The Run Up

Prepping and panicking

The week before RAB was pretty busy, there was panic buying, packing, finishing work plus general anxiety to be contended with!

To help ensure we didn’t forget anything we’d complied a packing list in Trello based on the RAB recommended kit list and some additional items recommended by the Deloitte alumni. We sorted types of clothing e.g. cycling tops, shorts etc. and packed them in big ziplock or dry bags , to make them easy to find (a tip from a friend who'd done RAB a few years ago, thanks Nick) and to ensure nothing got wet even if our cheap (water resistant) Decathlon duffle bags did.

First to go were the bikes; lagged and loaded in the bike transport lorries, they headed off on Thursday, before us on Friday. AJ handled all that, as the easiest drop off point was near Guildford, but I’m informed everything went off without a hitch.

With our bags packed, checked and repacked (they were now pretty heavy), our final panic buys delivered and stowed (in the most part), it was time to go!

We got the 10:03 train to Penzance from Paddington. Thank goodness we’d booked seats and opted to ship our bikes! The train was crazy busy, I think every London based RAB-er, plus giant bag and in some cases bike, was on it! It was so busy the staff couldn’t get the buffet trolley out of its cupboard, due to bags and bikes blocking the door. Not so good on a 5 hour journey where you’d forgotten to buy or bring any food or drink! Luckily they started handing out bottles of water and I found some cycling snacks in my bag!

We arrived into a rainy Penzance just before 3:15 and by now we were starving. We ventured out of the station in search of the bus to Land’s End, with (for me at least) the infamously wet 2017 RAB in my head, during which, it had not stopped raining for the whole 9 days. I really hoped that wouldn’t be the case for us! Things started looking up when we discovered a nice looking food cart just outside the station where we procured amazing (to our hungry tummies) toasties, hot chocolate and crisps - Food. Of. The. Gods!

After a short wait and a quick 15 minute coach ride to Land’s End and we arrived at camp. It was all go from the moment we got there! We had to retrieve, re-assemble (straighten handle bars, raise seat and put pedals back on) and rack the bikes, register and find our tents (home sweet home for most of this week) and make our beds.

Before we knew it, it was approaching 6:30 and time to head to the Land’s End sign for the obligatory photos. We chose to ride down to the sign, yes we are completionists (though we didn’t Strava it), however, it did make it a bit quicker and give us a chance to check everything was ok with the bikes. Thankfully by this point the rain had stopped and Cornwall put on a spectacular, broody view, which made for some good photos. First up was the Deloitte team photo and after queueing a little longer our team of 2 photo.

Back in camp, we got to sample Lulu’s cooking for the first time... how that lady and her team churn out such good food for so many people is a mystery, it was really good and there was definitely no chance of going hungry! Next up was the first of the 8pm briefings (which in the most part were just about things we need to know for the next day and camp logistics). Finally after that whirlwind of activity it was time to head to bed - BIG day tomorrow!!

Day 1: Land’s End to Okehampton

Riding the saw blade

We were woken at 5:00 by the camp PA blaring “Let’s get ready to Rumble” which made me smile after a surprisingly good nights sleep on our fancy Sea to Summit sleeping mats and pillows (they were definitely worth the investment).

The start line opened at 6:30, we’d planned to be on the line bang on time so we could get away quickly, but so it seems did everyone else. Riders are set off in groups of around 40 so that 1000 cyclists didn't swarm the roads all at once so we had to join a queue. Apparently, to start 'on time', you had to be on the line at least 15 minutes early! This would be a constant battle that we never quite managed!

As we reached the starting pen, we were held by some of the broom wagon crew, who were helping control the start groups. They took a shine to AJ, deciding that at some point they were going to have him in their broom wagon. This marked the start of a comedy relationship, with them finding AJ every day and telling him a) that he was trouble and b) that they had a nice cosy seat for him in their wagon (thankfully that never happened). By the time we got to the starting pen, it was approaching 7am. We were fortunate to end up right at the front, so got some great photos of us starting our epic journey!

There were no significant climbs on day 1, however, the constant up and down made for a hefty amount of climbing, the most of all 9 days, over a fairly long and exhausting day. There was really no flat at all so we had no break or chance to find a rhythm, it was just hills, hills, hills, and just in case you hadn’t had enough, more hills!! We also learnt a new word "grippy", it would be used a lot over the coming days, in bike parlance it means hard, though some (me) might say, a better word to describe today’s ride was BRUTAL!

