"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Badminton 60k Ride - Dec 2024 - South Glos & Wiltshire

Well, what a year I had in 2024. After such a long wait since my last ultramarathon, I managed to complete 3 ultra-distance races in the year. On top of that I pushed myself to the limit to get a PB at the Half-Ironman distance (a modest time on a modest bike in wet conditions, but still my lifetime best and at 56 I'll take that without too much quibbling). Then, sadly, it all came apart as these things usually do. I had been signed up to run the Clarendon Marathon, and then a nasty illness (either flu or who knows, maybe covid) laid me low for a whole month. I was recovered enough to get out there and do the race, which in hindsight might have been a bad idea but the lure of an ancient pilgrimage route was just too much. I ran it, but finished with my old enemy very much back on the scene - patella tendonitis in my right knee. That meant a total cessation of running and the start of a tough regime of physiotherapy & rehab to strengthen and stabilise the knee. Nearly 3 months into that phase I found that riding to work, which had been pretty painful, was pretty much painless and so I decided to up the distance gradually and work towards some longer rides in the Spring of around 100k. Running would have to wait until 2025 (physio's orders / guidance) but cycling was back on the cards.

Not wanting to set myself back with a leap up to epic distances, I chose to ride a couple of 50-60k loops without too many mountainous sections and see how the knee stood up to it. My running/tri history has been a litany of injuries and rehab, so this was nothing new and I did manage to pass the essential test - of being able to avoid despondency and see the positives - which hasn't always happened in the past. I guess the main difference this time is that I know the rehab exercises work and should get my knee back to ultra potential pretty soon.

It was at the tail end of December that I finally got out on the road for this 60k, with the skies leaden and the rain swirling in a lively breeze that kept changing direction. The roads themselves were sodden too and covered in the grime and grunge that we all associate with winter riding in the UK. My route took me out along the ring road path and then up to Pucklechurch, with a lot of hesitation at the junctions as I was following a pretty flakey GPS track. It was taken from RWGPS and had been uploaded by Audax Club Bristol so I knew it would be a good route with a fair bit of the distance on some tiny back roads, but it seemed to be a low-data route, a series of straight lines between points rather than a smooth curve following the roads. This meant arriving at some T junctions to see the GPS track going straight ahead, so I had to stop and zoom out to see which branch of the road it rejoined later on. That minor gripe aside, I was soon into the groove on my merida, up until now a summer bike but now a jack of all trades and all round training machine since I acquired a carbon-frame TT bike which will be my racer from now on.

Soon I was out on to the Cotswold Plateau (via the stiff climb by The Bull at Hinton) and enjoying the bleakness of the rain-soaked and wind-swept fields and their endless stone walls.There were sparse trees bent over in the breeze and the skies remained uncompromisingly dark, but it was just so good to be out there again after nothing but commuting since October. My turnaround point came at Badminton, the village dominated by its vast estate, the seat of the Dukes of Beaufort apparently. Like many Cotswold villages the consciousness was charming and old, somnolent, the lanes unwinding beneath my wheels like a chain connecting present and past.

I soldiered on along the lovely, narrow roads from Badminton up to the A46, then straight over, an easy drag up to the Somerset Monument, a tough and nervy descent to Inglestone Common. Over the mucky roads of the Common I hit another tough descent (due to the rain and the fact I have somehow lost my nerve completely on steep downhills and tight bends) then crossed the stream that marked the low point and began to climb, in and out of the saddle, up to Wickwar. I'd been hoping the cafe might be open but it had been a pretty unrealistic hope - between Christmas and New Year a lot of the country falls into a kind of trance and nothing much is open for business out in the wilds. I stopped to eat half a bar (the other half fell in the gutter as I faffed with thick gloves and zips) then get going again for the return to Bristol. The ACB route was as expected - a loop to Iron Acton then down to the old manor and on to Frampton End Lane, where I had to pick my way slowly through a layer of mud on the car-free road. From there it was a fast section on Beacon Lane and Gypsy Patch Lane to finish. Back out there on the bike, back out in the profound depths of the english landscape axle-deep in history and and the half-aware consciousness of fields and forests, I felt I had turned a corner in my recovery. No bad reaction from my knee came, so I planned another 50k-ish-ride before New Year.

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