The title seemed appropriate so here we go…!
In my last blog I was waffling on about how my cycling was going with very little retrospect on my injury and how I was looking forwards to another silly adventure later that day.
Well, here we are a few weeks on and it’s all done and yet I’m still not looking back and celebrating stuff – I’m always looking forwards to the next challenge and yet I still tell my athletes on my coaching platform to stand still, be present & celebrate their accomplishments…but I don’t. Anyway……!
Day 1 to Roth was a route I hd done before. I did it when I did my silly adventure to Holland last September. I didn’t feel the need to change the route as it seems to work last time. I guess there were two things that didn’t happen last time – a block headwind and 26c+ temperatures.
I didn’t plan for these “minor” things and with that I was cooked, in each aspect, by the time I hit Ipswich and had to cruise the last few miles to Harwich. Being fashionably early at the port I rode beyond the Ferry Terminal and went into Harwich Town and sat beside the quay and watch the world go by as I listen to my endless podcasts I had saved up for this journey. I had some fish & chips, as you do when you go to the coast and waited for the Ferry to pass me & dock and then I rode back to the terminal to chill out – be “one of those” people to wait until the last possible moment to check in and simply ride into the ship with little stoppages. Once showered, changed and in the process of charging up the various gadgets I was riding with, I was straight into the Stena + lounge to carb-up and chill out.
Day 2 I was straight off the Ferry and into the Dutch network of cycle paths heading towards Eindhoven. There were a few wrong turns along the way and a minor search for a lunch stop snack but in the end I stopped at a pub (of all things) where the local old-boys were gathering and socialising on a Saturday morning (as you do). My dodgy Dutch language skills seemed to have worked as I ordered a coffee and a cheese toastie! Onwards and I rode surprisingly well across Holland and basically chilling out on the bike and arrived in Eindohoven fairly early. Shower, change, charge and into the City Centre for my Starbucks Grande Latte with a Cinnamon Bun!
Day 3 was new territory, a change of plan as I wanted to end up in Aachen – my dad’s home town (city).
Riding through Holland and latching onto a canal bike path things started to heat up a bit and I knew I was heading south into the warmth that had been forecasted. Although the ride had been pre-planned it had not occurred to me that I was riding through Amstel Gold territory and I ended up riding up the Valkenburg and several climbs featured in the big bike race each spring. The familiarity as I was climbing some of these famous gradients only hit me, as did the heat and the actual steepness of the route. This didn’t deter me and I ended up in Aachen pretty early (again) for my next stopover. The interesting part was that I was now in Germany and it was time to test my language skills! The first test was explaining to the hotel receptionist my bike was ok to have in the room as it didn’t have oil on the change – only wax. so therefore I wasn’t going to ruin their carpet. As it turn s out the carpet was pretty ruined anyway as the hotel was pretty run down! Anyways!
Day 4 was a warmer day, again. This time across to Koln (Cologne) and down the Rhein to Koblenz. I hot the suburbs of Koln pretty early and the stop/start nature of the bike path traffic light system felt I wasn’t getting anywhere fast. Nonetheless, I had time to stop to take pictures of the DOM – the massive cathedral in the city centre and the famous railway bridge. The highlight on the first part of this route was a car driver driving AT me in a village through a width restriction. That in itself wasn’t the highlight – it was the fact there was a police car at the next junction who saw the whole thing! I doubled back and practiced my German again asking if they needed me for a statement – they replied in English… “no, we saw everything, we will fine him”. After a petrol station stop having a cheese roll, coffee and a custard pastry I was off again and hit the lovely city of Koblenz after an amazing riverside cycle path for nearly 60km.
Day 5 was an early start. Mainly because of the predicted 35c+ temperatures in the afternoon. I was out on the cycle paths at 7:30am and I enjoyed the amazing views of the Rhein and Mainz riverside castles and villages along the way. If anyone is thinking of doing it I’d say definitely yes! The lack of cars was very apparent – not like the rat runs through the English countryside. I think I saw maybe 10 cars in the first two hours of riding. As for scenery, if I took a picture of every castle I’d still be there, there were so many. Moving into the outskirts of Frankfurt and going past the huge airport things were definitely hot. Looking back to the bike computer data it was 35 degrees. Whilst you’re riding though, you create your own small breeze so it’s less noticeable. I arrived at the hotel around 3pm, had a large beer, courtesy of the check-in receptionist (maybe he thought I looked like I needed rehydrating!). Showered, changed, charged and……sleep! The beer and the heat took its toll and I duly fell asleep in the very cold air-conditioned hotel room.
