ON THE ROAD
Ahead of riding the Deloitte Ride Across Britain in September, John Whitney heads north to the Cairngorms to sample the new route for the nine-day Land’s End to John O’Groats sportive
As section editor John Whitney continues to prepare for the Deloitte Ride Across Britain in September, he joined event organisers in the Cairngorms for a taster of the new route planned for the nine-day Land’s End to John O’Groats sportive.
More than engine size, horsepower or whatever it is that gets people giddy about cars, Nick Tuppen knows what he likes in his vehicles: exterior shelter. “I’ve spent a lot of time behind Volvos,” he says, taking cover from a howling Cairngorms gale.
Nick is the CEO of Threshold Sports, who runs the Deloitte Ride Across Britain, the country’s biggest Land’s End to John O’Groats bike ride. Today I’ve joined him, and route director Andy Cook, on one of their many route recces for the event. This one is especially crucial, as it’s one of the biggest changes they’ve made to the route in years.
Nick, in particular, is wary of the reaction to it among the RAB faithful, who return year after year and appear, by the sounds of it, to be quite resistant to change when it comes to fiddling with a winning formula.
Right now, and not for the first time today, we’re off our bikes, waiting for our photographer Andy to line up his shot. Nick’s been with Threshold since the RAB’s beginning, out on the road every edition either as an organiser or, like last year, as a rider, so instinctively knows where to place himself on blowy mountain passes. He’s teaching me a thing or two as well, though I, a veteran of many a Cycling Plus photoshoot, should really know better than to be the schmuck stood exposed to the mercy of a brisk Scottish breeze.
A flavour of the stage
As it’s a recce, and time is short, we’ve only ridden choice sections of the route, which began earlier in the morning in Queensferry, on the western edge of Edinburgh, and will end – soon – at the top of the Lecht, one of the most fearsome climbs in the country, let alone the Cairngorms. It’s been their longheld ambition to bring the nine-day event to the national park, but many things needed to fall into place for it to happen. Despite some issues, which we’ll come to, they did rather like the old route, which used to go up the western side of Scotland, via Glasgow and through Glencoe and Fort William and onto Inverness.
Now, on day six of the 2018 event this September, once the ride has left England and Penrith, it heads to Edinburgh, then up through the Cairngorms.
At the time of writing, Nick and co had just dropped the email to participants that revealed the new route, and riders had been straight onto Strava examining the chunky numbers of the Lecht. “They’re thinking that it looks great for racers and mountain climbers but for the heavier riders among them, not so clever,” says Nick. “But by going this way we’ve cut out a climb on the south side of Loch Ness, which is just as tough, so you have to look at in those terms. But it’s a tough climb, for sure!”
In that one quote, Nick sums up the type of rider they’re aiming the RAB at: everyone. Some will want to ride head down as hard as possible, others will show up on the start line in flat pedals with barely a mile of training in their legs (true story), but their doors are open to all – they just insist, with good reason, you do plenty of training – a three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy on broom wagon frequentation is non-negotiable.
There’s no qualification to achieve entry, no stage rankings, no outrageous entry fee to take part – just the promise of a professionally run event that allows riders to see Britain, from bottom to top. “We have this idea of breathless sightseeing at Threshold, where you’re seeing these incredible places and getting out of breath doing it,” says Nick. That’s the way it’s always been, despite discussion in the early days to make it one for hardcore racers, in the style of the Race Across America.
Threshold Sports was set up by Julian Mack, Charlie Beauchamp and James Cracknell in 2008. Cracknell, a double Olympic rowing gold medallist, attempted to break the LEJOG tandem record with former Olympian Rebecca Romero in 2009, as a means of launching the Ride Across Britain in 2010. And everyone has heard of his accident racing across America, where he was hit by a truck from behind and was left battling for his life.
A three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy on broom wagon frequentation is non-negotiable
Cracknell has since sold his stake in Threshold and the RAB is going stronger than ever, if not in the Race Across America-style event originally envisaged. But for events like RAB, which takes over 800 riders from Land’s End to John O’Groats, to appeal to a mass market, it could never be an eyeballs-out race, not to mention that it’s nearly impossible to pull off an event of this size on British roads, legally speaking.
Community spirit
Our ride in Queensferry got underway from the Dakota Hotel, but in September we’ll depart from the rather less salubrious Hopetoun House (the house itself is grand, but we’re sleeping in the garden). What a RAB basecamp lacks in mod cons it makes up for in community – 800 people camping out under the stars, all with the same common interest. It’s Glastonbury on bikes.