Day 1 was an eventful day for us, so to keep it brief, here’s a quick rundown of some of the more noteworthy moments:

• St Michael’s Mount: our first landmark, which looked beautiful in the morning sunlight
• Contact lens emergency: A lost contact lens could have become a minor emergency had AJ not discovered that car mirrors come in very handy as a double for a compact mirror!
• Power slide: I had a bit of a scare coming down a steep hill with a sharp left hand bend. I hit a damp, greasy spot while braking and ended up power-sliding around the corner, and when I say power slide, I mean back wheel fully out to the side! Somehow I managed to control it, miss an oncoming car, not plunge into the trees, and come out unscathed! I don't know how I did, but quite enjoyed all the boys being impressed with my 'handling skills' (read luck)!
• Mechanicals: AJ got a puncture after pitstop 1, and yet again his 'magic' tubeless self-sealing tyres didn't seal, so in went a tube! Luckily our broom wagon friends from the start line (thankfully not yet on broom wagon duty) stopped to help with the pumping. The gears also required some adjusting at pitstop 2.
• Minions: With it's (slightly) comedy Minion covered sign, Minions was the highest point of the day. At the time it was a relief to reach it, though the rest of the day wasn't any less hilly.

After our eventful day we rolled into camp around 6:00, a little later than we’d hoped, however, it felt like we’d worked hard. This would be our first experience of the RAB hamster wheel we’d be on for the next 9 days!

Cycling is only part of the experience, who knew there would be so much to do between arriving in camp and trying to get to bed early enough for a decent sleep before rising at the crack of dawn the next morning.

First on the list was a shower, which was surprisingly good and hot, then having set-up our tents it was off to the big tent for dinner and our evening briefing. We met Ben, a truly inspiring, and lovely man (check him out at the 401 challenge), in the queue for the second of Lulu’s lovely dinners. Again we were amazed at how Lulu's team could churn out such good food, at such high volumes almost every night, always including a veggie and vegan option, which were never a side thought! Any lingering concerns about being hungry on this journey were well and truly put to bed at the end of day 1.

After a lovely dinner spent chatting with Ben (a good distraction from the pains of the day), we squeezed in a massage (everyone gets a 10 min massage every other day, from a team of students from Birmingham university - wow they worked hard) and though it was quite gentle compared to what we’re both used to, it was a chance to relax before we headed to bed.

Day 2: Oakhampton to Bath

Lumpy with a slide of flat

The Start line opened at 7:00 and we hit the road about 7:30 after AJ made use of the morning taping service to help stabilise his knee (again provided by the Birmingham uni students). Day 2 included the first big climb of the ride, and one of the 4 Deloitte peaks, the Col de Cothlestone. We felt confident, however, as our day 2 recce back in August (Thanks Katy and Ed for being an awesome training crew) meant we’d already cycled the first 65 miles/100km of today’s route, thank crunchy we had! I’m not sure I would have got up Cothlestone if I didn’t already know that we could. We passed Ben on the way up, but didn't hang about to chat as you have to do your own thing when it gets tough and I have 2 speeds on a hill, stop and go! I also shared the “Nelly the Elephant” hill-climbing technique (thanks Rupert) with some struggling riders! As ridiculous as it sounds singing it and peddling in time really does help! It was a relief to finally hear the cowbells and cheers from the Deloitte cheer squad as we reached the top, we even got Strava records for the climb too! Woohoo!

The descent was fast and we quickly hit the Somerset levels, a welcome bit of flat where we could finally get up some speed and rhythm. It wasn't to last, as all too soon we hit Cheddar Gorge (OFFICIAL 100Climbs No1), another of the day’s big climbs.

The gorge itself is beautiful and the approach offered the first real wow views of the ride (we’d possibly been spoilt by the riding we’d done in Devon). Overall the climb wasn’t too bad, however, it was very busy and the experience was slightly spoiled by the crazy boy and girl racers of both the car and motorbike variety. A few expletives may have escaped when a car floored it going around me and then nearly lost it on the bend just ahead, the photographer also stopped taking photos to shout at them, which means I didn't get papped.

Once through the gorge it was all about getting to camp in Bath. We bumped into Ben again a few miles out from Bath University, which made the final climb of the day more fun and resulted in some light-hearted racing back into camp. Ben ultimately won the race by a few minutes but we were still back at about 6:15. I’m really not sure where we got the energy from!

We were back on the camp Hamster wheel with a slight difference, as we were staying in Bath Uni halls of residence. That meant we got a real (if small) bed with an ensuite shower and toilet. The reduced faffing with bedding and toilet trips was, however, balanced by everything being a bit more spread out across the campus!

Food was put on by the Uni tonight, it wasn’t bad, however, the long queues due to the lack of servers weren't ideal! Whilst queueing we saw a lady that had broken her arm, though thankfully she seemed in good spirits. It was a reminder of the scale of what we were taking on and the risks involved, with so many riders taking part some incidents were inevitable.

The highlight of the evening was a visit from the lovely Loz who brought some very yummy homemade banana bread - great fuel for the next few days. She joined us at the 8pm briefing, which went on for much longer than expected due to a Q&A with the British Olympic association including Kate Copeland (an Olympic rower) and Shanaze Reade (an Olympic BMX rider). Parts of it were interesting, however, I think most just wanted to get on with their evening/go to bed (Sorry Loz!!).

