From the Mediterranean Sea to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean – and back, the Trans Pyrenees Race is a 1,500km ordeal of epic proportions across one of Europe’s most spectacular mountain ranges. Aware that his preparations had been less than ideal, Joss Ridley wasn’t even sure he’d finish. This is the story of how he tackled the 2019 race.
Rising to the challenge of
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NOT BEING A NATURAL CLIMBER, this race didn’t really suit me, but I’d always wanted to cycle in the Pyrenees, and this would give me a flavour of big unsupported bike races, so I entered on a bit of a whim. The event, at the beginning of October 2019, was the first to be organised by Lost Dot, the people behind the famous Transcontinental Race. My preparation wasn’t ideal. All my training had been focussed on my attempt at Paris-Brest-Paris. I didn’t even have a suitable bike for the Trans Pyrenees as I did almost all of my Audax rides on a fixed wheel bike. Being accepted on to TPR in early March gave me the perfect excuse to buy a new “super-bike”. I settled on a bespoke steel frame built by Jaegher in Belgium. The bike was designed to be somewhere between a road bike and a gravel bike, with a SRAM Force eTap AXS groupset, SWS carbon wheels and finished in a glorious metallic burnt orange paint job. It was stunning. The only problem was it arrived in the UK while I was riding PBP – and only six weeks before TPR. My feet and hands weren’t great after PBP, and I wasn’t very motivated to go out and train, even with the new bike. So, come the end of September, I panicked and went out and did about 500km in the week before TPR, but mostly in the rolling Essex countryside. In Biarritz a couple of days before the start of the race, I was still tired, stressed
THE TRANS PYRENEES RACE
is a self-supported, single stage race in which the clock never stops. Riders plan, research and navigate their own course and choose when and where to rest. They take only what they can carry and consume only what they can find. Four mandatory control points and associated parcours, plus four separate parcours, guide the route from west to east and back again, through 1,500 km of the most remote routes of the Pyrenees.
and nervous. My neck ached and I really didn’t feel in great shape. I met fellow competitors who looked super fit. Some had even shaved their legs! The day before the race, the riders gathered to show insurance documents, make sure our bikes were safe and to pick up our GPS spot tracker. Every competitor had to carry a spot tracker so that the “dot watchers” at home could keep an eye on us and make sure we were following the designated routes and not cheating. Every competitor had to plan a route between these controls and parcours, minimising distance and elevation gain, while making sure we could resupply along the route. After working out my route, taking in the parcours and controls, I was facing about 1,600km with 32,000m of climbing. To qualify for an official finish I had exactly one week to make it back to Biarritz. My plan was to cover roughly 250km a day, and leave 100km for the last day. I felt this gave me enough contingency in case of bad weather or other problems. I had
scoped out potential places to stop for the night, and was hoping to make it to a hotel most nights. At the last minute I decided to take a sleeping bag and a bivvy in case I got stuck in the mountains and had to sleep by the side of the road. All the competitors gathered together to pick up their race cap and listen to the race briefing delivered by Anna Haslock. I was going to be cap number 89 – #TPRNo1cap89 – my first personal hashtag! Looking around the room of roughly 100 people, I realised I was definitely in the heavyweight division. I thought to myself: it doesn’t matter, just go out and enjoy the first few days. I went to bed early, anticipating the 4.30am alarm clock and the imminent start of the race.
DAY ONE: BIARRITZ TO SABIÑÁNIGO 268.43KM, 4,441M
It was still dark and starting to spit with rain when we lined up at the start. We were let off in waves of about 20 people. I was in the last wave to set off – obviously
