100% endurance: a 341km (212 mile) bike ride
Dia 34: channelling the enduro spirit for a day-night spin through Chile
Part of Chapter 5 Vuelta de Chile
Then why do you cycle so far?
I don’t know, maybe I want to overcome my fear. And it’s better for me to cycle. It’s better to cycle than to not cycle.
Endurance sport is extraordinary. It fires the soul. You dare to distrust yourself. You dare to disobey. Disobey yourself, that’s the most important thing. That’s crucial. I don’t know if I like the darkest moments, but I know that if I hadn’t been through them I’d be dumber, more useless, narrower minded.
I ride because these routes deserve to live. They are alive. They take me beyond the everyday. Beyond the drill. To a state of mind that can only be reached with total immersion in the present.1
Often it’s difficult. It hurts the mind as well as the body. But when it gets hard, lean into love. Visualize dancing to your song with your best mates. Play that song in the night. Sing it to the shadows. Allow the tears to flow. A burst of energy is on its way.
It’s the joy that will deliver you to your destino.
That, and a shit-tonne of pedalling.
A dynamic night
There were two past experiences that got me through this 25 hour behemoth.
The first, was the inimitable Dunwich Dynamo of July 2022. A 110-mile ride (GPX) from the heart of London to the village of Dunwich on the Suffolk coast, once a thriving port town that was swept away by massive storms in 1268.
The Dynamo is unique because it takes place mainly in the dark. There is no official start time and nor is there an entry fee; riders congregate for a refreshing beer in London Fields as the sun dips towards the horizon, then set off erratically. The aim is to get a beer with breakfast on the beach at dawn.
It throws up all sorts of quirky sights. Bikes festooned in christmas lights, teams of lycra clad yuppies and plenty of modestly dressed folk. Tiny villages throng with five hundred cyclists at 2am, the beers and conversations flowing, a carbon forked invasion from city to province.
The following morning, as dawn broke at ninety miles in, we stopped for a coffee on an empty stomach. The most recent food now hours behind (a 2am greasy chips and veggie burger at a kebabbie back in Sudbury).
The coffee absolutely ruined me. Dazed and confused, calling out for help. Luckily, I was able to ride out the storm after friends ahead stopped and waited.
An hour or so later, the beer on the beach was elite.
Lessons learned.
Due north
At Panimávida, the watch said 341km to Santiago and I had 2 days to do it in (if I didn't want to lose more than one booked night at the apartment).
Lachlan Morton, Aussie don of ultra-cycling, cycled 700km in one go in the 2020 edition of Badlands (excellent film here). I was convinced I could do half that without sleep. Couldn't I?
I still had 70% of my kit on the bike after offloading a few heavy things to Jake the day before. I'd just have to push on anyway.
It was a misty morning, skies clouded and tarmac damp as I slid out of town, straining to see approaching car lights in the gloom. My eyelashes glistened with flecks of mositure, smattering my vision like those little coloured circles you see on the pre-film advert at VUE. You know the one.
The morning progresses from fresh to lukewarm. The thin overcoat stays on for the drop down from Colbún to San Rafael, where I turn north to set compass sights on the capital, 270km straight ahead.
Shadowing the motorway, the temperature rises. Fumes clog the air, heat from the tarmac rises to force sweat from my pores. I progress quickly through wine country. A supermarket dash in Curicó for avocados, bread, fruit and a couple of plant-milk coffees unlock a deeper resolve.
Time wasted outside Vista Hermosa. After scouting out the potential for a river crossing and deciding against it, my only option is shuffling across a very busy highway bridge, heart rattling as lorries thunder past just centimetres away.
I rip the pocket of my shorts from pressing myself against the galvanised steel barriers. The threat of a fall into deep water to the right infinitely preferrable to an instant truck-flattening to the left.
Cold sweats great my arrival to the other side where (unbenknownst to me) my phone drops out of the destroyed pocket. The relief of making it across is smothered by anxiety until I retrace my steps and locate it.
I’ve got enough in the tank to make it to Chimbarongo as darkness falls. My secret here was the continent’s largest portion of chips and a weighty burger with coffee. I’m going to need it to make it through the night.
173km down, 168km to go. Is that actually possible? Fuck it, I’m all in now.