That night we went to bed safe in the knowledge that our laundry was being done and we’d get clean washing back in the morning, and that the 2 hardest days were behind us (bahahahahahahaha).

Day 3: Bath to Ludlow

Wet, wet, wet (wet wet wet wet wet - you get the picture?)

After a good nights sleep in a real bed there was much traipsing about the campus to get through the morning routine, hash brown sarnies for brekkie, laundry collection, packing, sorting gels/powders for our water bottles, inflating tyres…

It was a struggle to eat breakfast, something which was to become an ongoing theme. I never thought that I’d see the day when I struggled to eat as much as I should, but it happened. With long-distance cycling you’re looking to consume around 60-90g of carbs per hour, which means that you need to be eating or drinking something every 20-30 minutes, not a lot, but it is pretty constant. You also have to make sure that you’re refuelling at the end of the day (big dinner) and topping up your stores ready for the day in the morning (big breakfast).

It was back to a 6:30 start and we got away before 6:45, our best start yet! There were some lovely views of Bath as we cycled out, though it was hard to stop and photograph them. I wish we could have stopped more, along the whole journey, we live in a really beautiful country and we could have stopped every 30 minutes to take a photo of something interesting or beautiful, however, that would have resulted in our broom wagon friends getting their wish and we weren’t having that!

The climb out of Bath, up Bannerdown to the Cotswolds edge was long and tough especially on cold legs. The 'pockets' of rain mentioned in the rider briefing had started early and manifested as persistent light rain with quite a few bursts of very heavy rain; resulting in some very soggy cyclists. For me, my shorts got wet, which then gradually soaked up through my jersey despite my Gore-Tex jacket.

Once out of Bath we headed to the Old Severn Bridge, we both love a bridge so getting to cycle across a fairly iconic one was pretty cool! We stopped to take some photos on the approach (the professional photographers got some good shots too), the rain made everything seem a bit dark and broody! Thankfully we were a little more careful than the chap who nearly got hit as he crossed the cycle path to take some snaps and again crossing back!. Lots of riders also got punctures on the bridge which was surprising, the only thing we can think of is that there were quite a few sharp-edged ramps.

After pitstop 1 we cycled along the beautiful River Wye and ended up stopping for a mini photoshoot! Heather one of our fellow cyclists offered to take our photo and seemed to be channelling her inner David Bailey as she bossed us around until she was happy she’d got the perfect shot!

The rain was still falling so when we got to Ross-on-Wye we declared an emergency hot chocolate stop as did many other riders (though some may have been having tea or coffee - bleurgh). I don’t think that the poor Costa staff knew what to do with all the soggy cyclists that descended on them, but they seemed cheerful enough. Homemade banana loaf (for me), and lemon drizzle cake (for AJ), paired very well with the hot choc and went a long way to warming us up (for a bit at least). We even saw a fellow RAB-er running into Mountain Warehouse to buy waterproof trousers, not sure what they were going to do at that point!

The rain put pay, to remembering the rest of the ride. What should have been a nice, relatively gentle ride into Ludlow, instead became all about following the wheel in front, remembering to keep your mouth closed, and getting to the end. At pitstop 2 we saw a few people wrapped in silver survival blankets huddled in the medics tents, which gives you an idea of how cold and wet it was. We pressed on and finally made it to base camp at about 5:30 and back onto the (spread out) hamster wheel! The main drying room was already full so we were relegated to the secondary drying room which was small, smelly and not very hot (in comparison to the real tent) but it served a purpose.

Looking back on the day we were very thankful for our fancy SHAKEDRY™ jackets, but were slightly jealous of the people in Velotoze (swimming caps for your feet) which seemed to do a better job of keeping their feed dry than our shoe covers!

Day 4: Ludlow to Haydock

The 'easy’ day

The start line opened at a generous 7:00, today was the ‘easy’ flat day (but still 107 miles!), though we were warned not to dawdle many many times! Unfortunately my little lay-in was instead spent in the queue for the medic, thanks to my developing a saddle sore (for the first time ever)! AJ brought me porridge in the queue, which helped make the best use of time and all fixed up we hit the start line at about 7:30.

We made decent time and bumped into Ben fairly early on, tagging onto the group he was cycling with. What a difference some sunshine and good company make! Even a puncture for Laura didn’t dampen spirits and made for a nice chat and wee stop.

At some point along the road, we saw Nikki, one of the Deloitte team, struggling on one of the few climbs of the day, possibly the climb over the Wenlock edge. Chris stopped to have a pep talk, and whilst we waited we collectively decided to slow our pace and help her home. It was a nice thing to do and whilst the slower pace was tough in its own way, I’m glad that we did! It also made life easier on Alex who had been hit with a tummy bug the previous day and had spent most of the day on a drip. We were all so impressed that he was even out on the road, to be honest!

