Rad am Ring 24 ~ My Journey to Hell
Humble Beginnings
My journey of
discovery started in the year 2010. I was on a trip to the Nordschleife in Germany. The Nordschleife is the
classic Nurburgring Formula One race track, in the Eifel Mountains
near Cologne. It was dubbed "the green hell" by racing legend
Jackie Stewart.
My main purpose was to drive a beaten out van loaded with motorbikes and two mountain bikes for a week of fun.
June was the month, it was hot and the world cup was on. I have memories of having a cold beer outside a nice restaurant in the middle of Adenau, hearing the Germans getting beaten by in the final.
There was great riding to be had in the surrounding area with one great mountain bike climb from a winding road near our hotel. At the top of this climb stands the Nurburg tower, little did I know then that I would be seeing this tower quite a few times in a couple of years.
In the town of
Adenau there is a bicycle shop called Rad
Sport. On a visit to buy
some bits I noticed a flyer for a 24 hour mountain and road bike
race around the Nordschleife.
Having done a few of these races in the past it got me quite excited. I like a challenge, so I kept this flyer for a possible return to race someday.
The trip was great fun with some good memories; one of which was chasing a British car down a very fast descent on a mountain bike sliding around under my seat.
Who
am I...?
Before I go much
further I need to tell you a little bit about myself. I first
started racing bicycles when I was fifteen. A friend and I were on a trip down to the coast to do some
work on my nan’s caravan in Lancing. Unbeknown to us there was a bike race going on at
Brighton called the Milk race.
This race had top class riders from around the world. The first stage was up and down the Madeira Drive for a Time Trail. The speed really caught my imagination as well as the colour of it all.
My friend and I did our own race up the sea front road between Lancing and Shoreham; it just seemed such fun to race a clock and try to beat each other whilst racing on your own.
The bike is such a brilliant tool when you are young. It gives you space to do what you want, to see the country side and to feel at ease with yourself. I joined a cycling club in Crawley and started training and racing.
I would think nothing of getting up early on a Sunday and ride to a race, race then ride home. As Soon as I left school I went to work and carried on racing as a junior.
I would start work early on Tuesday, finish at four pm, then ride up to Crystal Palace to do a race before riding back home. This meant about an eighty mile trip, so riding long way has always been in me.
At seventeen, I did my very first endurance race over twelve hours. I covered two hundred and twenty miles…
The Challenge
So back to my race
of today. I started to
think about this race in October 2011. I knew if I trained hard and
prepared well I could do something in Germany.
I started to train over the winter on the Indoor trainer, I had done some physical test in July with a German lady looking at Critical Power on the bike, and considering my age I had some good results.
This inspired me to change my training to working with power. Being a sad individual, I love books on physiology and the effects of training, so I radically changed my winter season.
I got hold of a twelve week winter programme based mainly on an indoor trainer and by using this and my work with Bettina off I went.
Over the Christmas period I carried on training even when I had too much to drink! Training when drunk is like racing after eighteen hours, you can’t concentrate properly. Not the best preparation, but need must!
In January I booked the hotel and ferry. Then I entered the Rad am Ring 24. There was no going back.
At work we have some Germans; they thought it was funny when I said I was going there to win. Not just win mind, but be the first Non-German to ever win in any category in the ten year history of the event.
My belief was strong and I felt I needed to do this for me. The training started going well and I could feel myself getting more powerful.
My first race of the year was a hilly sixteen mile event. I rode out to the start and did an okay race. It was early in the season and to be honest, I did not put too much effort into it. At this race I meet up with a lady called Abby, she was to become an important person later on.
My second race was a ten mile time trail near Dorking. I did this on a road bike instead of my time trail bike which is a lot faster, I rode up to the start and around the course before the event, my legs felt good and I felt calm within myself. I won my category that day then rode home quite pleased the way I was progressing!
The following week I was racing what we call a two up time trail, two riders ride together and take turns at the front making the pace. I was riding with a friend who I’d raced with the previous year, where we came third.
This year I was real strong and had a lot of confidence in myself. I could leave my friend anytime I wanted. Going uphill or down, there was no way he was staying with me and I was just riding along easily.
