I’ve just read the last few paragraphs of my last blog, just to catch up on what I was waffling on about to avoid being a bit repetitive and when looking at the palmares for 2025 it’s hard to fathom the amount of events and adventures I’ve actually covered this past 12 months.
At the time of writing I had yet to take part in a few more events before my end of season break (quite literally!). So I’ll start with catching up on those…
The following weekend I took part in a pretty fast 25 Mile TT near Cambridge, in fairness I had ridden this course a few weeks earlier in horrendous windy conditions and picked up an all-time PB at this distance so had little aspirations of anything similar – nothing could be further from the truth. In a “shit or bust” mentality I set out on a power target quite a few watts over what I thought I could handle. And although sure enough towards the end of the event I was blowing a bit – but the curve of the fatigue didn’t negatively affect the overall result and I managed to chop another 40+ seconds off my PB down to 53:24. In fairness I didn’t really know what to say when I saw the result up on the result board back at the race HQ – of course I was pleased but I as I had already broken my PB a few weeks earlier this seemed to have less of an impact – weird I know. But here we are, well & truly in the “53 club”.
The following weekend involved a minor road trip to Monmouthshire in South Wales. When I say minor, what I really mean is it was a long weekend where Suzy had taken the Friday & Monday off work to accompany me on another silly adventure – a 12hr TT. Rewinding back several years into my teens where I supported a rider from the Great Yarmouth Cycling Club – Brian White, in his 12hr TT around Norfolk, I remembered his face and his demeanour when he eventually climbed off the bike and that had stuck with me as a thing not to do anytime soon…but here I was having a go at this ridiculous race for the first time.
We travelled down to Aberystwyth, into biblical rain as is standard in Wales I’m told. We arrived at our AirBNB into the hills – a lovely 1st floor flat with beautiful views over the town (when it’s not raining) and settled down for what was to come. I had message Jake Sargeant – the National 12hr champion on Instagram and asked of his experiences and although I half-expected him not to answer he replied with such an amazing description and called it “the best race on the calendar”. His advice regarding fuelling and a few preparation ideas really helped leading up to the race.
On the morning, we were up at 4:30am, car packed up with all the essentials – bike, helmet, shoes, food, Coca Cola, cheese rolls, drinks, chews, spares etc. and we headed to Raglan Village Hall where there was already lots of weird cyclists shuffling around the car park sorting out their bikes and necessary ancillary items for such an ordeal. It’s safe to say that it’s optimal for every rider to have a helper out there on the road somewhere as to get fed is a logistical nightmare if you’re flying solo – but saying that, there were a few riders who were exactly doing that – utter bonkers!
I was off at 6:25am… I started very conservatively and was caught pretty quickly by my minute-man – the guy who started behind me. The race is long, keep calm Nick! I settled into a decent rhythm and within an hour I had caught 5 or 6 riders myself. I travelled down to the Monmouth Tunnels and then down to Usk and then up to Hereford before getting back to Raglan at about 100 miles where Suzy was situated in a lay-by on the bypass. Food stop no.1!
Onto the midday 26 mile loops where I expected to complete 4 circuits, each lap I stopped by suzy, guzzled a coke and took a chunk of a cheese roll and set off again. Looking back these breaks were needed not only from a physical perspective but also mentally. There was one point at 150 miles I asked Suzy what the time was – she told me I still had 4:40hrs to go and I couldn’t actually take it in. Suzy did say post-event she thought I was going to quit when she told me that. As it turned out I only completed 3 circuits and was ushered by marshals onto the 16 mile “finishing circuit” a little bit earlier than I anticipated. Adding into that, along with the stiff crosswinds I had suffered for the first 175 miles there now was biblical rain (we’re in Wales after all) and then hailstones at one point. I was soaked through and I felt kinda glad this happened now rather than at the start where I would be soaked all day.
