today we're cycling 500 kilometers around
this velodrome this is a 450 meter track so that's 1111.1
laps i'm doing it all to raise money for two very good causes which i'll talk about later
and uh about get changed because it's getting dark and we're gonna start
490 to go
riding along done 25k which is not very much of 500k legs feeling good still everyone's in one
group getting along nicely i'm gonna cut across now to a quick message from uh my charity partner
ben from tnn
why am i raising money for you uh well you're not raising money specifically for
me you're raising money for the charity that myself and two other people founded
uh called the new normal which is a charity that was founded to help support
young adults through life's difficult moments i think that's what it says on the website i've
probably said that in one of your videos before as well actually the new normal um helps connect
uh people around the world who are grieving so we work predominantly with people who have lost
others so it's an opportunity to create support groups support networks to sort of bring people
together to educate one another and to help one another to teach them that they're not alone in
their grief at the moment we run around about 40 meetings a month and the money that you're raising
will go towards actually helping support those people well thank you very much for all the work
that you do there's going to be links down below to the donation page and your website it's quite
wet now it is also as well i i feel like i should be thanking you for riding 500 kilometers in
the rain in december for the charity um so yeah thank you did you get that what the little fluff
that you had on his head the entire oh did you hi can you follow at dogs by bike i'm not a natural
theo you do it you do it for you please everyone go and follow at dogs by bike on
instagram if you like dogs or bikes or ideally both yeah dogs on bikes and wheelies hi rachel
hello francis what's going to get you through the ride today got any secret tactics you know
what i think it's going to be the people dare i say how squishy and cute that sounds
it is going to be the people it's the supporters it's you guys riding with me i think we're going
to get each other through so yeah talk to me at like 3 a.m and i'll probably tell you something
different we are 10 done charlotte how you feeling oh dead yeah soggy and dead soggy
and dead oh nice a little bit of pepperoni i think there's been like jalapenos in there
i think we're about 100k in drive-by pizza is being consumed we are all extremely damp like
mega moist there is a pool of water in my shoes but we're all smiling we're all happy
400k to go in there into slice so when i heard everyone cheer that they'd done 100k
i felt great for them right but i remember last year feeling that 100k and be like this is going
to be a breeze and it it just it won't last for long yeah it's not going to last for long
france is from the future here i thought i'd go through a few bits that i've got on my bike
in terms of the setup and other things that helped me get through this ride because a lot of the
equipment was really really useful especially when you are extremely tired starting off with
something very simple heart rate strap this is the official garmin one but i was measuring both
heart rate and power with my garmin rallies in order to gauge my effort but mainly stop
me from riding too hard so i gave myself a heart rate cap to definitely under no circumstances go
over 150 beats a minute which was quite hard to stick to especially towards the end and an
absolute maximum power output of 200 watts as soon as i go over 200 watts i'm not in zone 2
anymore so i wanted to stay at an effort level that i could sustain for an extended period of
time at least right up until the end to really make sure i didn't go over these heart rate and
power caps i set up alerts on my head unit as well so it would basically beep at me if i went over
160 beats a minute you can customize these to be whatever range you want in terms of
head unit i was using my garmin 830 which does have a fantastic battery life but just in case
i was going to end up taking a lot longer than i thought on the ride because you never know
what's going to happen and i wanted peace of mind i've got the charge pack underneath as well it's
basically like a usb power pack but it connects to the uh little nodes on the bottom of the head
unit and basically doubles the battery life of this a great solution because you can just fit
it and forget it something you will forget about when you're riding 500k now in terms
of what i actually had on display in front of me i had set up a lovely graphical data field
screen on the garmin um just because it's kind of nicer to look at and you can see it going up and
down when you alternate speed but i ended up using this one a very simple heart rate power lapse and
the more simple the information was the easier it was to absorb and understand so that's that one
more cool thing here is that i had live track set up so you do that through the garmin connect app
which connects to this so you need to keep your phone in your pocket but then anybody you send the
link to can track where you are so daisy who is there supporting me but running around outside the
velodrome as well needed to know how far i'd gone and she could check it on her phone here's a few
screenshots of what she could see first time using this feature and i think it will be fantastic for
future bike packing trips to let your loved ones know where you are if you haven't got something
like an inreach or a dedicated satellite tracker it's a really good way of doing it it's great to
have all of that tech at our disposal thank you to garmin for your continued support of this channel
now back to the velodrome where we're going to be riding in circles first 100k lovely group
two by two lovely chats everyone in good spirits second hundred k the crowd has disappeared
no one's talking to each other and we're all just cycling in a pace line
dark times 200k done one little thing that's uh getting me through this ride i've set up
alerts on my head unit so every half hour tells me to eat
because otherwise i'd forget and i'm going between either some sweeties like these and uh
percy pigs rice cakes from gabor they're a lifesaver and they've probably got the most
carbohydrate and out of everything or a little bit of carb drink which is inside these bottles
this one uh has caffeine in or or is it this one i just have to drink them both oh yeah i'm also uh
getting my way through these as well bit of salt it's kind of the thing you crave when you're doing
long efforts like this because obviously you're sweating out loads of stuff can't
see anything in this camera it stopped raining for a good few minutes there
300k get in there
we're now gonna cycle around the circle for the next 10 hours in the dark so
i'll check in with you guys in a bit because the footage won't be very good see in a minute
so we're in business sun's out a lot of cycling has happened overnight i've been trying to keep
things steady it's been pretty grim i'm not gonna lie but now i've only got 100k
to go daylight's helping immensely there are some very difficult times overnight for everybody
lots of little power naps i've been trying to keep my stops to a minimum
and it seems to have worked i am feeling it now legs are feeling absolutely shot
got a bit of knee pain that's come on in the night as well so if i go over about 150 watts it starts
to really really hurt but all i've got to do now keep the pedals turning over and keep turning left
not
come on
yeah of course
thank you very much 65k to go wind is picked up we're basically riding in a storm now
i'm eating my second emergency sausage roll thank you jacob may feeling
a bit better than i was must be the sausage roll
hey
and that concludes festive 500 cycling 500k around a velodrome
thanks for watching i have nothing else to say well answer thank you well
i'm going to be spending the next few days recovering that was quite an experience please
head into the link down below to donate half the money is going to ben's charity tnn and half the
money will go towards hearn hill's friends of hern hill charity which keeps the velodrome
in the middle of london fantastic cycling location going thank you so much to all the riders that i
shared the track with i'm going to put links to all of their socials down below if you want to
give them a follow and find out the charities that they were raising money for and thank you
to all the people who supported the event helping us out cheering us on some of the people stayed
all night getting us through the the darkest moments so thank you thank you see you guys soon