The ride was lovely, mainly along pretty country lanes, though at some point we made a wrong turn due to what looked like sabotage of one of our waypoint markers. Thankfully we were tracking the route on GPS, which gave us an inkling that something was wrong. The lack of a follow-up waypoint, which ALWAYS follows a turn a for confirmation, was another sign. One of the Chaperones who happened to be with us did a little recce to confirm that we should carry on in the direction indicated by the ride computers. Unfortunately, some groups of riders hadn’t been as lucky as us, and ended up with longer diversions but they sent out the vans and got everyone back on track eventually!

The beautiful countryside ended as we hit the A50, bisecting Manchester and Warrington, towards Haycock Racecourse, it was a busy road so not that much fun. We made it to camp at about 6:30, took the inaugural team finish line photo and agreed to meet the next morning to ride together again.

By the time we went up for dinner, it was briefing time. Tonight Dave Brailsford of Team Sky/Ineos fame joined us for a Q&A (apparently the Tour of Britain was just around the corner). He had some interesting pearls of wisdom to share though I have to admit that we were only half-listening due to the dinner fiasco! The racecourse, rather than, Lulu was in charge of catering and by the time we got there they had run out of the veggie option, but each serving station thought another serving station would have some. What followed, now seems like a comedy farce of us running around 3 different floors trying (and failing) to locate the mythical veggie food. At the time, it wasn’t so funny and I was very concerned that we’d have to go to bed with no dinner! Eventually, we found a manager who tasked the chef to make more food and 10 minutes later some spinach and ricotta ravioli appeared! Phew and mmmm!!

After dinner AJ went off to get his shoulder looked at by the physio. After waiting in line for over half an hour he was seen by Georgie who was also one of our ride chaperones! She cycled every day and then moonlighted with the physio team! Crazy! And to top it all off she was really lovely!

Day 5: Haydock to Carlisle

A game of 3 thirds

By day 5 in the RAB bubble, days of the week no longer meant anything... seriously we had no idea what day it was, it was all about the ride and the food!

Today was a big day, the second-longest ride and at least 1 big climb! It was a ride of thirds:

1. It started chucking it down about 5 minutes after the camp alarm, so the little thrill of waking up to a dry day was short-lived. It rained so hard that we forgot our morning selfie, though we did manage to assemble most of the team at the start line which opened at 6:30, though it was 6:45 before we got on the road. The ride to pit stop 1 was awful, pouring rain and terrible traffic out through Preston. All the commuters had probably decided to hop in the car because of the weather. The going was so slow that pit stop 1's cut-off time was extended to prevent the broom wagon being overwhelmed! The only things that redeemed the stint was that our little crew suck together (less Ben and Alex who unfortunately had to drop out), and Chris entertaining us by attempting to corral all the cyclists into behaving - I do not want to cross her!

2. The middle stint, from pitstop 1 to 3, was lovely, beautiful rolling countryside and sunshine! Amazing what a bit of sunshine can do for the mood! We also picked up another team member, Sophie, at some point along the way, she asked if she could join us and fitted right in. At pitstop 2 we passed the halfway mark. It's crazy that we had cycled nearly 500 miles already?! It was then onward to climb the mighty Shap Fell, the 2nd of the “Deloitte 4 Peaks”. The climb itself was long, but not too bad really, with just a couple of steepish sections. The cheer squad at the top was a welcome little boost, though I didn't envy them as it was pretty cold and blustery. We took a quick team photo and headed off on the fun and very fast descent. We made it to pit stop 3 dead on the cut-off time (every pit stop and the base camp had a cut-off time) and there was a bit of a panic to get out before they loaded us in the broom wagon. There was no way we wanted that to happen! We just made it out, though initially minus Laura. She was in the loo while we were being told if we didn’t go we’d all strikeout. We waited a little way up the road out of sight of the powers that be, hoping she’d make it. Thankfully she did and joined us a few minutes later! Phew!

3. The ride to basecamp from the pit stop was fast and furious! Turbo Tim (the awesome chaperone that’s been riding with us) asked us what we wanted to do. We agreed we wanted to get to camp before the wagon, so he set the pace, promising to get us home for 6:40 (allowing 20 mins should any of us get a puncture). It wasn’t what I'd call an easy ride, there were a few challenging climbs, however, on the flat it was fun sticking to Tim’s wheel and cycling flat out! I’m really not sure where we found the energy!

We sped into camp at 6:42, pretty impressive pacing on TTs part! After the obligatory team photo, we were off for our nightly chocolate protein recovery milkshake. We were all tired, cold and hungry, so decided to eat straight away. Over dinner, we started discussing all the things we had to do before going bed, which turned in to a list-making session (much to our delight we love a list). It was quite surreal (and funny though you probably had to be there), none of us was fully compos mentis so, there was much discussion about items, order and the list suitability for the rest of the week! It did help get us through to bed though!

Day 6: Carlisle to Edinburgh - Hopetoun Estate

The day we hit Scotland - SCOTLAND!!

