The Hailsham 400k. A voyage of discovery.

One of my objectives this year was to see if I had it within me both physically and mentally to get around the Paris-Brest-Paris ("PBP"), a 1,200km ride to be completed in 90 hours, next being held in 2011. It's the "big one" to all long distance cyclists, around 7,000 people take part each time. The format that most people do it in is ride 400km (circa 20 to 25 hours), sleep for a couple of hours, another 400km, sleep, another 400km.

This was the first time I had entered a 400km ride and an important step to seeing whether PBP was viable. It was the furthest I had ever attempted (in a single day) and the first time I had attempted to ride through the night. I have now answered the question about whether PBP is viable and discovered a number of things along the way. The ride left Hailsham at 9am on Saturday. I got back again at 5.30am on Sunday. That's "quite a long time to be sitting on a bike". However, I then went to get some sleep, breakfast, bath etc and poppoed by the finish at 11am on my way home - there were still people rolling in - now 26 hours in. That's gotta hurt.

My voyage of discovery established the following:

- 400km is a shockingly long distance. It's getting on a bike in London and riding non stop to any of Sunderland, Le Mans, Newcastle or Liege. In 21 hours.

- whilst there were 20 people on the ride, the disparity in pace is so great that soon everyone is riding on their own. I spent 21 hours on a bike and spent a total of 3 minutes of that with another rider. Spending 20 hours and 57 minutes just turning the pedals, on your own, no-one to talk to is astonishingly boring.

- I thought that riding through the night and into the morning day break would be a tranquil and serene experience - no, that's also astonishingly boring.

- riding the whole day in constant drizzle and grayness is also really boring. I did see a small patch of blue sky around 7pm, but that had gone again by 7.05pm.

- I need to be inspired when I ride, usually by the scenery. Grinding up a tough mountain through the clouds and the snowline is so uplifting that it often brings me close to tears of joy. Riding all through the night on some flat boring road just brings tears of boredom. Better places to be, better things to be doing.

- I can now give ratings to places to try and get some sleep:
i) Grass verge 1.30am - 1 out of 10 - wet and passing motorists will stop and see if you have fallen off and are lying unconscious by the side of the road. Managed a 2 minute snooze.
ii) Against a tree - 2.30am - 6 out of 10 - dry under the canopy but a bit lumpy. 10 minute catnap
iii) In a traditional wooden bus shelter - 3.30am - 9 out of 10 - private, dry, wooden bench. 15 minute snooze

- If you get caught short in the middle of nowhere and need to "do as a bear does" then a dock leaf does not made a suitable wiping implement

- Riding through town centres at 3am, the police give you a long hard stare like you're some sort of weirdo. This is probably an accurate assessment.

- If you mainline coke and caffeine gels to get you through the night then when you hit the sack at 6am you are still pretty wired for a few hours yet and sleep is not forthcoming. I did manage to fall asleep at the breakfast table though. And again at 10am, and 11am, and 12...

The main thing I leant though is that whilst I love zipping round a 200km ride and have generally enjoyed the couple of 300km rides I've done I just don't find longer distances enjoyable. I'm glad I did it, it's nice knowing I can do the distance but I wouldn't do it again. Could I in theory have got back on the bike after the 2 hours sleep I got and done another 22 hours on a bike, and then done it again - physically I'd like to think the answer is yes but mentally it's almost certainly no and I do know for sure I wouldn't enjoy it. If I had ever dreamed of doing PBP then I could say the dream was over. But it was never a dream, just a thought so whilst I know I won't be doing PBP next year I do know instead you'll find me grinding up a big mountain (or three...) somewhere in the world, having much much more fun.