I woke up about an hour later in a blind panic, thinking I really needed something to eat or else the next day was going to be really bad. So I set off, walking to the city centre in the hunt for food. As I stepped out of the hotel it hit me, the heat, like when you step off an airplane into a hot country. That was hot.
But it did not deter me and the 30min+ walk to the Hauptbanhoff (Main Train Station) led me to the “Fritten Fabrik” – a stall in the train station that served all sorts of loaded fries – winner!
Fully carbed up I walked back to the hotel and duly fell asleep again.
Day 6 and I was off to Wurzburg, a not so well known town besides the main motorway. Again, I was riding along the river path for the majority of the day. The heat was a little less…hot. But still, I made sure there were plenty of easy parts, a petrol station stop and picture stops to ensure I didn’t get cooked. Before lunch I had to navigate a pretty large climb, there was no real easy way to get round it so I had to take it on. The difference between hitting Majorcan climbs on a race bike and slogging it up a German mountain with full touring kit is another thing entirely – at one point I had to stop to calm down as my heart rate wa through the rood, even though I was doing less than 5mph!
After a 45 minute descent I ended up in a little town where I bumped into a Backerei and duly ordered the usual cheese roll, pastry and multiple drinks to rehydrate. The lady serving invited me to sit down & have my lunch in her front garden next door – her husband came out shortly after and looked at me a little funny. But after talking to his wife he understood why I was in his front garden!
Soon after I was on my ways again and into the lovely town of Wurzburg – to be fair this place struck me as every so slightly posh – and a grubby cycle tourist riding through the town was a concern by a few onlookers! The stopover hotel was pretty posh – the best of the whole trip in fairness and although I looked pretty dishevelled when I checked in, they were pretty cool with me leaving the bike in my room.
Out for food I found a burger restaurant where I devoured a pound of fries (yes in weight) and goats cheese burger the size of my head and retreated to my hotel room.
Day 7 – the race is on! In true “Top Gear” show style, the gauntlet was thrown down between Suzy who had taken the overnight ferry last night and some others who were flying in to Nurnberg. It was going to be a race to see who arrived at the destination hotel first. Weather wise – this was the first day of rain. So much so I hid in a cow shed for about 15 minutes to wait for a shower to pass. When you’re riding you don’t notice the strength of the downpour as much. it as only when I stopped did I realise it was quite a heavy shower. Several kilometres later and sunnier weather I had entered the outskirts of Nurnberg way too early. So, I decided to ride beyond the city and go to Roth – the home of Challenge Roth and sit in the Expo and help myself to some Fries and a couple of bottle of Erdinger, take a selfie and boast about my Top Gear win!
After soaking up some of the pre-race atmosphere I retraced my route back to the Nurnberg hotel, have a shower and wait in the bar, beer in hand, for the others to arrive!
The point of the destination was, of course, to Challenge Roth – a full distance triathlon race – the flagship event of Challenge Family, a rival company to the Ironman brand. I’d raced here in 2023 as part of a relay team with my wife running the marathon for me and last year (2024) coming to support Ben, Jenny & Graham. This year it was Abi’s turn to race so it seemed obvious to support her as she had for us.
The Friday morning, we were up at the crack of dawn to go down to Hipolstein & have a swim in the canal and do a recce of the main event. The water was a balmy 25.5 degrees – the warmest it has ever been. This event has always been a wetsuit legal event but the temperatures would prevent this. Usually water is pumped in from the Danube and the water temp is dropped enough to make it ok for wetsuits – this year there was no water available as a drought had dropped river levels. So….for the the first time in 41 years it was “skins only”.
I still jumped into the water with a wetsuit, it was a recce after all. And pretty much boiled as I swam just over 1000m. I told Suzy as I got out of the water and she duly told me I needed to give myself a break – as I have just cycled over 1000km the last few days and wasn’t exactly “fresh” in order to swim properly. That afternoon we were all at the expo, shopping, chatting, registering Abi for the race and catching up with people we knew.
Saturday morning and Suzy & Abi were off to do Abi’s pre race ride.
Following that it was off to Roth again – some 25km from Nurnberg, to sit and take in the athlete briefing, drink a few more Erdingers, rack Abi’s bike in Hipolstein – 12km from Roth and “try” and chill out before the big day.
Sunday morning – Race Day!
Up at 3:30am and into breakfast at the hotel before the guys headed to Hipolstein for the swim start. I decided to ride there. No.1 to ease off my very tired legs. and No.2 to allow a little bit of freedom for me to move around and support Abi in different places throughout the day.