Today was a relatively easy 105.5 miles, with no big climbs of note and the promise of some beautiful views and scenery.

The start line opened at 7:00, and we were on the road just before 07:30. Despite a promising start weather-wise a fine persistent rain quickly settled in for much of the ride.

The first stint was a little boring, actually that’s an understatement, it was really boring, long, straightish rain-soaked A-roads, many of which were poorly surfaced and very bumpy.

Our arrival in Scotland was inauspicious, the brown ‘Scotland' sign at the road side could have been easily missed if it wasn't for the long queue of cyclists waiting to have their photo taken! We opted to do a quick snap of the sign and push on having picked up TT (Yay)!

By pitstop 2 we were all pretty chilly, especially Chris. There was a warm room at the pitstop, however, some kind soul wouldn’t let us go in as the warmth would apparently make things worse! Poor Chris was so cold that she was shivering, but TT came to the rescue channelling his inner Tour de France rider by fashioning an insulating breastplate out of a survival blanket that worked a charm!

Sadly when we eventually reached the pretty bits much of the view was shrouded in grey cloud and rain. As usual we’d picked up quite a few additions to our group. So the chaperones decided we needed to separate into a couple of smaller groups. When we pulled over TT said something like “Where’s the B-team, we’ll hang back, everyone else carry on”. There were some initial shouts of indignation “Hey why are we the B-Team”, until TT pointed to his Rider tag to clarify that his surname is Barker. From then on we were the B-team!

Later on Graham and his dad Charlie (who was pretty amazing) joined us for a bit and would become an ongoing fixture in the B-Team!

The sun finally came out in the last stint making up for the rest of the day’s miserableness and Bonny Scotland showed us what she’s got! There were some very beautiful views, and the “view check” call was liberally used for the rest of the day, we also started the hunt for Hairy Coos!

We rolled into camp at 5:15, a big improvement on yesterday, which together with the bonus of a nice compact campsite, made for a much more civil evening! We even made afternoon tea and enjoyed chowing down on yummy muffins! There really was no chance of going hungry in RAB world!

Nervous of the next days climb up the Cairnwell to Glen Shee ski resort… yes, we’re going to cycle up a hill to a SKI RESORT, with a ‘grippy’ last 10 miles (read two extra big climbs just because!) we all went to bed as early as possible!

Day 7: Hopetoun Estate to Strathdon

Climb my pretty climb!

We woke early to a beautiful but chilly day. The start line opened at 6:30 and TT had advised us to be on the start line for 6:15 so we could get off promptly as we had another long ride with a lot of climbing in store. We managed to get off just before 7, ...we did try honestly... AND it was still darkish. The delay today was my fault due to needing another trip to the medic about my saddle sore (thankfully not any worse, just struggling to find a dressing that worked). I'd got there early to find only 2 people waiting and 15 mins until the medic arrived, so I dashed to get a bowl of porridge, thinking I'd eat while I waited. This turned out to be a bad decision, as in the 5 minutes I was away about 10 people arrived!

The ride from camp to the Firth of Forth was 'interesting', roadworks (or possibly just traffic lights), had created a bottleneck of cars and many, many cyclists, making it very slow going. Chris and I slipped through ahead the rest of the team, but luckily found a convenient lay-by with a spectacular view of the Firth of Forth bridges, so we waited there and took in the view. I'm reliably informed we were gazing upon 3 of the main bridge construction methods, cable-stay (Queensferry), suspension (Forth Road Bridge) and steel truss cantilever (Forth Bridge), it was pretty cool. Once the team was back together we headed across the Forth Road Bridge, getting stunning close-up views of the other bridges, the Forth Bridge and Queensferry Crossing, as we did - definitely a highlight of the ride.

We weren’t so lucky with another of the days highlights, the highest hedge in the world. Somehow we managed to cycle past without noticing... In our defence, however, in photos on t'interweb, it looks like tightly packed trees at the side of the road, so ‘easy’ to miss.

We cycled onwards into the Grampian Mountains through the Cairngorms National Park. To say it was beautiful is an understatement, it was truly breathtaking and made us feel very small and insignificant! At mile 30 we began the climb to Glenshee Ski Resort and from then on it was up, up into the clouds until mile 77. The Cairnwell (No.65 on the Official 100climbs), which made up the final 5mi/8km or so of the climb, was where got ‘grippy’. The Vodafone cheer squad with music blaring from their car was a welcome distraction about 2/3 of the way up, as were the sound of cowbells from the Deloitte cheer squad as we reached the top physically shaking with the exertion, it really was a lung and leg buster! We’d conquered number 3 on the Deloitte 4 Peaks (AJ despite his knee screaming at him all the way up). At the top TT informed us that he'd turbo-ed a fellow rider (in tears) all the way up! Being Turbo-ed involves TT riding alongside a rider that's still pedalling and using a hand on their back to push, he then engages the turbos (some might call them legs) and they accelerate up the hill faster than I can cycle just propelling myself! I have no idea how he managed to do that - impressive!