The rules are that once you hit 12-hrs you need to carry on to the next timekeeper, several of which are situated around the finishing circuit – passing the next timekeeper they calculate your speed between the two and work out the distance to get a precise distance. In fairness, many riders stopped at a timekeeper at 11:59 and called it a day. Me? No, I carried on to the next one, which as things turned out was another 3 or 4 miles up the road, so I ended up riding another 10 minutes AND I ended up on the far-side of the course from the Village Hall/HQ so there was an anticipation of riding another 10 miles to get back! Luckily enough Suzy was following me on that last lap and she was waiting for me at the next available lay-by to take me home.
To say I was empty was an understatement – but still overwhelmed what I had just done – 12hrs on a bloody push bike and at a fairly hard pace. My bike computer fizzled out at 336km so I had no complete data on what the whole ride looked like but it’s safe to say I picked things up towards the end as the finish line was in sight. Suzy said there were times on my final lap I was doing 30mph.
We (riders & helpers) were all back in the village hall and helping ourselves to a buffet the organisers had put out for us and we waited for the results… of course it was going to take some time for the several timekeepers to get their calculations worked out.
254.7 miles (410km).
I said I’d do a 12hr in December 2024 and I did exactly what I set out to do. Secretly I wanted “evens” (20mph) and I exceeded that. In perfect world I hoped for 250 miles and I got that too – chuffed is an understatement. To celebrate I had 20 Nuggest, 2 lots of fries and a large chocolate milkshake at a local McDonalds….a champions’ meal!
Rolling forwards another week there was a minor 10 Mile TT to do on a fairly fast course, not quite the 250 miles the previous week. The legs’ condition were in question after the previous week but I went with it and hoped for the best – 21:03 – another season PB. Still 28 seconds off my fastest ever 10 time but to finish the time trialling session on another best was quite a good day out.
At the village hall/HQ at this event I was also told that my 50 & 100 mile and 12hr performances have put me in the running for the Eastern Counties “BAR” Best All Rounder competition and it looks as though a trophy will be on its way to me in the new year. It’s not what I really set out to do but a perennial trophy with some amazing names on there already, and to have my name added….wow!
Finishing off the season with one last race…
Suzy & I travelled with Claire & Suzy’s mum (chief supporter) to Rutland Water to take part in the Vitruvian Middle Distance (70.3) Aquabike event which runs alongside the Triathlon event. I had taken part in this in 2022 as my first ever uk-based event following my crash, so it seemed to be rather poignant to do this as my last before my next operation. Admittedly I’ve been a bit crap with my swim training in 2025 and this showed straight away and I was struggling in the open water with others’ around me. Suffice to say I came out low down in the rankings and then set out to catch as many people as I could in my bike leg. This course was “rolling” so keeping a smooth power was virtually impossible, Nonetheless I still managed to keep it around 290w and got round in 2:21hrs bringing me home in 2nd place, only a minute off the win…lost, of course, in the swim!
Suzy managed to win here Age Group and with my performance we’re good to go for GB qualification next year if we choose to do so. She was so chuffed after a 17 month hiatus from Aquabike racing of any kind – she’s still got it 🙂
Straight from Rutland Water we were off to Majorca for a relaxed week of sun and cycling. In previous trips to this gorgeous island there’s always been an agenda of some kind for me – to hit certain numbers, to get some climbing PR’s, have some kind of strategy for the trip. This time there was zero intentions, except to have some fun. We took on most of our usual routes and added into the mix the 30+ degrees temperatures and it was just what we both needed for an end of season trip away.
Back home now and I’m writing this blog the day before my next chapter – the operation.
I’d like to say I’m completely optimistic about it all and it’s always the British way to put on an act and say “everything will work out fine” but I’ve always had in the back of my mind something might not work out perfectly – hence the need to do an absolute maddening amount of bike rides and adventures in the past 12 months to get a few “bucket list” things ticked off before I go under the knife.
Life doesn’t stop here and I have already committed to a few events next year so fingers crossed things will go as well as they can do and I’ll be up & running (slight joke there) in no time and back to my usual mad-self doing all sorts of crazy things.
I tell myself that at least I won’t get hit by a van today before my operation tomorrow so that’s a bonus – in reality I guess that is true and the re-break will be a controlled break by one of the best specialists in the country so I’m in good hands. But still – to give someone permission to break your leg is a bit weird right?
See you on the other side…