For the past 4 years, there has been a collection (or gaggle – what’s the term for a group of cyclists?) of riders that make a 100 mile journey through the night from Bristol to Exmouth,

This year, Fixed Gear Cardiff were part of that collection.

For us the ride started at Bristol Parkway which, as many of you know, is nowhere fucking near Bristol – 6 miles to be precise. Things didn’t start well with Oz losing his chain after just 3 miles.

Still, we all made it to a hotel-come-pub, the start point where a cheeky pint was necked and the final bike checkovers were done. It was nice to see some familiar faces from trackdropouts, in particular Jason who clearly knew that Cardiff was going to kick his ass that night! It was also good to see Rich, one of our polo regulars who travels from England to Wales most weekends…

We set off at about 9pm and headed over Clifton suspension bridge, each of us with an idea in our mind as to how harsh it would be. It was a mixed bunch – 13 of us intending to stick together for the distance – some fixed, some single speed, some fully geared.

After the first few miles we’d split and we had the 6 of us from Cardiff riding fixed, plus Chris who has just started riding so can be forgiven for “gearing up”. Dan Bryson is a different matter– technically a fixed gear rider but a man who decided that he wanted to put his gay suit on for the night and ride his new Van Nicholas titanium geared bike…

After 30 or so miles the first hill hit us, but it wasn’t so bad (although quoting the words of Graeme from Bristol “there are quite a few false summits”). Once we’d done this it was a fairly hairy descent down Cheddar Gorge after which we had out first tea break. After the warmth and biscuits were done, we were back on our way, safe in the knowledge we still had 70 miles and 2 more hills to go…

Luckily, at about 55 miles we got the pasta stop – and sweet baby Moses have I ever tasted basic pasta and tomato sauce as good as that! After a good 30 minutes break, it was back on the bikes and ready for the second half.

All the way along we were chewing the fat over which of the 3 hills was the biggest. I mean we’d all looked at the route guide but all of us had different opinions as to which was the worst climb. Once we got to number 2 the arguments stopped. It was massive. And like the first, it also had a number of false summits – but we fought on through, fixed keeping up with geared and rejoicing at the top of the climb. At this point the sun was just coming up, a suprise tea stop loomed on the horizon and we knew we’d broken the back of the ride.

We had one more tea stop and then it was the final, easier leg – notwithstanding that big bastard hill that was going to hit us at 96 miles. We thought we’d got up it a number of times actually, but each was a slightly delirious, sleep deprived attempt at cheering ourselves up. When we finally got to it we knew it. The searing knee pain, the thought that we’re nearly the, the intense squeaking of Chris’ pedals… Still it was over quick enough and we were making our way into Exmouth, a shit eating grin on our faces.

Once there, we tucked into a full English and sat in the sun waiting for our minibus and trailer back to Bristol. Unfortunately it was the hottest, most uncomfortable minibus in the history of motor vehicles but at least it wasn’t a saddle. We were all grateful for that.

More photos can be found over on my picasa album