The Epilogue

Having allowed a few days to come back down to earth I thought I'd draw together a few general impressions of what was a pretty special experience. 

Otherwise I fear that my memories of the Ride Across Britain will be like one of the several magnificent but ephemeral rainbows we saw on the ride, stretching the full width of the landscape in awe inspiring splendour.  I need to capture and preserve them before they fade and melt away into the background grey sky of normal life.

The whole experience of taking part in the RAB was anything but normal, quite extraordinary in fact.

I was incredibly lucky to have been there at all. Back in March when I had lost all power in my right hand due to ‘handlebar palsy’ and was told I would need surgery I really didn’t think it would happen. Indeed, had I not sought a second surgical opinion from the excellent Mike Hayton in Manchester who advised me not to delay the operation I suspect that not only would I not have done this ride but that my cycling days could easily have been at an end.

The organisation of the RAB itself was quite amazing. It defies belief that it could be possible to enable a group of some 700 riders of very different experience and abilities to cycle almost 1,000 miles in 9 days in some very testing conditions without it all going horribly wrong at some point. There were plenty of opportunities for this certainly. There were times when it was a struggle to keep the bike upright because of the strength of the winds; those same winds were attempting to blow our encampment of pop up tents into the next county one night; another of the camps had been flooded and was under several inches of water; there were many mechanical failures and broken bikes; there were inevitable crashes and injuries.

But the Deloitte RAB Team took all of this in their stride. One had the sense of superb project management so that when there were problems it had all been factored in and they had a contingency plan. Perhaps not, and there was a lot of feverish paddling below the surface even though the enterprise seems to glide, swan-like, on the surface.  It seemed that there was an almost military precision about everything. Not that this meant that we were subject to a stringent, impersonal regime. Anything but. The atmosphere throughout was one of kindliness and support and this permeated through to the riders so that most of us saw it as our mutual responsibility to see each other through.

For example, take the guys who were on security duty at the bike pen. Each day when we arrived at the next base camp the first person we saw after crossing the finish line was one of a number of burly blokes. They would applaud and congratulate us, high fiving and were genuinely delighted that each of us had made it though. They became the people we most wanted to see as they symbolized the end of another tough day and the chance to recuperate before we did it all again. They stayed out all night to ensure the bikes were safe.

I had assumed they were paid security guards but no. Chatting to some of them one night I discovered they were all serving police officers from the Armed Response Unit of Thames Valley Police. (the bikes were pretty safe then...). But what was astounding to me was that they had all taken holiday leave to participate in the RAB. They had no time off in lieu of this and all said that they did it because of the enjoyment it gave them to see the riders take on and conquer this challenge.

One of them disclosed to me that he knew he would be in tears at John o’Groats as people he had got to know over the event crossed the finishing line. And these are men who are trained to shoot to kill when necessary...

The honours list is endless:

·       the catering section who produced enormous quantities of healthy, fresh food twice daily;

·       the sports physiotherapy students from Birmingham University who gave free massages every other day and eased the aches and pains away;

·       the medical team, junior A & E Doctors lead by the lovely GP Dr Karen – they were constantly on standby with the Sudocrem and Vaseline as well as dealing with somewhat more serious injuries and ailments;

·       the team of bike mechanics from Halfords – it is no exaggeration to say that they worked through the night to ensure that our machines were roadworthy the next day, and did so with great humour. It was very disconcerting to note that one of them (‘Scouse’) both looked and sounded like Mark Cavendish. When I first spotted him I thought my tiredness was worse than I had thought. I had fallen asleep and in my dream I was riding a bike event where all the supporting crew were my pro-cycling idols. Look, here is Bradley Wiggins serving my evening meal and is that Eddie Merckx I see cleaning the showers...?

The list goes on:

·       the friendly tent allocation people;

·       the dispensers of PowerAid (I forgive you...);

·       the cheery tent erectors/ removers;

·       the shower attendants with their daily squeegee juggling act;

·       those manning the information tent fielding more daft questions from over tired riders;

·       the oh so welcome providers of bananas, crisps, sandwiches, chocolate and on special days wonderful rice puddings at our feed stops every 35 miles or so.