“What strikes people when they first get to Land’s End is the scale of it,” says Nick. “Massive marquees, 800-plus tents – it’s this village moving up the country with you. People refer to it as the ‘RAB bubble’, there’s this really good spirit with everyone chasing the same goal. Every day that goes by those bonds get stronger.”
This, day seven of nine, promises to be one of the route’s toughest, not least because of what has come before it. The Lecht isn’t actually on stage seven, but stage eight, with the route dropping down to basecamp at Bellabag before we will reach it. What it does include is the highest main road in Britain, Cairnwell Pass, at 670m. Beginning at sea level in Edinburgh, the stage is uncomfortably light on descents.
The man you can thank for this is Andy, one of the most experienced cyclists and event organisers in the country, having worked for British
How one might enjoy stage seven – !!" miles with close to "#$$m elevation – might well depend on the weather
Cycling as its events manager and as the former president of the UCI’s ‘Cycling for All’ Commission, as well as having his own company. He’s something of a player manager on the RAB, planning and risk assessing the route, keeping riders safe – all while riding every single stage, something he’s done since the event’s inception. He’s also just clocked his lifetime 350,000 road mile – fully auditable, he says. The moon’s only 239,000 away.
From basecamp, he’s taking riders over the Forth Road Bridge. The biggest suspension bridge outside the US when it opened in 1964, it now plays second fiddle to the adjacent Queensferry Crossing, which opened last summer, and now cyclists share it only with buses, taxis and pedestrians.
Andy knows British roads as well as anyone, and makes every effort to plot a LEJOG route that keeps cyclists on roads suited to them. To keep stage distances down (they’re between 99 and 119 miles), as the road network thins out the further north you get, sometimes there’s no choice but to take A-roads. Indeed, once you leave Perth about a third of the way in, you take the A93 pretty much all the way to basecamp.
Ultimately, however, it’s the only road you can take through the Cairngorms if that’s the way you want to go. While the road sees its fair share of fast-moving HGVs, it’s not a super-busy route and crucially, it’s quite an open road, so visibility is often good. For anyone concerned about riding on such roads, there are far more risky B-roads all over Britain – and better, in the opinion of both Nick and Andy, than the A82 road on the other side of Scotland that the new route replaces.
Safety measures
The A82 is the main road that connects Glasgow and Inverness and although the RAB uses it for just a couple of days a year, they’ve taken lots of heat from the A82 Partnership, a group serving the interests of the haulage community and pushing for the upgrading of the route. They’ve put pressure on Threshold to change the route, but Nick says rider safety is his top priority when considering where he sends RAB riders. “It’s all very civil,” he says of his
Unlike camping and potential for foul weather, training is at least one variable you can control Beginning at sea level in Edinburgh, the stage is uncomfortably light on descents
communications with the group. “We want our riders to experience the benefits of the RAB for as long as possible… and local disruption is something we have to take into account in regards to the sustainability of the event. It’s definitely not the driving force, but it’s another reason why we’ve taken this less populated route [through the Cairngorms].”
The change isn’t entirely good news: while the goodwill is in short supply from the folk at the A82 Partnership, it was in spades elsewhere. For example, riders will no longer pass Thornhill Primary School, near Stirling, where the kids would make cakes for the riders and hand them out as they went by.
How one might enjoy stage seven – 112 miles with close to 2500m elevation – might well depend on the weather. In early May it was mostly dry, with a ripping tailwind that felt like a hand on the back for the time we were on the bikes. In mid-September, when I’ll be back here next, nothing is off the table. Last year’s event, which Nick rode from start to finish, was also wet from start to finish, while the year before they barely had 10 minutes of rain. One thing, at least, we should be saved from is snow – the ski station at the summit of the Lecht doesn’t see the levels it once did. The wind turbine probably makes more money than the station was one observation.
Hauling myself over these long, steep Cairngorms mountains in May was a hard slog, but with four months further training and weight loss in my pocket by September, I’m hopeful of making shorter work of it when the event gets underway.
Putting the work in beforehand will make your Ride Across Britain far more enjoyable. “It’s a much different experience when you aren’t worried about being collected by the broom wagon, or staring at the hills each morning wondering how you’re going to get over them,” reckons Nick. Unlike camping and potential for foul weather, training is at least one variable you can control.
As the event goes on, he deals with people who grow more frustrated and angry. But that only comes with weariness and tiredness, so he listens and tries to keep them calm, and later they’ll be back to apologise for losing their rag.
What have I learned today? Well, that the Lecht is as terrifying in the flesh as it is in photos and camping on a nine-stage bike event is something to embrace, not fear. So really I should spend far less time thinking about shelter and put more work into engine size and horsepower.