Ha! So. Worried I might have exaggerated I wondered if I'd written an email with the sleep etc. recorded, and found an account of the ride I'd ridden... I don't think I posted it anywhere, and reading it now it feels like it captures some small part of the huge effort involved. for me it was the hardest thing I've ever ridden. That 3rd night was so hard. and so slow. there were a couple of hours I was broken and sure I'd pack when I got to the control. Anyway ladies and gentlemen, if you've got time spare, pull up a chair: this is what I made of the last MC1K:
Mille Cymru
I thought that having done the Bryan Chapman I'd done a really hard ride in Wales, and that compared to Wessex, Wales wasn't that hard. Er no. The MC1K was really hard. It was a ride that hammered your legs with constant successions of steep hills that have you out of the saddle, and needing to lay down power for a long time to get to the top. It was also a ride with amazing views, a great spirit amongst the riders, and great controls.
The first day was superb. However, arriving at the night control well after 1am, in a fair sized group of competent cyclists (so not that slow), I was 3 hours behind my planned ETA and (after quickly eating, showering, and changing) had only time for an hours sleep to get back on schedule to set out at dawn. And I still hadn't yet fully comprehended what was in store.
But on day 2, after only a few hours pedalling, we turned left out of an innocuous valley on to a steady climb, which turned into a steep, long climb, which turned into a mountain, that kept climbing and climbing into the clouds above, and I finally started to realise this was going to be really very hard.
By the evening of a hard day two, after a never-ending series of 20%+ leg testers around the Pembrokeshire coast, we finally reached the amazing 'van of delights' control as the sun began to set. I felt happily punch drunk on the combination of achievement, views, exhaustion, sun, and sleep depravation. After missing the rain while shopping in Carmarthen Tesco @ 10pm we headed North through the darkenss, up the long steady climbs on wet roads back to the night control, not much further behind schedule, which was good. How hard could day 3 be?
Most people at the control ahead of me, which meant it was quiet: enough time to quickly shower and change, sleep for an hour and a half, before getting up, out, and off out again in the damp grey dawn for the Devils Staircase.
Tired and quite slow, the next couple of hours were a highlight of the ride: regrouped overnight, the slower riders (like me) set off earlier, the faster ones sleep longer, and catch us - pretty much everyone saw everyone again on the way to Tregaron, as the sun rose over the dew-covered mountains.
The first control was ridiculous: approaching, it was clear there was something (else) epic ahead: with only 3km to go the very fastest riders were just passing me on the retrace to join the route - they'd overtaken me a long long time ago. And so it was - a steep long climb out of a valley to a ridge, right, and a 500m of vertical descent down a tiny lane to an ancient farm house at the bottom of the same valley. Park. Control. Eat. Drink. And retrace.
I did check that John Hamilton doesn't cycle round Wales asking people at the bottom of massive hills if they'd be a control and (although he might do that) in this case the home owner was an audaxer.
So as I set off, for the first time ever, my bike got pushed. I've often ridden at the same speed as people pushing, but it'd always been a badge of honour that my audax bike had never been pushed. But this was so steep, my legs were already very tired, and there was a long, long, long way to go. I had thought it'd be many years before I had to push, and didn't expect to be anything like as happy about it when the day came. This ride was superbly hard. In a perverse way it felt great to be in the midst of such a challenge that was testing me harder than ever.
Then came the long valley climb to the reservoirs of Rhyader, and then the thousand steep valleys on the road to Llandios, and then the enormous hulk of a mountain to Machynlleth, and finally the beautiful rolling coast of north wales at sunset towards and the van of delights. Barmouth bridge, with a big group, and then heading off up a valley to Snowdonia.
But now I was tired, and worried: when planning the ride I'd figured I'd be at the night control at around midnight. But at 11, instead of heading up from Llanberis over the final pass of the day, I was still pedalling up a hill far from LLanberis, indeed still heading North, and clearly going to be on the road until well after 2am.
That was hard. I decided to pack at the next control. I promised myself if I finished I could DNS the 24hr TT, which helped. Eventually, I tried to stop thinking about how hard it was, and just pedal. That worked.
At the Northern most point info control our little group joined up with a couple more, and we all finally turned South East again. It was a great relief: now every turn of the pedals was heading us in the direction of the finish and with a murmur of chat which made the miles pass, we pedalled on.
My light batteries died at the bottom of the pass at Llanberis - it being over an hour after I'd been expecting to stop. By the time new batteries were found, and the old removed and changed, the group had gone. I had the pass to myself.
A beautiful quiet starlit night, pedalling up and up in the darkness with the front light off, only the grey starlight, and shadows of the night. No wind. Silence. It could have been a low point, but it was the opposite: a real highlight of the ride. The group waiting for me at the top, resting on the benches, was the spirit of this event.
Fast descent to the final night control, full to the brim with sleeping cyclists. Whispers, blankets, tea, food, and a corner to sleep.
I calculated just 40 minutes sleep would have to do: longer would mean the average speed for the last 100km might be unsustainable through the relentless terrain... and so our group set off in the cool dawn light, pretty much the whole ride setting off within an hour of each other and spreading out into a long thin line on the climb after the first info control.
After a few more stiff climbs, a quick early morning coffee at a farmer's roadside cafe before Bala, kind of revived our tired group, and then off to climb Bwlch y gros.
Vernwy control, just in time, and then off with the other stragglers to chase back to Upton. Even though I was within the Els Vermulen 'always achievable 6 hours for the last 100km window' it was a fairly frantic start, but as the descents continued, the climbs shortened, the flats lengthened, and our average speed picked up, the sense of urgency fell away.
The last 50k we were down to a group of 3 working together, we metered out the effort to finish in time. “Precision audaxing!” I said 500m from the end, with 15 minutes in hand, disbelieving shakes of the heads from my two companions. We had dug deep.
We were the last 3 to control in time. 2 more out of time, and almost 30 DNFs behind them.
Mille Cymru was a relentlessly hard adventure. Stunningly beautiful route, excellent controls, lovely volunteers, and a great atmosphere on the road, much bolstered by the superbly crafted night-time regroup.
I had significantly underestimated the challenge: it left me feeling even more wrecked than my first sleepless finishing-just-in-time Wessex 4 and 600's – despite the thousands of long-distance and AAA miles I've done since – and is, of course, all the more satisfying a memory because of that.