Unsurprisingly, as a team we did crap but that did not matter, I felt good. After the ride home my legs felt as though they had just ridden ten miles, instead of the sixty I had just covered.
My next race was a two up again, but this time with a different partner. This guy was in my club, a bit younger than me, and he also thought he was a good rider and a good coach.
this is me helping my sick mate to the line in the 2013 Duo
The previous year the both of us were riding together when I suggested that we enter a race (the Duo Normand) the following September in France . Having done this race four times before, and knowing how hard it is, I thought this would be good fun.
His reaction to my question was, “as long as you don’t fanny about with your racing, I will do it with you”. That’s harsh I thought, as he has never beaten in a race before!
Anyway, back to this race; the Friday and Saturday before the race I had been DIY-ing in my kitchen, trying to get it ready for the plasterer. On the Sunday my legs were a bit sore and it was cold and raining. We started off good and strong and his words to me were go easy on the hills. Well, to be honest, I was shite!
Sure I rode better than him, but could have been much better. I just couldn't understand it. Last week I was flying, this week I’m going like a bag of spanners.
When I got home I felt really ill, I went to bed and did not get up till the Tuesday morning, with an attack of Crohn’s disease, and a kitchen to fit, life was not looking good.
Mind
Over Matter
Move on a month, and
my head doubts me, I’m trying to keep these faults out of my head,
but with my persona this is sometimes a major battle.
To help morale, I went and ordered a new pair of wheels.
Just down the road from where I work there is a place called Strada Wheels. I popped in there one day with my dirty work clothes on and started talking to them about my future adventure.
I think they thought I was either stupid or big headed when I said I would win. Anyway, I ordered the wheels and got them six weeks later. I rode another time trail that month, a local evening race. My time was good and I felt like I had not put too much effort in but got a lot in return.
By this time I was within fourteen weeks of my race. I had sorted out another training programme to take right to race day. I had also sorted out my nutrition for the next period; I was quite enjoying working out my food programme and all the little details a twenty four hour takes.
As I mentioned
before I had met a lady called Abby. She raced in our club but as I don’t do much training with
other people we had never really met.
She was a trained masseur and I was having problems with a very swollen knee.
We sorted a programme where she would work on my legs and try to sort my knee out.
This stretched on for three months, with a nearly once a week treatment.
At the start my legs were just full of knots in the muscles, but as time went on they became more supple.
After a good massage your legs just feel fresh and bursting with energy. Which is just as well, as my daily commute to work starts with a four hundred foot climb over Mill Hill.
My training had started to step up a gear and it just seemed that most of it was in the rain or wind. Hopefully you don’t know how horrible it is regularly riding for five hours in the rain and wind; it’s cold and it’s miserable.
By now I was in the very last weeks of my build up period, I had started to regularly ride my mountain bike on the road, to get used to the position. Obviously, the average speed I was doing on this bike was not a lot slower than my road bike. But things were looking good and I still felt I could win this race.
My final two races before Germany were a couple of time trails. As this was my tapering period I needed to race hard but not leave anything on the road, as the following weekend I would be in Germany .
To Europe My Son..
My son Sam and I,
travelled to Germany
on the Thursday. After my
last massage, Abby was well pleased. My legs were very supple, clear
of any lactate, and felt just fantastic.
The journey started with a little scare coming of the M23 going onto the M25, Sam in his wisdom decided to accelerate coming out of a corner in the wet. Whoops, the front wanted to change places with the back! He reacted well and kept it all together, that grabbed the attention.
After a cup of coffee at the Channel Tunnel, the long boring journey through Northern France and Belgium loomed. Eight hours later we are at our hotel. A nice place just outside Adenau.
After some lunch, and short stroll, to see some bikes going around the Nordschleife, we had a nice chat with some guys before returning to our hotel to refresh the body and mind.
Final Countdown
Friday it rained. I’m thinking, “why does it always rain when I do endurance
events”. The day was spent
resting my legs, keeping my body hydrated, and signing on, to collect my
race number.
After a nice evening meal in a little Italian restaurant I was ready for bed. Sleep would have been nice but my head was just going round in circles. A little like my body would be for the next day or so.
