One thing Kielder does is make you feel insignificant- let alone your attempts to ‘beat’ it. The weather looked perfect- bright sun, 15 degrees and light cloud. But it packed a killer punch. The worst headwinds I’ve ever ridden in. Literally 20-30mph all day. Being pebble-dashed with gravel at times!
Okay fine- so you get some slow sections and some super fast ones right?
No! One of the best things about the event is the descents. On the racing line (say ten inches wide) it is super-compact gravel. Then to either side is the stuff of nightmares. Loose marble - fist sized gravel slipping about on the hard sub layer.
Last time I would clear whole descents with only 100y of braking at the bottom. This year, on many of the descents, the cross winds were trying to rip your wheel out from under you.
So what should have been the prize for a 20 minute climb was a super sketchy crawl dragging the brakes and forcing yourself to relax and stop making it worse.
Sadly I knew in my mind that 13.6mph average was my stretch goal (the 9hr finish) so I pushed hard to try and make it happen. I don’t actually think I got there more than once. Every time you’d make progress, a headwind climb or a crosswind descent would drop you lower into the 12’s.
At about 50 miles, I was starting to feel it. I’d gone harder for 4h30 than I have in my life but the average speed was like 12.7.
Then I hit the only short road section and my legs felt amazing! The difference between pedalling on gravel or roads is insane.
I obviously over compensated by going flat out- pulling 380w up a short road climb and whistling along around 20mph.
This gave me hope that maybe things would get better so I pushed on. Speed was nudging 13mph average again and as I reached the aid station at half way, I pressed on, full of hope.
Then we cross under the main road into the southern sector. And things went badly, quickly. I started to feel sick. The effort in the heat was just like Salisbury Plain last week but I’d gotten behind on my eating. There literally wasn’t time. You’re either climbing at an intensity that makes it impossible to swallow or descending at 30mph on sketchy gravel or grovelling into a savage headwind. It is crazy how little in the way of flat sections there are.
So I rapidly try and resolve things by eating and drinking as much as I could handle. Then pressed on hoping it would take effect.
Around this point, so say mile 70ish, I knew the conditions had made my hopes of a fast time impossible and I knew I’d been a very silly boy by riding at 6-7hr pace in a hope that I’d get a surge at the end. I knew I was looking at a 10h ride.
And it killed me. Literally crushed the life out of my entire body. Suddenly everything hurt. My feet, my shoulders, my neck, my wrist and my tendons. They were like journalists hyping up PartyGate whilst I was like Boris- fat, useless and without an ounce of moral high ground with which to argue my point.
It is no exaggeration to say I was about to quit. To turn around and ride back the way I’d come. And I saw one guy do just that!
So then the next phase of my race began- and probably the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.
When I arrived at Kielder I tried to think through my goals. And one was to finish without stopping. The one I tried but failed on last year. Suddenly- this was brought to number one. This was the thing that could get my through.
Just. Don’t. Stop!
My body wasn’t having it. “Impossible!” “Pointless!” “Why!!??!!” came the cries from my various dying muscles.
So then came the lies. For the next 30 miles, I survived only by doing two things. Lying to myself and by doing a Vegan Cyclist and appealing to “future me”.
The lies were a variation of a theme. “Let’s finish this climb and we’ll stop” or “if you (my right foot say) don’t stop aching at mile 86, I’ll stop and take my shoes off”. Next it was beating the point at which I finally stopped for a pee last year. That kept me going for at least 3 miles. Then as we got closer it was based around the third aid station.
Finally, it was a helpful miscalculation I had made about the route. I thought there was 25 miles left once you cross the main road for the final time. But actually it’s a fair bit less.
So I was able to tell myself that when I reached the main road, I would bail out and ride along it with a glorious tailwind back to the Castle! Then, I told myself I would cross the dam but turn left instead of right and follow the cycle path back. And for this I lied once more and told myself it was 12 miles if I went that way. Thankfully, by the time I got there, it was only about 17 miles to follow the course- so of course I turned right and told my legs to shut up one last time.
The “future me” thing is great too. Just ask yourself whether future you will accept your excuses when you look back on things. The answer is usually no.
I know I could have matched last years time now. Which would have been amazing in the contortions. But two things stopped me. One- I didn’t bother taking lube. And despite lubing it as well as I could- my chain literally sounded like it was going to snap for the last 40 miles or so. So I actually wasted 1/2 a bottle of sugar water to keep splashing on it- which would bug me around 20mins of peace. But it definitely stopped me exploiting the ‘finish line surge’ that I felt but couldn’t exploit for the last 7 miles. The other thing was my rear pads. Thanks to the crosswind descents, I used my brake pads in one ride than I had since buying the bike last summer and had no rear brake for the last 30 odd miles. This was a massive handicap too and stopped me committing to any of the hills because I was terrified the front would go too.
Yes in hindsight I should have just put fresh on regardless but they literally had more material on than the ones I had in my spares box at home. As well as lube, I will pack spares for sure next year (although changing would have made finishing non stop impossible).
The tortoise and hare thing was fascinating as usual. The same 30 people seemed to pass me all day. I’d get dropped on the climb, pull back on the descent and then finally they’d stop somewhere and I’d chug past only for the whole thing to get repeated.
Everyone goes on about roadies being unsociable but there was lots more banter this year for the first thirty miles and then everyone slowly got quieter and quieter
Soon everyone was just eating their stem wishing they were anywhere else. There is a river crossing with a bailout bridge. And whilst ridable, it is rocky. So I made the decision to go over the bridge. It is very narrow but just wide enough for my bars so I didn’t dismount or stop but my feet did touch the ground as I scooted over. And that was it, the entire rest of the day I was pedalling/moving.
I managed to beat my sprint up the hill at the castle too- despite everything, I hit 1800w in my most powerful recorded sprint ever
I had it in mind to leave my Garmin running and then do an extra mile on the way back to the car but I couldn’t. As soon as I stopped at the finish- my body finally won and wouldn’t let me do more than roll back to the car.
My time was 10h30 but there was at least 20 mins in the things I’ve outlined and way more if I had paced for 10h.
But still- I’m pretty sure there won’t be many people who did the entire event without stopping so I found my own little victory in an otherwise mediocre performance
