(soft music)
- Summer solstice, the longest day of the year,
and this was to be my longest ride.
The South Downs Way, start to finish.
100 miles in one day.
Winchester to Eastbourne.
(bike chain clicking)
(upbeat music)
First thing in the morning,
what is it, quarter past five in the morning.
Sunrise is amazing,
I can see a group, four or five riders ahead of me.
Must be doing the same as me.
(upbeat music)
I recon I can see the Isle of Wight,
that's where Blake lives.
Hey Blake!
Ah, he's not there cause he's gone
on holiday to Scotland and this was his idea,
someone riding sun up to sun down and I'm doing it.
But, so far so good.
It is six am.
(upbeat music)
Alright so 16 miles in,
it's been gently sort of rolling hillside,
that was my first punchy hill,
down to my lowest gear.
I've got a tube bar on,
I was down in grainery,
trying to keep my power as low as I can.
I've got to power me to
Just trying to keep it nice and low key but sustainable.
I've only done 500 meters climbing so far,
I think it's 3000 for the 100 miles,
plenty enough to beat.
(upbeat music)
Okay so now, seven o'clock in the morning,
been riding for two hours and fifteen.
It's nice to hit a little bit of tarmac,
bit of rest, bit of smoothness.
I've just seen the Isle of Wight again,
it's getting closer.
That'll sort of give me a bit of
a set in scale for this ride.
I've got to go past Brighton to get into Eastbourne
and that feels like it's a long way away from
the Isle of Wight.
So, don't know, 20 miles in.
That's a fifth of it,
but my legs are actually starting to feel it a little bit,
that's surprising as well but as they say,
head down bum up, hopefully it'll come.
(upbeat music)
Oh yeah, and it's seven o'clock in the morning,
and I've just eaten a sausage roll,
not proud of myself but my computer says
I've burned 1000 calories already,
that's got to be a record for seven o'clock
in the morning for me.
♪just close your eyes♪
30 miles in now, so about a third of the way,
and the scenery has just opened up,
it's amazing,
some of the U.K. viewers will probably know of Mint Sauce,
the cartoon that was in MBUK,
probably still is actually.
This look exactly like Mint Sauce,
like I've just ridden into a cartoon.
(upbeat music)
If you look closely over my shoulder,
you might see a rambler sat down.
That is a relatively elderly gentleman,
probably in his seventies.
He was just walking along, naked from the waist down,
tried to put some shorts on and fell over.
Then he sat there and but his rock sack over
his lap whenever I passed him.
That's weird.
(upbeat music)
So it's half eleven now, 47 miles in,
just stopped for breakfast I guess you'd call it.
Scrambled eggs on toast, coffee, and a Coke,
and time to knock off the last 53 miles,
to Eastbourne.
(upbeat music)
Straight after lunch and into the toughest climb yet.
I think the hills are changing now so there's
lots of little ups and downs before lunch,
but I have done half the climbing already,
but now it goes into just bigger, longer, drawn out hills,
you can see 'em coming.
Actually, legs feel alright.
Sometimes you get back on the bike after a sit down,
they feel terrible but they feel alright.
It doesn't feel too bad physically,
but it just feels like I've seen loads,
it feels like I've seen loads of tracks, loads of gates.
Still 50 miles to go.
This is gonna be the biggest off road
ride I've ever done today.
I got into doing quite a few big road rides last year
and got fairly fit.
So regularly doing over 100, 150 mile rides.
Actually this is the biggest ride I've done
since I maxed it last year.
So I'm getting the fitness back,
There's a few little negligent injuries still,
I've actually got screws on the inside of my ankle
which kind of rub on any pair of shoes I
seem to try and wear so that's a bit tender,
but it's not too bad and hopefully fitness
is starting to return a bit.
(upbeat music)
I could never have pictured myself 15 years ago
doing a ride like this.
I think the older I've got the more I've sort of
mixed up the type of riding I do.
I still sort of feel like I'm that downhill racer
but I really like a bit of riding now.
I mean I've been riding for a long time
so the catch is you get bored if you do the same thing
all the time so it's kind of nice to just get on a
cross country bike.
Go and ride some mellow trails and just challenge yourself
in a different way.
I've actually started to really like doing stuff like that.
Don't get me wrong, I still love jumping on an
Endura Bike and shredding it but this is also fun
but they call it type two fun where it's sort of
satisfying and fun after you've done it.
(upbeat music)
I've got a good reference for those British viewers.
Feels like I'm riding through the set
of The Darling Buds of May,
just sort of amazing countryside,
some really posh houses,
I've seen spitfires, seen lots of very British things.
That's a really nice part of the world.
I've seen cows, sheep, I've seen a deer.
I've seen ducks, geese, I've seen some chick of some sort,
a grouse or something, I don't know.
Kind of don't know my wildlife that well,
but it's pretty cool.
Bike sort of is a really good way of sort of sneaking
up on wildlife and getting to see 'em up close.
Wonder what else I'll see.
(upbeat music)
That Spitfire is following me.
I think there must be actually quite a lot
of World War II history around here.
I know there's a Churchill tank in one of these fields.
I saw it on the websites I founds loads of information
about this ride on.
But also I guess D-Day must've been launched
from some of these beaches on the side coast so,
I don't know, let me know if you know.
I'm 60 miles in now,
and the way my brain works I try to work out
as a fraction of how much I've done.
So it's about six tenths and that is three fifths.
That seems to take me way longer to work out into my brain.
It's getting more stupid the further I ride.
So three fifths, that's almost like Wednesday
if you're talking weeks, so that's humpday.
So once you're over humpday there's only two days
of the week left, Thursday, Friday.
Two fifths left, seems easy!
Anyway.
Let me know if I'm babbling on,
I think the further I ride, the less sense I make
and the less chance of this selfie cam
is gonna get into the final edit.
(upbeat music)
I've seen a couple of amazing looking
motocross tracks on the way.
See that one right over there in the valley.
Looks like a cool place to go and spin some laps.
It's crazy dirt right here,
I've never ridden anything like it.
It's all white, the trails are,
I guess it's a mixture of like chalk and flint.
But it's so picturesque, I can see over there,
it's winding back up, pretty big hill.
(upbeat music)
So I'm doing the ride self supported,
so carrying loads of food in this bag here.
I've got a saddlebag, stuff in my pockets.
My computer says I've burnt 3,600 calories in 60 miles
so that's loads gone, loads,
but also carrying two water bottles on my bike.
So one thing you really got to plan is where you're stopping
for water and there are,
loads of these public places to fill up on route.
Just important thing is try and remember where they are
so what I've done is I've put a printout
on my top tube so with the mileage, the name of the place,
and where I can fill up.
78 miles in, feels like I've the broken the back of it now,
and this amazing corn field.
That looks like Eastbourne,
up one more hill,
I hope.
I could have a nasty surprise.
It's now almost seven pm,
I've got less that five miles to go,
and the sun is starting to go down a bit,
but not down,
still up for a few more hours so I could ride for longer
if I wanted to, but I don't.
And there is one more hill of course.
Eastbourne.
And loads of other mountian bikers
finishing off at the same time.
Done.
100 miles, 14 hours 40 minutes,
I think it was about 11 hours of ride time
but it was a big day, it was really cool,
really enjoyed it.
If you wanna see another big day where I rode
the Italian Alps with Sochin, click over there for that one.
Give us a thumbs up if you like watching me suffer.