What’s it going to take?
207 days until Gary Rides WC2C…
Gary Rides WC2C Just Giving page…
Since announcing my WC2C challenge, the most common response I get (normally from non-bikey family members) is a slightly screwed up and baffled face. It got me thinking, what exactly is it I’m undertaking and what’s going to be required of me to actually finish a 200-mile, non-stop, offroad ride down the length of a whole country? Fortunately I know a few people who make it their life and business to do just that, so I thought I’d ask them!
Dave Buchanan
Gary is friend and colleague, and has now chosen to take on a challenge that many may not understand. He’ll feel different after this episode.
Planning a big ride or adventure, whether it’s your first time or a World’s first, is an incredibly fulfilling and horizon broadening experience. Getting past the self doubts from your preconceived ideas about your own abilities, the human machine’s or of those around you, is a major obstacle that once surmounted will trouble you less the next time. But, be in no doubt that there will always be a next time: such is the feeling of accomplishment that you will get each time you push your own envelope.
Go a bit further. Climb a bit higher. Feel smug for a while, once you’ve surprised other people, or keep quiet and get self satisfaction. The choice is yours. Revel in what you have started and perhaps completed. The journey to that point is the important thing.
Cycling, running, eating, cooking, art; anything really. Choose something and immerse yourself or potter around until the bug gets you. The bug will get you. There are many ways in which to challenge yourself. Go on. But we all like bikes.
Joe Whitaker
It is hard to explain why Gary would choose to do something like the WC2C when it seems like something to pay good money not to do, pushing your limits beyond the realms of normality. But you find you can’t wait to start the journey and once you have it’s as if a great weight has been lifted from you and you’re free to ride your bike for as long as you want. Torture some might say.
Mind and body work against you and you hope that your inner strength will get you through. If you’re lucky, good, or both, you’ll complete your challenge. The sheer elation makes you think you could do it again right then, you have mixed feelings and don’t want the journey to end, severe exhaustion is addictive, you want more and end up asking yourself, “can I top this, and what’s next?”
You get a very great feeling from telling others what you have achieved and seeing their reaction. It feels like a special club that you sign up for, and once have joined, it has got you because you are now living your “life behind bars”.
Rich Rothwell
Long wilderness rides are the essence of mountain biking for me. Technical riding or tame, a big day out in the hills is what fires my imagination. That’s what I did for many years before I even thought about races. Recently racing has become a focus and I love lapped enduros for numerous reasons. However the adrenalin of wild desolate terrain combined with the massive technical and endurance challenges of rides like the UK Coast to Coast and the West Highland Way Double keep me engaged in ways a race course can’t. I love the fact there is no time limit; the challenge is to get from A to B. No shirking. No running the clock down. You might make it, you might not… The only way to find out is to try!
Rob Lee
Imagine that I’m a runner competing in the 100m. My goal would be to run that distance in the shortest time possible. If I were a marathon runner then the distance may have increased, and the average speed come down, but the goal remains the same: to cover the set distance in the shortest time possible. For me the goal of any ultra-endurance ride is exactly the same as both these examples: to cover the distance in the shortest time possible. That is the essence of performance.
The thing that makes challenges like the WC2C so difficult is that they take the distance up to, and for many beyond, the point at which a good performance is actually possible. Lots of people can ride a short distance fast, lots of people can ride a long distance slowly, but combining the two – fast AND long – is a specialist talent that relatively few ever manage to develop. And it’s essential to at least go reasonably fast, less you risk being out there for so long that sleep deprivation becomes the bigger issue. Even those who do attain such a standard understand that it’s not a pleasurable thing to do. It is, like many things that require a certain test of character, the case that reward comes from the accomplishment rather than during the event itself.
Rich Holmes
Big rides like the Welsh Coast to Coast change you; a solo24 will never be the same again. Many people will question ‘why’ you’d take on a challenge such as the WC2C. The best answer I can give them is a phrase a good mate of mine uses from time to time “If you don’t understand, I can’t explain”. For me riding the Welsh Coast to Coast was a personal challenge. I was stuck in hospital being told never to ride a bike again when Dave Buchanan pioneered the WC2C route. Long story cut short, the hospital was full of medical experts, not bike experts and the following year I was out to prove a point. Dave’s ride had captured my imagination and being told I “couldn’t” do it fired me up to prove that I “could” and I “would”.
Riding off-road, over long distances, against the clock is a mental challenge as much as it is physical. I’ve often found, the point my morale is lowest is when I realise I’ve all but completed the ride. It’s a sign of the mental games you play out on the trail. A 100k ride isn’t insignificant in anyone’s training plan, yet you will convince yourself that the last 5 hours of the challenge is a formality and you’re all but home now you are over the worst!
