You’re not going fast enough

An Audax grandee was recently heard to describe the Mersey Roads 24 hour Time Trial as “the easiest four points in the calendar”, thanks to its relatively flat Shropshire-based course, and the regular café opportunities. Audaxer Greg Melia would beg to differ. Here’s his account of a truly testing speed ride.

If everything seems under control… you`re not going fast enough

BACKGROUND What? The Mersey Roads 24 hour time trial Where? The course is in Shropshire, based around Prees Heath When? Annually, on the penultimate weekend in July How? You can enter at www.ctt.org.uk, up to four weeks before the event Anything else I should know? This is a CTT time trial and not an Audax, so you need to be part of a CTT-affiliated club to enter, and the event is run by CTT rules – you can see these on their website. Not sure you could do that? Why not volunteer to marshal the event? They can always use helpers, and you’ll get to learn your tactics first-hand for your next year’s attempt. Search “Mersey roads 24 hour” on Facebook, or find the organiser’s email at https://www. cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/race-details/20237

Photo: kimroy-photography.co.uk

Focus… concentration is essential to racing a 24. Greg Melia in action

12 BEFORE AUDAX UK was created, there was only one way to qualify for ParisBrest-Paris in the UK – ride 600km in a 24 hour time trial.

Audaxing and the 24 hour TT have a long history together. There is now only one regular 24 in the country, the Mersey Roads event, but numerous Audaxers have won it, from John Warnock to Jasmijn Muller to Stuart Birnie. Even if you don’t win, you can still get Audax points for riding – one per 100 km.

Coming here to just plug round it would be a waste though. You really want to race it to get the full experience. And there’s a prize, the Dave Lewis trophy for the Audaxer with the longest distance each year. The 2019 field was said to be the strongest ever. Up to five national records were predicted to fall between Saturday 20 July and Sunday 21 July. There was also the usual Audax contingent: Steve Abraham was making up the Arctic Aircon team, George Berwick was doing his sixtieth event, on the back of a tandem with Philip Jurczyk, and a good couple of dozen other AUK names graced the start-sheet. Included in those, and back after a break of several years, there was me.

I was sick to the stomach. My first attempt in 2011 had been a happy-golucky affair where I’d made all the mistakes. My 2013 return saw me grab the low-hanging fruit and harvest the easy gains, and my resulting PB of 442 miles would be seriously hard to beat.

This year would be my third attempt. This would be the big one. But did I really want to put myself through all this just to fail? I’d thrown the kitchen sink at it this time, and invested enough resources that a slow ride wasn’t an option, but it hung over me like Damocles’ sharpened chainring, ready to puncture my ego with a reminder of advancing age that no new go-faster kit could hide.

The Mersey Roads runs on a series of road loops in Shropshire, each around 20 miles long. You start at lunchtime and ride down to Prees Heath where you’re put on a quiet lanes evening circuit to sit out the rush hour. Night sees you riding

❝It sounds obvious, but to ride fast you also need to train fast. A surprising number of people don’t realise this, but long slow rides just make you good at riding long and slow

❞

fast main roads, before it’s back on to the lanes in the morning, then north to the finish on the second day.

If you’re going to do well at the Mersey, it pays to write a schedule: how fast you’re going to go, what you’re going to eat and how much you’re going to stop (answer – as little as possible). If you ride unsupported, the event team will distribute your supplies to a couple of tents round the course for you. Most of the faster 24 hour riders bring supporters though, to hand them food on the go and to bully them back on the bike when they try to give up. You think I’m kidding? I’m not. I’d probably have quit before the start if I hadn’t already ruined both my friends’ weekends. These were the AUK

Christina Murray, the women’s winner with 478 miles

combo of Dean Clementson and Byron Buck, the latter a veteran of the event with two previous rides to his name.