Abi’s start time was 8:15am…nearly 2hrs after the Pro’s had started their event. Adding to this the non-wetsuit swim, she was going to come out of the water as the temperatures started to rise – but it is what it is I guess.
Suzy, by foot & Ben and I, by bike followed every inch of Abi’s swim on the canal path, cheering her whenever she was breathing and turning her head our way! She didn’t say but I could imagine that was very off-putting as she was trying to concentrate on her swim.
Out of the water in 1:40 – approximately 20 minutes behind schedule, but this was 100% down to the non-wetsuit situation. I jumped up onto the famous bridge above the event start and cheered her as she came through to start her bike leg.
Onto Solarberg – a famous little climb, only a 5%er on the events’ course. This climb is knee-deep with thousands of supporters. This almost rivals the scenes you would see at big climbs in the Tour de France! I had a cow bell in-hand and was cheering everyone coming up that hill. To just out a smile on their face for 30 seconds, in my mind, was just enough to see them through this 180km bike leg.
Abi came through and we were all there to cheer her up this climb, the look on her face was clear to see this was very overwhelming.
From this point we all headed back to our cars, me on my bike, getting to Roth which would now be central to the finale of the race. I headed back via the canal path – not quite what my road bike was set up for.But, she handled it well and there were no punctures or mechanicals as I approached Roth ahead of Abi’s arrival into T2.
With a beaming face she came in and started her run – with a massive bag of nutrition in-hand and duly hugged Ben & her mum before heading off onto the infamous canal path into the unknown. The unknown was because of an injury that had prevented her from running too far in the weeks leading up to the event – so, anything beyond 10k was a “finger crossed” moment from an athlete and a coach perspective.
Ben & I headed out into the woods and cheered her on at the 5k and 10k point before we got back to the finish stadium to prepare ourselves for her arrival.
Then the phone rang….
Suzy had called me and told me that Abi had been stopped at the 30km point. Apparently there was something in the small print about athletes needed to be beyond this point before 9pm, if not they would be pulled off the course. I was so angry about this – the non wetsuit swim, the fact she was one of the last waves to start – none of this was taken into account and germans being germans had closed off the course and left Abi in the middle of the forest, 1000’s of miles away from home, to fend for herself! Angry doesn’t quite cut it to be fair – hundreds of athletes who had started over an hour before passed this point but still (in effect) failed the 15hr cut off point to get into the finish stadium. Looking at the results post-event there are hundreds finishing in 15:40hrs but Abi was stopped with 1:45 to do the last 12k…totally achievable.
Emotions were high but the overarching thing was to support Abi and just be there for her when she got back to the stadium. Writing this here in this blog still angers me but it won’t change the outcome – what is past is past.
Moving forwards a few days, after our return to the UK things, as a rule, have got back to what resembles normality for us all. Quick to convert all that endurance into some kind of speed I entered two 10-Mile TT’s in that first week I came back from Roth (madness I know) and died in both several times over – the legs just weren’t used to that intensity quite yet 😉
Despite that I recorded my 2nd all-time fastest time at that distance. The other TT – we’ll not talk about that, suffice to say it was my slowest for several years and although many would be proud of that time…I wasn’t.
Typically in the quest for speed and a few more silly things to ad to my 2025 list I’ve entered a few more Time Trials and have a couple of Epic days on the horizon but as I mentioned first in the blog – I should try & stop and have a look around once in a while. Be present more and be thankful for what I have achieved so far despite several obstacles that have tried to stop me in my tracks.
Adding to this a couple of impulse purchases… a new wetsuit, a decent one at that so I guess I better had start to train a bit harder in the pool & open water and give it some justice. And lastly and no means least – a gravel bike. It’s a cyclocross bike per se but I’ve put 45mm tyres on it so it’ll take on most gravel tracks. I’ve only ridden it twice so far and I’m pretty hooked – so much so I’ve got my eye on some Gravel Events in the winter to keep me focused. I have fleeting ideas that I might be quite good at this Gravel malarkey but then I remind myself I’m not that talented when it comes to off-road so maybe not. It’s worth a shot though right?
To finish my “Ramblings” this time around, the life I’ve built post-crash does look good. I’m able to go off on these crazy adventures, I’m still able to ride a bike pretty well and swim ok(ish) so competition is still a thing and that’s a strong focus. The Hashtag Coaching brand is on the up and there are so many ways I should be happy with the way things have turned out….
But…
If only I could have my knee back.
The operation looms in a few months’ time. Maybe I can have my knee back, maybe I can run again. Maybe I can go back to triathlon and simply running at ParkRun on a Saturday morning with friends.
Is it too early to hope? As they say “It’s the hope that kills you”.