So this is it, this is the post, will we make it, will we get to the race, was it worth it
Why it came about
So some time in 2018, before the pandemic started, things got very tough for me, i'd always been a anxious bugger, but everything became so hard, I only left the house to go to work, did all my cycling indoors, leaving the house was just hard, painful it could almost be said, just going to work caused me stress, once I was there it was ok, but being trapped in meetings was just .. difficult,two things really came to mind, one was being caught in a traffic jam, trapped in my car unable to get away, and then having a stressful day at work and not being able to remove the negative feeling, I hurt myself, and took the wrong mediaction I started seeing a councilor, and was put on sertraline, and things started to improve, and the world went into shut down in 2020, and all the things I was trying to avoid, became unavoidable I stayed talking to my councilor(I still do today) and medicated, and there was some ups and downs In 2022 my employer introduced a whole raft of work benefits, one of which was a months sabbatical if you had been there for over 5 years. Talking to my councilor about it (you see there was a reason for that earlier stuff) she asked my what I would like to do with it if I could do anything, and having watched a GCN video about the Rift, and having always wanted to go to Iceland, I said to do the Rift, and that how it started
Small steps
Having hardly (rather .. not) traveled in 13 years, there was a lot to take on, I didn't have a passport, I'd never booked a place abroad, let alone flown with a bike, but I had 8 months from entering the race to going, I broke these things into smaller chunks, and just did them, my sister and brother in-law decided to join me ... so a party was going to be had by all
Bike Changes
I have decided that I don't like the Bontrager GR2 Team Issue tyres, they are great for around thetford when it is a little sandy and you can drift around corners, but in a straight line on the road and in mud, they left a lot to be descired, so in accordance with recomendations from The Rift facebook group, I have decided to go for Cinturato Gravel M TLR Tyre in 45m, this also meant changing the front mech as the long arm on the mech was recuding my tyre clearance, it's amazing what you learn when you change a front mech :-)
I don't why the sell the Revolt with 52mm of tyre clearance, and then put a mech on that means you can only get 40mm, even with the extended wheel base
When Volcano's strike
One week before we were due to fly out to Iceland, the Fagradalsfjall started to play with us a little bit, the weekend before (we were due to fly on the friday) the area started to experience a large amount of earth quakes, we started to panic thinking that the air space would be closed, and as both my sister and I, are Type 1 diabetic, get stuck out there for long periods was a little bit scary, there seemed to be a lot of confusion over the weekend, but then on the Monday, it erupted, and everybody went, ah that's nothing to worry about, within hours
Getting Ready
Pre Ride
I managed to get a few rides in the week before the race, nothing major just 20 miles in the local area, and 30 mins of leg openers, but I didn't do a pre ride of the course, not just because it was 127 miles long, but it was mentioned that the course was varied, so just riding bits would miss guide you,
All seemed fine, fairly standard, gravel
The Day of the Race
I signed in the day before the race, which always makes life a little easier
It was a early start to the race, we were based a little way from the start so a 5am wake up to be at the start line for 6:15 (which of course turned into 6:30), but I was able to use the toilet and get to the start line, not the best of positions, but not at the back like last time
The start was a bit of a clumsy affair, with lots of stop start, but the start was followed by a fairly long road drag, which I was able to to make up a lot of positions (or at least that's the way it felt), and then it turned to gravel, and the views just got better and better
In the build up a lot had been made of the river crossing cold, thankfully this year (so I have been lead to believe) the water levels were a bit lower, but the water was still cold due to most of the water coming from glaciers
The advice to wear Morino wool socks was sound advice though, and my feet soon warmed up after getting out of the water, there was a sock change station after the final water crossing, it was nice to get into dry socks, bit not essential
Most of the first half was uphill, not to the point it felt like you were climbing Everest, just a constant uphill drag feeling, there were moments when the climb just got so step that you had to push, but whilst you pushed, you enjoyed the views
The only way to describe it was other worldly, I recorded some of the ride, but this is mainly the first half, the gopro mini died because I left it on for to long, and then the pain set in, and my concentration went onto surviving rather than filming
Around the 50 mile mark, I crashed on a sandy decent, nothing major, just a slow crash on a steep sandy incline, but I felt a little pain in my left ankle, felt fine so I carried on. Just before the final river crossing (and change of socks) the route, looped around and this is where the trouble started for me, this year because of the dry conditions there were lots of washboard sections caused but car suspension bouncing on the bumps, they were just made from sand, and you could brush them aside with your feet, but hit them at speed on bike or car and they acted like a non-Newtonian and were as hard as rock, and they were brutal to ride I changed my socks after the final river crossing, like I said before, nice but not essential, but the washboards started to take their toll, every bump hurt and after a little while I got that wet feeling inside my skin, which indicated something has happened, it was strange though, on the road sections and "ok" gravel sections, I was fine and could push on, but on the washboards my ankle just hurt. After the 4th feed station there was long section, it seemed too be newly laid dirt with rocks embedded in it, twisting and turning was hurting my ankle, in the distance I could see people turning left onto what I presumed was tarmac road, but when I got there it was just more washboards, I lost the will to live, screemed, through a tantrum a little cry and then carried on Next there was a long road section, it was just nice taping along an felt in control of the situation, I was praying that the rest of the ride was going to be like that, I group of riders came past me and told me to tuck in, which I did and all felt good In this group we turned onto a gravel road, and I was able to ride away from this group, but then the washboards hit and they caught me up, and I had to stop, pulled myself together, and caught them back up, rode off the front of them, hit some washboards, had to slow down, stop and they came past me again, this was the story of the next miles I got to 102 miles, and after giving a lady a tow, we hit some more washboards and the pain became to much, and to be honest with you, I think the mental tole had become to high and after laying at the side of the road (and the group that I mention earlier coming past, and asking if I was ok ... true british style "yes I'm fine") I decided that enough was enough and I was going to DNF at the next feed station, which was at the 105 mile mark, I rang my sister who and they were already there Bizzarly the road between 102 and 105 was tarmac and I was totally fine, and I was starting to have second thoughts, but I pulled into the car park, un-clipped and pain shot up my left side, and I realised that if it was more washboards, I was screwed, so I retired from the race at 105 miles out of 127
Post race
I was a little disappointed not to have finished, but it was the right thing to do, getting into the car was painful and I couldn't put much weight through it, next couple of days were painful, but I feel that I was riding well, and put a good attempt in, and sometimes things are out of your control
Things I learned
Morino wool is brilliant and everybody should have socks made from this
Again I carried a little to much weight, The Rift warned people to have enough food on them the finish the race if the food stations were empty, but I grabbed some food at all of them AND I think I ended with more food on my than I started
The advice on The Rift facebook group was to run something like the Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M tyre, this is a great tyre, but at no point during this event did I feel under tyre'd, I feel this tyre is more suited to something a little more MTB, and this event was a lot more Gravel / Dirt road with no single track or mud, the Gravel H might have been a better choice, or something a little more semi slick
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