It sounds obvious, but to ride fast you also need to train fast. A surprising number of people don’t realise this, but long slow rides just make you good at riding long and slow. Unfortunately I was doing this hot on the heels of a year-long world tour, so I was a world expert at going long and slow. I’d tried to train for speed since I got back but I still had no real top end, so there was nothing for it. Patience was a virtue here. I scheduled for a starting speed slower than most, combined it with a fairly flat decline – a mile an hour every hundred miles – and then bided my time in the early stages of the race, keeping a lid on it and watching others fly past me, not chasing them or losing my cool, riding the long game. I’d supported a rider here in 2017, when some nasty cold rain had cut through the field in the late afternoon and evening; the weather hadn’t been too bad later on, but many riders never recovered, either quitting altogether or staggering to reduced totals in a chilled daze. This year, the weather was much better. You can’t carry much bad weather kit in a time trial, so to win you have to take risks.

The Mersey is a national championship, which means you get to see how the experts do it close-up, and learn valuable lessons you can take back

to your everyday riding. Not that you should be stopping to watch if you’re racing – there’s no time for that!

As day fades into night, the event takes on a life of its own. All of its circuits pass through Prees Heath, where the truck-stop and transport cafe turn into a crazy neon-lit party scene. Supporters wait in costumes ranging from Banana Man to Pikachu – anything to give their riders a lift.

I decided to just get a gel and a coffee – this is an event that requires deep thought about nutrition, and you need to work out how much food and water you’ll need, how that can be packaged to make it easy to hand up on the move, and where to place your support crew round the course to do this. I ate 60/40 gels to bars this year, plus the odd sandwich, a bowl of rice pudding and lots of Pro Plus. There’s no stopping for midnight tea and cake in a 24 hour time trial.

Damon Peacock had advised me to “go hard at night”, on the start-line in 2013. “That’s where the real gains are made”. He was right, but this time, as I passed halfway I began to take more and more time off the bike. It was only a few minutes here and there, but it all began to add up. If you’re going to do well in an event like this, stopping is an absolute anathema. You can bust your gut to ride faster, then lose it all during a two minute nature break. There’s one basic rule in these things – three minutes is a mile.

Every three minutes you stop is a mile you could have ridden. You faff, you lose. I needed to stop though. A year on a touring bike had conformed me to its curves, and though I’d ridden the TT bike as much as I could since I got back, it wasn’t enough. The helmet got ditched in the early morning, which helped, but I was off again a few laps later, asking Byron to massage my lower back.

Fortunately I improved as the day grew brighter and the end grew nearer. The tailwind back to the finishing circuit helped, and then it was round and round the nine mile lap until our time ran out. Marshals and supporters were more visible here and I spotted Rob Bullyment’s family. I thought, good, that means he’s

still riding. He’d started three minutes in front of me but I’d hardly seen him the whole time. Had he quit, or had he been riding just a fraction faster than me, for the whole day? As it turned out, that was exactly what he’d done.

I passed Dean and Byron with ten minutes to go and raced for the final timekeeper. At least, I hoped it was final. “One minute to go!” Oh no – I’d been bargaining with myself in my head, how many seconds were few enough to stop short? I’d decided on ten, but a minute? That simply had to be ridden – and that meant going all the way to next timekeeper. Three miles later this definitively-final timekeeper arrived and I needed no bidding. I heaved on the THE SEASONED CAMPAIGNER Rob Bullyment I’d followed the 24 hour in the cycling press for 30 years. As a long time Audaxer I knew I could ride the miles but building speed was the issue. I returned to time trialing in 2013, the year of my 40th birthday and made steady progress. My results were 410 in 2014, 461 in 2016 and then a DNF in 2017. For 2019 I was targeting a 480 mile ride and had completed nearly 7,000 miles of training with PBP qualification and lots of shorter, harder efforts.

The plan was to ride straight through, picking up feed bags every four hours and eating on the move. The first long leg went smoothly and I met the team at four hours 30 minutes for a brief stop. The evening lanes circuit ran fast and I enjoyed the technical nature before moving on to the night section. At 12 hours I had 255 miles on the GPS, but was feeling a bit queasy.

Completing the night circuit and back on to the lanes, my average speed was dropping but this was expected. With five hours to go I picked up two bottles, threw out the solid food and switched to gels and jelly babies.

The finishing circuit was fast with only one uphill drag and I ran out of time at just over 484 miles. I’ve ticked a load of boxes in time trialing now, so I’m moving on to other things for a few years.