·       the speakers at the nightly briefings that became a highlight of each day as they were so entertaining and professional;

·       the guest ‘celebrity’ riders that spoke and then rode the next day’s stage, particularly the paraolympians who were truly inspirational

Everyone had one thing in common – a shared desire to make this event special and ensure that as far as possible each and every rider made it to John o’ Groats. They all really cared.

Then there were the riders. Of course there were far too many to get to know well but by the end of 9 days it was easy to recognise most from sections ridden together, chats at feed stops or over dinner or just from short interchanges and jokes shared while waiting in one of the many queues that made up a lot of our daily life while not riding, eating or sleeping.

Readers of this Blog will realise that something of a special bond formed between 3 of those 700 riders.

Vicky I knew as a former colleague although not very well before the RAB. From her previous exploits running, trekking, cycling and taking part in madcap events (motorised rickshaw racing in India for example) she came with a reputation of something of a ‘superwoman’ and I suspected that I would not see her for dust once we began peddling!  In fact we found that our riding skills complemented each other quite well. I am a reasonably good and fast climber; Vicky is a very strong rider with a daredevil streak and superb bike handling skills on descents. I was able to help her a bit on a few of the climbs (there is some benefit in slipstreaming even when climbing) and as the days went on I became just a bit more confident about following her line when the road headed down and her broad grin announced she was about to take flight. But her athletic prowess comes with a very caring nature. I don’t think I ever saw her pass a slower rider without her asking how they were doing or fail to strike up a cheery conversation with those around her when we stopped.

The other member of our trio was Chris, the psychologist from Fife we chanced upon in the peloton and whose pace of riding, easy, intelligent banter and silly sense of humour matched ours very well. Very experienced on the bike, I suspect Chris was riding well within himself and it was great that he chose to make up our little gang. The miles sped by as we put the world to rights and he led our irreverent mini seminars in group dynamics and social anthropology.

We shared a mutual respect for each other’s riding abilities which meant we could relax with each other totally. When you are positioned 6 inches behind someone else’s back wheel believe me this is really important! It was very evident when we found ourselves part of larger groups that this sort of respect has to be earned and must never be taken for granted especially with riders you do not know. Moving out of line without proper warning or braking too hard can spell disaster. And we looked out for each other, taking our turns to ride at the front in the wind to allow the others to recover a bit and sharing food, extra layers of clothing, paracetamol and words of comfort and encouragement as required.

We discovered that we are all freedom loving Sagittarius and spookily in the case of Chris and myself, that we share 28^th November as our birthday. Not that I believe in any of that rubbish you understand...

Suffice it to say that the 3 of us are already planning our next big ride together in 2013.

I will never know if I would have done this ride had it not been for Sam's selfless struggle against his cancer and Annie and Peter's resolve to set up the Foundation in his name to honour his memory and to make a real difference for those unlucky enough to contract this horrible disease. I may have done I suppose as the 'End to End' is on every keen cyclists wish list of rides to tick off.

But I am sure that my experience would not have been the same if it had just been another cycling adventure. I admit to being pretty determined and competitive in any event, but throughout the RAB I felt an extra sense of duty to finish no matter what and in doing so to take out and give back as much as I could.

I had to finish because so many people had been so generous in sponsoring me. As I write my ride has already raised £5,750 for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity without taking into account pledges made. It was unthinkable that I might not do it and, although my sponsors might not see it this way and I think most would have been happy to donate anyway, in my mind not to have finished would have been letting you all down.

But I also had to finish because of the very strong sense I had throughout the ride of the huge privilege bestowed on me, whether by my genes or just the lottery of good fortune, to have the health and fitness at the age of 60 yrs to even attempt an endurance event of this kind. So many of my contemporaries have been so much less lucky. And of course it was never far from my thoughts that Sam had suffered so much pain throughout his 20s and died so terribly young.

So, and with apologies if this seems maudlin, trite or even bordering on the rabbinical (which is not my calling for sure!) I did have a strong sense in the build up to the ride and during it that surely the duty of the living is to live, and to enhance our lives to the greatest extent that we can?  

As Chris commented when we were sharing our last coffee stop together 50 miles from John O’ Groats, the Ride Across Britain was a truly life enhancing experience.  You can’t ask for more than that.

Go for it, in whatever way suits you, because, to quote the RAB strap line:

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