13 minute read
Something wicked beneath your wheels
The Bristol-Glasgow-Bristol 1,600km (BGB), earned the soubriquet “Beautiful-Grim-Bananas” from Bristol-based rider, Mike Warren when he tackled the inaugural ride this year. Here’s his account of a punishingly long and bumpy expedition which tested his mental and physical stamina to the limits
SOMETHING WICKED
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BENEATH YOUR WHEELS
WORDS & PICTURES MIKE WARREN
MIDNIGHT CAME clear and still. The moon shone brightly enough to wash out the Lakeland stars and condense my view to a pair of silhouettes – a lenticular cloud hanging over Harter Fell, and below it, the jagged droop of Hardknott Pass which ripped my world in two.
My grotty chain was silent for the first time in days… because I was pushing my bike. Everything else was silent too. Lights off, road empty, air warm, wind absent. As I tiptoed up a ribbon of funhouse tarmac, an odd thought came. Here I am, staggering at a snail’s pace, in the dark, way behind schedule, with no accommodation to welcome me, and everything is working out just fine.
Earlier and some way to the west, I’d persuaded a fully-booked tavern to park me in a corner and fill me with pudding. As I was leaving, a group of young cycle tourists struck up a conversation. They had rooms above the bar that night. When I told them what I was doing, they ushered me upstairs to use their shower. So I was clean and fed, if a little drowsy. And with the weather so calm, I needn’t worry about the dangers of a dozy descent. At the col, I rolled out my mat by the roadside, put on a few layers and sank into a devouring ocean of sleep.
How did five days of fine-weather, summer riding turn me into this creature? By now I was feral. I’d given up on sleeping indoors. At mealtimes I sat in shop doorways and drank whole pots of cream to keep my legs turning. I dreamed of sleep while waking; I woke like a startled animal. My plan had splintered into a mess of odd timings and wild variations. My mood oscillated between triumph and despair. My pace mutated just as freely. In truth, I didn’t know I had a finish in me until the final 100km.
Bristol-Glasgow-Bristol emerged from the mind of local organiser Will Pomeroy, whose Great Western Randonnées have invented scores of new Audax routes, and challenged plenty of seasoned veterans. The concept takes obvious inspiration from LEL, but the similarities end rather abruptly. Forget long pelotons, lively controls and stately Alpine climbs – BGB offers solitude, till receipts and stemchewing sickeners.
Great Western regulars will note the organiser’s knack for hilly mischief and roads-less-ridden. BGB is what happens
Golden dusk… Mike Warren contemplates Hirnant Pass, with the first evening approaching
when such a mean streak is given free rein. A thousand miles allows Will to introduce you to a Who’s-Who of celebrity climbs – Hirnant, Hardknott, Wrynose, Cross o’Greet, Snake, Nick of Pendle and others – all in one meandering journey around the lumpiest parts of Wales, the Pennines and the Southern Uplands.
These epic summits are glued together with innumerable, unnamed local lung-busting lumps, such that throughout the week’s riding, there’s always something wicked beneath your wheels. And that’s to say nothing of the vast stretches without resupply, or the timehoovering, bike-murdering rough stuff that crops up when you need it least.
This ride makes no compromises. It’s not your friend and it doesn’t care that you’re tired or hungry. All it can offer you in return for your grit is a constant flood of Britain at its wildest – silent fells, vertiginous dales, ancient tracks and towering pines – for days on end, virtually uninterrupted. If you find that’s enough to motivate your next pedal stroke, then you’ve accepted BGB’s bargain, and there may be no saving you from what comes next.
Entrants gathered at five o’clock on a Sunday morning, in a city centre still roiling with washed-up party animals. Framed by the cathedral and chanted in by kebab-shop choirs, Will gave the benediction and set us off. Vilas Silverton, who’d survived the challenge a few years ago, waved on with twinkling encouragement.
Having escaped England by bridge, the initial stretch rattles through the Welsh Marches to Hay-on-Wye. Hosting the breakfast control at a bike shop may seem over-cautious, but with only four hours gone, I was down one inner tube and had to queue for it – the rider in front had misplaced a spoke. Coffee and bara brith would need to suffice for the next stint, bouncing up and down Radnorshire’s
Another treasure… the aptly-named descent into Crackpot
grottiest lanes, with our first taste of the high ground coming as we crossed the commons at Rhulen and Dolfor. Afternoon tea was a more salubrious affair, with hot pizzas and warm welcomes at the now-famous Dafarn Newydd stores by Lake Vyrnwy.
