear my mind and simply tell the pain to "go away". Strangely, yes very strangely, the pain did go and not return.
Suddenly feed 3 came into view, and what a view. This was a real posh affair. At one end of the row of tables was standard bananas, gels etc. But as you moved along the row you came across fresh coffee, potatoes and even cheese. More cultured riders than me were making mini raclettes as they supped very nice coffee. I scoffed potatoes, butter, bananas and washed down with a great coffee. There was hope for me. Onto that saddle we go.
This joy was short lived, more hills combined with coffee vision to make descending tough as well.
Coffee vision
Something I suffer from when tired and over-caffeinated. My vision blurs a little, although my contact lenses have fallen out. Each eye is perfect alone, but both open seems to not work very well. To compensate I have to alternately close each eye for a while.
The final section was around Kielder water itself. How many hills and sharp turns can you incorporate into a path around a flat surface of water? Well I know, lots.
Now my distance ticking off strategy had started to work again and I was counting down the hundreds of metres to the castle and finish line. I had completed the ride, I even rode up the road a little to ensure 200km was completed. All done in 9:42 which apparently makes me an Outlaw.
But as it is not a race, finishing 82nd in a field of over 450 was still very pleasing. As was finishing 29th in my age group.
The bike and stuff
I was really pleased with my bike setup. Tubeless tyres, 40mm wide and 32psi meant my hands had no blisters by the end. Good quality chamois butter and Miltag shorts kept my rear end comfortable on my Fizik Antares saddle. No problems with these key contact points.
My new frame bag was really useful, easy to access for food and kept my jersey pockets empty which in turn meant no back ache.
 |
| Gravel bike on test ride to Robin Hood's Bay |
Impressions of the Event
There is nothing I can find wrong with this event. It was well marshalled, well stocked in terms of food, well signed.
Kielder is a massive area, I doubt there is anywhere in England that is so remote. It is stunning in beauty as well (and that from a resident of Yorkshire). There were times when I said to myself:
"Do not stack it here, you could be missing for days"
which tempered my riding a little.
Overriding all this was the sheer scale and hardness of the event. I thought I had done hard stuff - 3 Peaks, Ultra marathon etc. but this was really hard both physically and mentally.
I am proud to have completed it, and completed it well. It was great, I might be back.