We didn’t have much time to spare at the summit so quickly shoved some fuel in our faces assembled the B-team and rushed out of the pitstop with the countdown to strikes in progress! By now we it was routine to be in and out a pitstop in around 20 minutes. I’d stupidly hadn’t brought my full-fingered gloves with me, and seeing this David another very lovely chaperone, hastily lent me his spare pare as I prepared to leave. By the time we got to the bottom of the descent, I was very grateful of them!!

The initial steep descent was fast, lots of fun, and still very beautiful. Even after the route flattened out somewhat, we still made good time over the next 25km or so. At some point during this stretch (I think) was the point we DIDN’T see a red squirrel! There we were riding along a lovely woodland road! Suddenly we heard a shout of “RED SQUIRREL” as we were apt to do for hairy coos, nice views, vehicles and all manner of things. Unfortunately in this case the shout scared away said squirrel and only Laura and Chris (allegedly) saw it... poor Laura hasn’t lived it down since... I’m not sure she ever will (Laura if you’re reading this you still owe us a red squirrel sighting 😜)

All too soon we hit 95 miles and the last two not insignificant (category 3) climbs the day. They were pretty tough, so the relief when we got to the top of the final climb was immense and the final descent down into Strathdon was extremely welcome!

We rolled into camp at about 6:30, another long day in the saddle, but the B-team had made it! Whoever said that the 2 hardest days were under our belts after day two, clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about! It's difficult to rank the days as they're all hard in their own way, however, this one was definitely up there!

AJ had been having some trouble with his chain coming off, so dropped his bike off with the mechanics, whilst we were treated to a traditional welcome from some (bag) pipers. AJ then dashed off to the physio as his shoulder had been painful again, while the rest of us ate and partook in the free beer (thanks Deloitte), though I couldn’t face it. But before we knew it, it was time for bed, another big day tomorrow and again we’d been challenged to be on the start line early… maybe this time we’d make it!

Day 8: Strathdon to Kyle of Sutherland

The day we nearly got blown away!

The day dawned on the longest day of the ride, the start line opened at 6:00 to give us more time to cover the nearly 120 mile route, including the mighty Lecht (Official 100Climbs No66) only 10 or so miles into the day. After a small panic finding AJ’s bike (we weren’t quite sure where the mechanics had left it) we were out at 6:25 and heading to the Lecht with TT in tow. Technically he was leading as usual but he’d taken one for the team and got up early so he could hit the Lecht, with us, usually, he left much later and caught up with us!

We stopped just before the climb to shed some layers, it was really windy so the route out to the Lecht had been chilly. Looking up at the initial climb was daunting, to say the least. I wish we had taken a photo, you could see the hill stretch up to its first faux peak, at an alarming gradient climbing to about 550m in just over 1km with the gradient hitting around 20% in places.

AJ was fine, he just engaged hill-climbing mode and he was off, as were the others. I, on the other hand, was doing a good job of getting into my own head and convincing myself that there was no way I could climb it. Despite all our training, I still worry that I’m rubbish at hill climbing. I had a little wobble a short way up the first steep incline. Luckily TT was there to give me a push to get started again and showed me how to zigzag as I climbed which was surprisingly helpful. Hitting the faux peak was a relief until we saw the rest of the climb stretching into the distance. We did remember to take a photo here, as it seems from a google image search so does pretty much everyone else! It still looked daunting but we knew that we’d done the hardest bit.

The wind was picking up, so we set off quickly, re-grouping briefly at the real top and then it was onwards and downwards for a bit at least. The ride through pitstop 1 and on to pitstop 2 was hard going as the wind was relentless, the weather reports show that there were gale-force winds with gusts of almost 80 kph mostly at our shoulder, but to be honest it felt like a headwind for much of it. The gusting made things harder still as you’d find yourself leaning into the wind only to suddenly have it drop, or a sudden gust would grab your front wheel, either of which sent you veering across the road if you weren’t careful.

At pit stop 2 there was some discussion around whether to continue with the ride, I for one was close to saying that I’d had enough and that the wind was just too much. One of the threshold team happened to be there and advised us to do what we thought best… We decided to give it a go and the B-team headed out. The next stint wasn’t actually too bad, it seemed a bit more sheltered and the wind was a little more behind us though we were all pretty tired. Chris decided to make an early break with TT after pitstop 3, to try and get home, with the rest of us following on a little while after. We ended up riding with another Chaperone Seb, and a lovely lady Chaperone, who’s name I, unfortunately, can’t remember we made good time, though didn’t manage to catch Chris as she'd got into a good rhythm.