Solitude followed. I trundled alone by the lakeshore, pondering the evening ahead. The route hops the Berwyns before turning to join the Bala-Ruthin road, and the day was dying as I tacked east. I met Hirnant Pass in golden dusk, the Clwydians in scowling shadow. Cheshire was tranquil and sodium-lit. My night’s work was to thread between urban sprawls from the Mersey to the Ribble. The towns fell behind me in pleasing order.
In Preston, with 380km and 22 hours behind me, I trudged contentedly into a hotel room. The phenomenal elevation profile elicits a generous time allowance, and by my standards it had been an efficient day’s riding. I fell asleep with 14 spare hours in my back pocket and a sense of optimism. BGB would consume both of these promptly and with relish.
The next day began pleasantly enough. The weather remained somewhere close to miraculous. The Forest of Bowland wore its best colours, green shot through with gold gorse and violet heather. I heaved up to Cross o’Greet, gawping at paint-pot fellsides, and descended like a fireball from the heavens. The heart of the ride was in view, but the terrain was stiffening noticeably.
At Ingleton I lost half an hour reassembling my chain, and questioned my wisdom in hacking together a spareparts drivetrain the night before departure. Moments later, with Ingleborough and Whernside gating the Dales ahead, I was collected by clubmate and PBP tandem ancien Ollie Skittery. He’d risen earlier than me, and carried a spring in his cadence. I got a hurry on, and we rode together, passing the Ribblehead Viaduct, before peeling off the tarmac for the first stretch of rough-stuff on Cam High Road. The crunchy surface quickly gave way to a rutted, boulder-strewn ditch. My handlebars started bucking like a pneumatic drill, and we won our next few kilometres at a slow, nervous clatter. Overall, we were exhausting ourselves, at little better than walking pace.
We spent an hour depleting the tea-room at Bainbridge before lurching up The Fleak, behind which Will had hidden another treasure – a rubble-yard descent to the hamlet of Crackpot. Walking this cost us time; riding might’ve cost metal. And with yet another mountain to clamber
❝Lockerbie… a serious cooked breakfast occurred – I demolished it without blinking ❞ ❝ We spent an hour depleting the tea-room at Bainbridge before lurching up The Fleak ❞
Filling station… A very full Scottish breakfast with PBP ancien Ollie Skittery
Towering taiga… much of the ride takes you through deep boreal forest
ahead of that, our Barnard Castle dinnerdate became a haggard Co-op lurk. Night was on us by the time we struck out for Northumberland, but its enchanting stillness proved enough to settle the nerves. The North Pennine ridge roads laid on garlands of eerie mist, and the hillcountry rhythm of struggle and swoop took on a metronomic feel.
My plan had been to use day two to push into Scotland. After one mechanical, vicious gradients and hours of arresting gravel, midnight saw me hours behind target. On the sunny side, since noon I’d had the best possible weather, scenery and company. Ollie had planned his trip thoroughly and had booked a cabin north of Hexham, and when he offered me a space in the room I gladly accepted.
In dawn’s chill we followed the Tyne up to Kielder Water, deer and hares springing across our path. The forest trail was deserted. On the Roan Fell road our pace quickened as we looked ahead to Lockerbie. Here a serious cooked breakfast occurred – I demolished it without blinking.
We reached Galloway Forest Park in the afternoon, having drifted apart sometime earlier. The tracks were tougher going than I’d expected, and each climb challenged me to out-pedal the midges. The landscape rose to the mood; Loch Dee was a mirror in a mouth of mountainfangs. I found Ollie on the other side of a gut-loosening descent, fixing a puncture. The evening approached, and we paired up for the dark hours, tearing into the Ayrshire plains.