A watershed moment
The second past experience I drew on was a 100 mile run along the South Downs Way in June 2022. It’s at this point that you may decide I am a lost cause. You wouldn’t be wrong.
In the build up to the event, I told everyone who’d listen that it would be the best day of my life. They didn’t seem to believe me.
The expectation surrounding such a race is infectious. With so much hard work put in to even make it to the start line emotions run high. There’s no feeling quite like it. Only 75% of competitors would finsh. Apart from the endless slow miles it’s basically an eating and drinking competition with a continuous one foot in front of the other mantra to see you through.
After an alarm at 3.45am, it was time to pack away the tent in Matterly Bowl, Winchester, and prime myself for an arrival to Eastbourne within 24 hours using just my feet. It was a gloriuous June day, with four mates alternating as my pacers after the initial 50 miles solo, and close members of my family at each of the checkpoints.
Fernando got me heel kicking to Jungle at Mile 60, Howard whispered sweet nothings in my ear during a tough section around midnight.
Admittedly, it was harder to convince myself of this when my big toenail snapped with 28 miles still to go. But pacer Forse wouldn’t let me take my shoe off to have a look, so I just had to grin/grimace for the final marathon as it dug ever deeper into my exposed flesh.
Savage drew the short straw and had to put up with the brunt of my struggles from Mile 89-100; his shift didn't even start till the early hours. Without that support I may well have had a different ending.
After finishing in 22.5 hours (GPX), it was clear in my mind; nothing will be physically harder than that, so just believe, and you will get there.
A day-night cycle cannot be harder than a day-night run. Can it?
Gimme some of that good stuff
The Chilean night was somber at times. Flashing lights streaming past, each on track to reach their destination before me. Late night dog chases were common, it seemed the region's cannines had broadcast a Whatsapp message to their bretheren and stayed up late for the chance to rush and snap.
Several times I pulled over and sat or lay down roadside, searching for peanuts hiding in crinkled cellophane or fishing in panniers for a last drop of Powerade. Anything to not cycle.
San Fernando and Rengo passed in a murky blur, punctuated by the harsh glare of street lamps. I kept seeing dogs or humans ahead, curled in unusual positions, only to get closer and discover they were rocks or traffic signs.
At 2am in a Rancagua petrol station, I felt pretty rough. The photo evidence backs this up; eyes puffy and skin frazzled by the sun.
The problem was, I'd mentally committed to the task. No going back now.
Twice the road veered away from well lit streets and withered into the black. The shadows of mountains were faintly visible high above, aphonic in the darkness. A borracho (drunkard) who’d driven his car into into a barrier shouted at me to help him but it didn't seem safe so I pedalled on.
Dawn light crept over Cerro Maipo. With the capital city ahead, the song I always return to on my endurance efforts filled me with giddy euphoria. I'm freewheeling down to the sea in Suffolk, trudging through the night near Eastbourne and digging deep to reach Santiago all at once.
It's all so pointless, ah, but it's not though is it?
It's really real and when you feel it, you can really feel it
Grab somebody that you love
Grab anyone who needs to hear it
And shake 'em by the shoulders, scream in their face
The morning traffic from outskirts to centre of a city of 7 million was an obscene tetris maze to a wearied mind, but arriving unscathed to the apartment was a final piece in the jigsaw puzzle feeling. Plus, Jake and Nic had sorted breakfast.
I was grateful beyond sense.
“Death is coming for us all, but not today
Today you're living it, hey, you're really feeling it
Give it everything you've got knowing that you can't take it with you
And all you ever needed to exist has always been within you
Gimme some of that good stuff that human spirit
Cut it with a hundred percent endurance”
Endurance sports show me life as I didn't know it could be. They attach wings to my mind and I soar.
Plus, that bit when the harp(?) kicks in. Wow.
“It's hippy bullshit but it's true
Come on, come on, come on, come on, yeah”
Start time: Sunday 14th May, 7.27am
End time: Monday 15th May, 9.08am
Distance covered: 341km (212 miles)
Duration: 25 hours 40 minutes
Minutes of sleep: 0
Chile Chico, now we are one.
2,500km ✅
0 punctures ✅
This was Part 2 of (Chapter 5 Vuelta de Chile)
The story so far
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5
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This passage heavily borrows from Alejandro Zambra talking about poetry in Chilean Poet. Un libro buenísimo.