Coming into camp was interesting (we made it at about 6:30) the wind was blowing a hooley and it was lashing down with rain! I meant to take a video of the tents swaying around, but unfortunately got distracted by the hamster wheel! To give you an idea how bad it was, rather than queuing outside for the showers, they’d moved the queue to the Plus luggage tent, as someone came out of the shower, the shower crew would squeegee it out and then the next in line would run from the tent to the shower, trying not to get blown over by the wind! Going to bed, I really wasn’t sure how I was going to sleep and felt for the plus riders, who until now had been staying in B&Bs and camped only for the last night! THE LAST NIGHT! How had we got here? On the one hand, it felt like we’d only just started, but on the other felt like we’d been cycling forever!

Day 9: Kyle of Sutherland to John O’Groats

What a difference a tailwind makes!

The final morning dawned, and despite the wind, we’d both had an ok nights sleep. The camp was a little bit awry, some of the unoccupied tents had blown away, but there was definitely a buzz about the place, it was the last day after all.

It was still really windy, and dark as we set off around 6:30 (the starting line had opened at 6:00, but in usual B-team style it had taken us a while to assemble) and headed off to the big climb of the day. It was pretty early on and wasn’t much compared to the last few days, more a long, gentle(ish) incline, though the wind was still not being particularly helpful!

We were again cycling through some very picturesque countryside, including some very beautiful Lochs now very, very remote from everything. Eventually, the sea appeared in the distance, giving us some beautiful coastal views.

Finally, we turned right heading along the coast towards John O’Groats and the wind became our friend as it was finally at our tail! Hallelujah! AJ's shoulder had been hurting a lot, so to try and take his mind off it, we did a spot of zig-zag practise as we climbed in and out of the little bays along the coast - he’d seen me doing it on the Lecht but hadn’t had a go until now!

Reaching pitstop 2 sent a thrill through us all, despite the freezing wind, which had us all huddling in the shelter of anything we could find, in this case vans full of food! AJ somehow learnt the secret code words to secure us all chocolate 'Freddy the Frogs', which were now in short supply.

We quickly got back on the road, heading for ‘home’, only 31 miles to go! With the wind behind us, we made good time through the undulating countryside, briefly stopping for a photo on top of the last (significant) climb of the ride, before pushing on to John O’Groats. We all rode in together whooping for joy to receive our medals with many hugs, photos and shouts of “hairy coo”. I couldn’t believe that we’d actually done it!

We queued up to have our photo taken with the John O’Groats sign (well you kinda had to). We'd hoped to have a beer whilst queueing, unfortunately, they’d already run out, despite this being our earliest finish yet (about 4:30). Luckily Danny (Chris’s partner) had brought a bottle of bubbles along so Chris popped the cork and we all shared that, drinking straight out of the bottle (classy).

Once the photos were done it was onto hasty byes and sorting the bikes out ready to be shipped home (thanks to TT's mechanic mode this was pretty easy). There was just time for a quick shower before jumping on the bus to Inverness! 3 hours on a coach is not exactly what you feel like at this point, but needs must, and I guess it was better than riding! AJ managed a little snooze, whilst I stayed vigilant - ok so really I was worried that if I snoozed I’d not wake up or turn in to a space cadet and then who knew what would happen!

We arrived in Inverness at about 9:30 feeling pretty shattered, our hotel was only a 5 minute walk around the corner though. Having waited for what seemed like ages while a big group of LEJOG-ers who’d arrived just before us got sorted out, having queried everything under the sun, we made it to our room (with a REAL bed). We didn’t have much in the way of energy or brainpower left, so ordered room service (after a bit of confusion around whether it was still available) and then hit the hay to dream crazy dreams about cycling across the country!

The Aftermath

Back to life, back to reality (sort of)

Waking up in the hotel in Inverness the morning after finishing RAB was strange. There was no alarm call, no hamster wheel to get on, no start line times, the completely unstructured day stretched out ahead and RAB already felt strangely long ago!

We had most of the day to kill before getting the sleeper train that evening at 8ish. We paid £20 for a late check out which meant we could keep our room until 6, making life a lot easer and meant we could go back for naps between eating, browsing kiltstweedmini capes, searching for hairy coos and eating again.

We were both pretty spacey, at one point AJ even advised me of 'Car up' despite being on foot! Car up (or back) and car down (or front), were used during the ride to advise the group that a car was trying to pass. To be honest it was more like "Car-up, I mean down, oh CAR!" until we were taught the helpful moniker "down your nose, up your bum" (lovely) after which we got a tiny bit better!

The sleeper train was an experience, and full of RAB-ers, so our cool idea wasn’t really that original after all. We mistakenly took our massive kit bags to our berth, then realised that they filled the whole of the non bed space. Then ensued a comedy few minutes trying to get them out and to the luggage car, picture a tortoise trying to back out of a box! Almost as soon as the train pulled out our PJs were on and we were off to snoozeville.