After Kilmarnock, one last cluster of climbs brought Glasgow glittering into view. Halfway had come and gone, and here at the zenith, facing home for the first time in three days, I expected some swell of emotion. What I got was a workmanlike urge to continue. At one in the morning, crossing the Clyde, we parted ways – Ollie to his pre-booked accommodation, me to a shaky plan involving “carry on” and “nice bench somewhere” – I wanted out of the city before morning. Carrying on was easy enough, but the bench I chose was far from nice.
I swilled down coffee and rolls in a truck stop and for once the route shed
miles without a fight, coach roads tracing the Clyde and Annan rivers through border country. In Lochmaben I dined with a fellow rider and about four hundred wasps. I felt like a heap of jelly by this point.
Back in Lakeland, Ollie shot past me while I loaded up on kiosk sandwiches. I got going quickly enough to see glimpses of him for the next hour. The following morning, I was caught again crawling out of Hornby. Together, Ollie and I traversed a long gravel ridge-road, a cruel sequence of Bowland fells, and finally the historic Cotton Famine Road. This resembled a quarry spoil-heap on the way up, and a frightful cobbled ‘berg on the descent, both to be tackled with a combination of dopey mind, broken body and battered bike. It was not a relaxing experience.
Duly rattled, we took tea on the steps of Rochdale’s Co-op. It was here I noticed a weakening of my own grip on reality. I forgot how to chew. My hands and feet felt like they were miles away. Shadows flickered like bulbs, and I struggled to remember where I was. Several nights of disco-naps and disorientation were about to converge, and I had maybe an hour to find a bed and buckle in. My whole ride was going down the tubes. I was wrecked. Ollie and I parted ways, him making a beeline for Snake Pass and the High Peak
Returning south… through Bowland on the spectacular Hornby Road
Rising mist… Lakeland in the late summer evening sun
while I booked a no-star hotel in Oldham and got ready to sit still.
Twelve blissful hours later, things were a little different. I felt great! I had 350km left to ride – not insignificant, but nothing I hadn’t done before. And two whole days to get it done! I still have no idea how I managed to lose and rediscover such a time-buffer along the way. Aside from a few Peak-land passes and Cotswold stingers, the rest of the route was a rolling, flowing dream. By lunchtime I was through Derby with a bellyful, and early in the evening I heard a “forsooth” flying over the parapet of Stratford’s outdoor theatre.
The final hours were wracked with impatience – I always feel this at the end of a long journey – and featured a minor crash on a squirrelly Cotswold descent. Finally, at bang-on two in the morning, I saw the organiser standing outside his house to welcome me in with a big grin, a homemade pizza and a splash of good whisky.
Big rides like this spark so many experiences that prized moments must compete fiercely for their place in the tale. I’d gladly relive the first epic Pennine climb at Cross o’ Greet, the swirls of night-fog on Crawleyside Bank, deer leaping across the
Kielder forest track, the technicolour hush of heathered Cheviot fells, my sheer hare-brained terror at descending the Cotton Famine Road cobbles with drop bars and luggage, or the kindness of strangers in a Cumbrian pub.
For me though, the defining hour was pushing my bike uphill, alone, at night, and sleeping on the summit because I had nowhere better to be.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Warren is a 34 year-old Bristolian who rides with Audax Club Bristol. He says: “I found Audax through cycle touring, and became rather deeply obsessed. I somehow managed to finish the Transcontinental Race in 2019. Nowadays I spend a lot of time getting lost in bleak moorland.”
An indication of BGB’s unforgiving nature is that only nine people have completed the route: seven in this year’s event, and two pioneers beforehand, including the organiser, Will Pomeroy, who’s ridden it twice.
THE BGB EVENT
Bristol-Glasgow-Bristol is organised by Audaxer Will Pomeroy, Audax Club Bristol and Great Western Randonnées. It’s an x-rated ride with no sleep facilities, few dedicated controls and no bag drops. The route, which mainly follows B-roads, forest tracks and cobbled moorland roads, is mandatory. The event is ridden over seven days, though an alternative, known as the Big Gert Brevet, can be Will Pomeroy ridden over ten. pictured with
Following the inaugural ride in 2021, Will is his son Red back in 2016 already planning next year’s event – making it slightly shorter, but adding even more climbing.
The Great Western Randonnees, founded in 2017, is a collection of rides aimed at showcasing the South-West and beyond, based on the extent of the former Great Western Railway.
