Turn of the Century

Riding 100 miles is, by all accounts, quite a feat.

It holds a certain mystique amongst cyclists and can sometimes seem elusive even when the required fitness, stamina, determination, time and nutrition comes together, which for someone of my 51 years is not really that often.

It is best to have a definite plan as just setting out and combining a few favourite circuits and routes lacks certainty. So, accompanied by my son, yesterday we set off to ride out and back from Hull to York.

It is a well worn route, traversed in history by, amongst many, the Romans, Scandinavian Invaders and even a well known Highwayman, albeit in his case just one way as he ended up on the York Gallows for his crimes.

The idea of that route had been brewing in my mind for, well, about 35 years.

I took to serious cycling in 1980 and would venture out for hours at a time. It was usually a foolish exploit with either a puncture, mechanical failure or hunger causing me to cut short a ride or, in the days before mobile phones, try to find a telephone box to summon help from a parent. On one such adventure I was suffering badly from fatigue and energy depletion just near Thirsk, having set off from Beverley in East Yorkshire much earlier in the day. The ailments associated with "hunger-knock" creep up on you very quickly and by then it is too late to regain strength without a drastic cramming down of food and drink.

I was aware of the wise words of sportsmen and women that you should, in order to maintain optimum performance, drink before you are thirsty and eat before you are hungry.There are , of course, more scientific principles involved behind this advice but being young, foolish and combined with a sense of invincibility and resilience I carried on regardless.

It was a case of having to eke out my remaining funds on the nourishing foodstuffs that would fuel the efforts to cover the 60 miles or so to home. I bought, from a pharmacy, a packet of Complan (a branded powder which replaces lost minerals, vitamins and electrolytes after particularly violent diarrhoea), a bottle of Perrier with which to rehydrate it and a Mars Bar.

That epic ride, of some 130 miles stood as my personal daily best until yesterday.

I did, with my younger brother embark on a more reckless ride in 1984 when we, after little preparation, embarked the Channel Ferry at Dieppe in the dark on a July morning and set off to visit my sister at Rambouillet just to the west of Paris. I am not sure how many miles we actually did cover in the following 12 hours because the map we were relying on, a proper Michelin, covered most of  Europe and England at some ridiculous scale which was not able to show any features other than major towns and cities and trunk roads.

Our return journey after the visit took two days as an indication of our folly.

I recently read a few articles on how to prepare for a 100 mile ride by renowned cyclists and sports-psychologists.

They tended to work on key aspects from training regime and bike set-up, efficient pedalling to conserve energy, how to tackle hills, what food to take along and the importance of carving the route into bite-sized sections to give mental encouragement.

I was relying on three factors. No punctures, enough Kit Kats and the hope that the weather would be favourable.

We could be accused of cheating in that our York stopover was at daughter Alice's place where we could be revived with coffee and home made buns but I would, given the choice between a warm flat and a draughty bus shelter as a venue for refreshment, staunchly defend our plan.

We set off at 10am from Hull.

In avoiding the main roads as much as possible ours would be a zig-zagging trek on lesser category and minor roads. The forecast was showing a 30% chance of rain but this seemed a bit optimistic given the cloudy skies, strong head wind and plummeting temperatures (snow had been expected in Scotland).

It was a case of skirting along the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds with a few short climbs in order to get to the flatlands of the Vale of York.

This was quite tough for me with my gravity averse body weight and non-streamlined form and not helped by a 10 minute shower of fine rain. It was quite nice for keeping me cool and no doubt I will have left a vapour trail in my wake as my body heat wicked away.

The pastoral River Derwent bisects the Vale and there are scarce few crossing points.

I had briefly consulted, in the days preceding the ride, an old map to locate bridges but inevitably out on the road got lost in the maze of lanes. We had to backtrack from two dead ends and found ourselves in villages or rather hamlets, we had never heard of. The aptly named Sutton upon Derwent or Sutton over Derwent was eventually tracked down and we sprinted fast but relieved over the traffic light controlled hump-backed single carriageway bridge before seeing, on the horizon, the unmistakable profile of York Minster.

Three hours from departure we reached central York and Alice's pop-up cafe.

I was in a bad state for the exertion. Legs raised up the wall of the living room gave some relief from toxins and cramps. My damp clothing was draped over the back of a chair against a storage heater. Washing my face with cold water gave me a distinctly salty taste from sweat and road grime.

The thought of the return ride was intimidating although actually getting to York after 48 miles was a matter of self congratulation and immense surprise.

The home leg was to be due south to Selby along the tarmac surfaced course of the old railway line before a westward turn. This went well under the influence of caffeine and sugar but nearing Selby the skies darkened and it started to rain promising to sap our energy.

It rained for the next three hours, heavily and with standing water creeping across the carriageway we became speckled with mud and thoroughly soaked.

Oncoming cars with their headlights on meant the downpour was not moving away anytime soon.

We were now back on what we would call home turf and this was reassuring although we were under no illusions that we had a further 60 minutes or so out in the weather.

Lucozade Sport at 79p a bottle is cheap and cheerful and a shop purchase at the 15 miles to go point helped me limp back to the house in reasonable physiological condition.

We knew we had gone some distance in our cumulative 7 hours on the saddle. It certainly felt so on buttocks and legs but the achievement of 100 miles gives a feeling that surpasses all bodily pains.