We were awoken at 6:30 the next morning by a knock on the door delivering morning tea, and not long after that we arrived in to Euston. Slight confusion ensued as at some point during the night they’d reversed the train, we’d expected our bags to be at the back of the train but they were now at the front. Having located our bags and procured a luggage trolley (have I mentioned how heavy they were? ), we made our bleary way through the station, bizarrely meeting one of AJ’s colleagues, to the Taxi rank. I left AJ waiting on a Bolt (the new Uber) as I’d banned him from carrying his bag too far, (his shoulder was still hurting) and headed underground, lamenting my lack of realisation that rush hour southbound Victoria line would be just as busy as the Northbound!

The rest of the day was spent napping, washing disgusting kit (it had all absorbed the smell of the drying room - bleurgh) and trying to remember everything that had happened. To be honest I don’t think either of us felt that human yet!

Wednesday dawned and we headed down to St. Ives (almost) back to where it started, for a week or so of rest and recuperation. That is where we’ve been writing this blogmemoiraccount, not really sure what to call it but I’m glad we’ve done it as it has helped order and cement our memories which were in danger of becoming just one long blur of cycling! So with a week between us and finishing RAB what are our thoughts?

• RAB was an amazing experience that we wouldn’t change and are really glad, proud, surprised (and many other superlatives) we did it
• The most common question we’ve been asked is “would you do it again?” right now that would be a HARD no… however, give it another week or two for the type 2 enjoyment / fun (Like this ) to kick in and who knows… (AJ says that he’ll definitely stay hard no, he also has full approval to reign me in when I come up with my next crazy plan and to rope him in!)
• Threshold sports motto “more is in you” whilst a little cheesy is so very very true. Pretty much every day I thought “I just can’t go any further” or “I don’t want to do this today”, but somehow just did - your body can do so much more than your brain thinks it can
• The whole thing was more intense than expected, It was full on from the moment you open your eyes to the moment you closed them. I think that if we could have got in to camp an hour or so earlier every day it would have helped. With hindsight, that could have been doable by making the start line on time, cycling slightly faster and perhaps shaving some time off of our stops.
• The B-Team and TT were awesome and the ride would not have been the same without them, we thank our lucky stars for finding them on Day 4. Finding a group of great people to cycle with made the whole thing more fun. We also all struggled at different points and helped pull each other through

What would we say to someone considering signing up for RAB:

• If you really want to do it, go for it its an amazing experience. Be prepared for it to take over your life though. We started training in January mostly on the turbo, and then when spring kicked in we switched to riding outside which took up most of our weekends for back to back rides. I’m an all or nothing kind of person, so I did feel a bit like I ate, breathed and slept RAB for much of the year, but we don’t regret any of our training, it meant we both felt prepared, or as prepared as we could coming into the event.
• Try to find a group of cyclists of a similar ability to cycle with - hopefully you’ll be lucky like us and will just fall into a group - it really makes a difference and make everything more fun!
• The recommended kit list is pretty good, we used pretty much everything we took - perhaps if you’re a faster cyclist you can get away without some of the things on the list, but I’m glad we had everything
• Get some really good cycling shoes - any pinch points or tight spot will only get worse the more you cycle. As we started cycling longer routes my old faithful Shimano shoes started to pinch the side of my foot, I switched to wide Lake shoes and it made so much difference my feet didn’t hurt at all on the ride - save for the odd ache from just driving the pedals all day! AJ has a similar story
• Invest in a decent sleeping mat - we got Sea to Summit Comfort Light/Plus insulated mats, they were really easy to inflate and deflate and pack up in the morning (essential given the time pressures), and they were really comfortable! The most comfortable sleeping mat either of us have ever used
• Get a decent sleeping bag, I’m quite a cold mortal, so was really worried about being cold (I’d been freezing when we did London Revolution). I ended up getting a Mountain Equipment SLEEPWALKER III, which has a detachable duvet included. It was perfect, I just used the sleeping bag down south and for the last few nights in Scotland I attached the additional duvet - toasty!
• If you have a carbon bike, consider taking your own torque wrench, we took one and it made getting our bikes set up easy as we didn’t have to go in search of one and we also ended up lending it out to a few fellow cyclist
• Do lots and lots of hill climbing in your training - we did much of our training in the Surrey Hills so we got a good mixture of big (ish) climbs and also lots of up and downs / undulations. - you’ll encounter a lot of both on your RAB journey.
• Make sure you do back to back rides of a decent distance - we did lots of this and it really helped our bodies cope with getting on the bike every day and being ok.
• Do London Revolution, it's a good challenge and gives you a good benchmark for your fitness in May - I hurt more after revolution than I did at any point in RAB! It also gives you a good idea of how camp at RAB will work , so when we got to Land’s End everything felt kind of familiar
• If you have an opportunity to ride in Devon or Cornwall do it, we did the Dartmoor Classic, another great but challenging ride and we were lucky to have some friends in the area so did a couple of other trips - it really helped us know what to expect on the first couple of days. Actually if you have an opportunity to ride any part of the route do it, we rode the first 100 or so KM of day two, which really helped!