NOTE: Rob’s 484 miles – an average of over 20 mph – netted him the Dave Lewis trophy this year. It is also, as far as anyone can tell, the furthest distance ever ridden on a fixed wheel. THE FIRST TIMER Paul Wainwright I’ve enjoyed Audaxes over the past few years with some pretty fast 400s, 600s and longer; including LEL 2017. While at 6+6 Sicily this year, I heard other riders enthuse about the Mersey Roads 24 hour time trial. They spoke so highly about the event, its atmosphere and personal challenge that I had to sign up.

I was confident I could ride for 24 hours but unsure what pace I would be able to sustain. Preparation proved to be key, particularly researching nutrition and enlisting a support crew, both of which were very different to how I would prepare for a multi-day event. It only took a few adaptations to my Audax set up to remain comfortable for the 24 hours while still being able to prioritise performance.

I learned a fantastic amount and will definitely be back for a second go.

Paul Wainwright on his way to 421 miles

Steve Abraham, on his way to 292 miles

brakes, Byron ran over with a chair and suddenly it was all over.

You’re probably wondering, should you do a 24? In case you hadn’t guessed my opinion – of course you should!

It will teach you how to pace yourself, how to push yourself and how to really look after your body when it’s operating at its limit, all of which are useful far beyond the confines of time trialling. At the same time, your existing endurance skills will stand you in good stead: Audaxers usually finish, whatever speed they go. You’ll also be doing one of the most sociable rides of the year, where you get to see most riders at every roundabout and gauge everyone’s progress as the day rolls past. Going through Prees, every rider’s team will be cheering you on and lifting your spirits, until you start to think you might actually finish this crazy race.

I first did a 24 in 2011 and I went a bit native: the last eight years have seen me bashing up and down dual carriageways trying to eke out the seconds at every distance. I’m unlikely to return though, as I’ve hoovered up all the easy gains and most of the moderate ones too. Any improvements left will be bought with serious effort, and a nice 200km jaunt round the Dales is looking more and more attractive by comparison. Then again, you should never say “never again”. Oh, and by the way, I did 468.52 miles. RESULTS Audax UK Members Rob Bullyment 484.21 Christopher Hall 470.40 Greg Melia 468.52 Mark Nicholson 453.30 Simon Cullen 451.79 Samuel Crossley 437.30 Russell Kesley 428.98 Adam Watkins 428.28 Chris Hopkinson 428.26 John Forbes 424.34 Paul Wainwright 421.55 Dave Greenwood 420.99 Hector Kidds 416.92 Steve Ralphs 414.98 Ede Harrison 414.55 Jed Friskney 409.03 Paul Revell 402.66 Philip Richards 398.24 Andrew Rowe 391.07 Jon Fairclough 385.83 Lawrence Webster 374.20 Jocelyn Chappell 374.09 Georgina Cleere 353.74 Benjamin Mccreath 344.53 Steven Abraham 292.77 Philip Jurczyk 312.28 tandem George Berwick 312.28 tandem

Winners: Graham Kemp 544.32 Christina Murray 478.42 THE SUPPORTER Byron Buck As a helper you are constantly trying to read the mind of your rider, thinking what it is they may need next time round, especially in the second half when the suffering really sets in, but it’s the surprise requests that really catch you out. Shortly after I did an early morning trip to the garage shop to browse the selection of pain killers and tinned food on offer to give some relief from the back ache and the monotony of energy bars, Dean and I were greeted by the sight of Greg refusing a bottle hand up and instead stopping and lying face down in the grass. As you can guess, this didn’t fill us with optimism.

Our job was to keep him moving and this little stop seemed to work, as his condition rapidly improved and he went on to an inspiring performance. As a supporter, like a proud parent, you are willing your rider on and, while you want everyone to do well, you want your own rider to do that little bit better so seeing him pick his pace back up and fighting through the pain for the last few hours was quite a sight. Despite having ridden the event, it was seeing it from the other side that made it really hit home how hard it is, and the effect it has on those competing. Perhaps this is only possible when you see it in others, rather than when you are the one suffering. Whatever it is, if you enjoy long distance cycling, you are missing out if you never get involved in this in some way or another.