We had to be in the centre of the Nurburgring race circuit by eight in the morning, so no hotel breakfast! We found our allotted space and set up camp, a picnic breakfast of sweet cakes and coffee was the order of the day. Food of champions.
When we got back to Sam’s car, it was just so funny. There was a couple of German guys who were riding as a pair on the road circuit. They asked Sam if he was riding, no he said, "my dad is though, he's going to win".
All around us there was gazebos, tents. big caravans and mobile homes for the riders. All we had was two low slung chairs, a single gas burner and one blanket.
Race day
As the morning went
on I just felt so calm, it was strange feeling that you don’t get
that often. I was not at
all nervous, or scared, of the thought of riding twenty four hours
on my own without a break.
The race started at 13:20 for the mountain bike riders. I was at the back, but I had a plan.
During the build up to the race I had read a lot of articles about ultra endurance races. Most of them always said, “start fast, but under control, you are only going to get slower as time goes on”. This was going to be my plan for the day.
The flag drops, and we’re off. I dart around slower people to get to the front of my group. It’s amazing when you watch a motorbike GP from this circuit, the first corner looks well scary. You want to see it with a big bunch of people fuelled on coffee and adrenaline, it’s just as mad.
The first four kilometres is on the race circuit before we exit and go into the woods and the off road sections. I was near the front and going well. There are a couple of small climbs before a technical but fast descent. Then it’s back up a long climb before another descent with a couple of off camber turns.
Luckily the rain had stopped during Friday afternoon and the ground was fairly dry with only a couple of slippery spots. There are couple of fast stretches which spits you out onto the final climb of the Nordschleife, then back onto the final stretch to complete a lap.
My first lap time was twenty four minutes and this was the longest lap due to the extra time spent on the race track, over the next few hours all my laps were around twenty two to twenty three minutes and I felt real good.
Sam had come along to be my “Pit Bitch”; he would remain at a certain point to hand up food and drink to me as I rode past, so no need to stop. As the afternoon went on I was going up the leader board. I moved up to third overall and was already one lap up on the next rider in my category.
So Far, So Good
The German guy,
camping next to us, asked Sam how I was going, his reply, “Good,
he’s leading by one lap so far!”
Obviously, riding a twenty-four hour event, as day turns into night you just keep going. If you race solo its can be horrible, as dusk falls, usually you are starting to get tired, and if your head not in the right place riding at night when it’s cold is not nice. So my lights went on my bike, and I put some warm clothing put on to insulate myself against the cold night.
We had worked out a plan for the night time section of the race. I like riding in the dark around the woods, it changes every little detail about the trail you thought you had remembered. I was to ride solo, through the depths of the night.
Sam was put to bed at midnight to get some rest; I needed him fresh for me to get me through the last few hours of the race. I plugged on at a constant rhythm, banging out the laps like a metronome.
The following morning I was greeted with your four laps up on the next rider, which kept my thoughts positive! A quick change of clothes and just the final six hours to race.
Things were going very good, a bit of cramp in my legs and a sore bum, but otherwise okay. Again, the Germans asked Sam how I was doing, and again, “Yup, still leading, he’s winning four laps up”.
The last six hours ticked by, and I finished the race having covered forty laps of the circuit, with over twenty thousand feet of climbing. And boy, did I get fed up of at looking at that beautiful tower at the top of the hill.
The presentation took place in the area just below the main stadium. It was hot and noisy with bad Euro-pop music.
My name was called, and I took my place on the top step of the podium. The first non-German to win at the Rad am Ring. I have won many races before, but this was just special.
I had worked hard for ten months, creating a plan to take to first place and sticking to it. It felt good seeing the two Germans on steps two and three, with little old me towering above them.
My journey to hell had turned in to heaven.
Will I go back and do it again? Don’t think so. Cost a lot of money and a lot of sacrifice. There are other challenges to go for before I can’t ride any more.
Big thanks to Alison, Sam and all the other people who have helped me achieve my goal.
And thanks to my friend Mark Gough in suggesting that I write it down.
Here's a lap of the circuit, just in case you were thinking of doing it yourself... After what I said earlier, I'm returning for 2014!
