The next day after my first ever 200k ride I felt completely exhausted. It was of course a tough day with significant elevation and so it was no surprise at all, but it left me wondering... What if I was to go on a multi-day trip with similar daily efforts. Could I susatin that and if yes, over how many days? What sort of training would I need to get there? Would this require a different mental attitude? Would it actually be possible with my current life style? I didn't have any aswers at that point but the idea was firmly planted in my head.

In the several months that followed I continued cycling 10 hours per week on average occasionally going for ~200k rides, which were beginning to feel more familiar and manageable. I had a long-ish break in November 2023 after I started having back pains. Fortunately that resolved pretty quickly thanks to Rob the local osteopath who introduced me to the GMB Elements program. The real turning point happened in March 2024 when I did my first 200k Audax and waking up the next day I felt physically and mentally ready to attempt a 2-3 day adventure. And so I decided to cycle 630k to Edinburgh in 3 days in April.

I decided to stay away from the east coast and follow an inland route. I used Strava maps as a starting point which I then fine tuned to stay on B roads and quiet country lanes as much as possible. The resulting route was then split into three sections:

• Letchworth - Doncaster 240k with 1,800m elevation
• Doncaster - Bolton 200k with 2,800m elevation
• Bolton - Edinburgh 190k with 1,500m elevation

The idea was to cover the longest distance on the first day becasue it was relatively easy and flat. The second day I would be focusing on climbing and probably surviving while the last day would be...trying to finish no matter the cost.

By this point I had some bikepacking experience and gear, but that was pretty much limited to one night outings. I decided to invest in a Tailfin as I have heard so many good things about them. Once it arrived I was amazed by the quality and sturdiness of the thing. My final bike and luggage setup was as follows:

• Ribble CGR Ti set up for road with 28mm tubeless
• Full size mudgards
• Tailfin AeroPack with extention
• Restrap utility hip pack in bar bag mode
• Small Bontrager top tube bag for snacks and powerbank

I decided this was going to be a non-camping trip as that would just overcomplicate things. This time I was going to focus on just riding, filming and resting in comfort, so I booked accommodation at the end of each day. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to use the drone, which I packed into the front bag for easy access. In fact having a 6L capacity at the front of the bike was perfect for all the grab on the go gear and so my jersey pockets were mostly empty which was very nice. The rest of the stuff went into the Tailfin pack which fit everything with room to spare. I packed a minimal set of non-cycling clothes and shoes to have the opportunity to go out in the evenings. I took a spare chain and some quantity of tubeless sealent which for many would seem an overkill. I had my reasons and I had no regrets.

I was promised a warm/dry first day, cool/dry second day and cold/wet last day. My clothing strategy therefore was to dress cold but to have the ability to layer up quickly. On top of that I had tights and warm socks for the last day. A lot of thinking (probably more than necessary) went into footwear. Up until the last moment I couldn't decide whether to use the SPD or SPD-SL shoes/pedals. I use both quite regularly, but I never used SPDs on anything longer than a 100k. My go to SPD-SLs were properly worn in, but for some reason I got a hot spot during a recent ride from Brighton, so I was having doubts. I finally settled on the SPD-SLs. Here is the complete gear list with unused items highlighted:

Here are the Strava logs for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.

I left home at 6am on 11 April 2024. As I was pedalling away I realized that for the first time I would not be cycling back home the same day. When you go out on these short daily rides or even do a long one you always come back home the same day. You may get wet, cold and hungry, you may suffer mechanicals or accidents, but it doesn't really matter becasue you always have "the luxury" of returning home in the evening. It felt different now. A lot more insecure. My destination was 630km and 3 days away this time. I have done it many times when hiking on foot of course, but never on two wheels. Well, there is a first time for everything. Another thought that crossed my mind was that for the first time I wouldn't have to travel to the start of my adventure. I just walked out of the door and that was it - my journey to Edinburgh began.

I weighed the fully loaded bike before I left and it was just over 17kg. Not too bad, but it was quite noticeable on the climbs. After a few ups and downs I quickly re-established the fact that freewheeling with a sizeable load was completely unacceptable on the rolling hills. As I mentioned I was very pleased with Tailfin even before I left, but I was now equally impressed by its riding feel. It just felt like the bike got a little bit heavier, that was it!

I knew I would be tempted to go relatively fast on the first day and so I tried to keep a more relaxed pace. In retrospective I still went way too fast. I think the problem was that I was focused too much on finishing the daily distance early and starting the recovery ASAP. But it probably would have been better to have longer rest stops during the day and go slower even at the expense of sleeping less during the night. My average speed during day one was 25.6kph vs 21.7kph and 22.6kph during subsequent days. I now think it would have made a lot more sense to stay around 23kph. The highllight of day one was rolling into Rutland under the beautiful Welland viaduct.

I finished the planned 240km around 6pm somewhere outside Doncaster. Big thanks to the reception lady at the Holiday Inn who allowed me to take the bike into the room. I did a quick inspection and found that the front mudguard bolt was quite loose (I was actually hearing some rattling noises towards the end of the day), so I fixed that as well as put some fresh wax on the chain.

I am generally a very good sleeper, however I recently started noticing that I was not able to fall asleep quickly after very long rides even if I was very tired. I did some research and it turned out it was a common issue. Basically your body overheats and you need to find ways to cool it down before you go to bed. That evening I actually felt the heat of my body radiating away. Remembering what I read I had a cool shower and cranked up the AC. I washed all my cycling clothes and it was all dry by the morning. For dinner I went to the hotel restaurant in order to maximise my sleeping time. I think I went to bed around 9pm and I don't remember any difficulties falling asleep.

In the morning I attended the all you can eat English breakfast buffet before I continued my journey around 7pm. It was nice and sunny and so I left Doncaster in a really good mood. And then south Yorkshire happened. Ok, I am quite used to and I love the rolling hills of Hertfordshire, but this was a whole different animal. My good mood disappeared very quickly. I am going to be honest, this was the part when I was thinking about giving up non-stop. The ups and downs were driving me crazy. The bike still weighed 17kg and very quickly my body started reminding me that I cycled 240km yesterday. I started feeling things in my knees that I never felt before. I remember thinking how pointless and ruthless Mother Nature was when climbing another one of those short but very steep inclines only to find out that I had to go down and then up again. There were also quite a lot of urban surroundings, which were making me doubt my route choice. So yeah, that part was quite miserable.

Things started changing for the better when I got to Skipton, the gateway to Yorkshire Dales. I had a long lunch at the Two Sisters (highly recommended) and got my thoughts together. I was 340 out of 630km done and so the half way point was already behind me. I still had 100km to cover that day and although my knees were beginning to hurt it still felt far from catastrophic. If I continued at the same speed (which was around 20kph at that point I think) I would reach my planned destination at 8pm and that would be totally fine. I could even slow down beyond that if I had to, I was prepared to ride in the dark. I left Skipton having convinced myself things were OK.

And they generally were. The sights were beautiful again with very few cars passing by. My main challenge for the remainder of the day was to climb the Fleet Moss which turned out to be OK, but I had to bite the bullet and get off the bike at a certain point. The following descent into Hawes was quite unpleasant because of the wind and a lot of vibration at the front of the bike. Not sure if that was caused by the bar bag or something else, but I reallly had to hold on to the drops for dear life on some sections. The knees were slowly getting worse, but luckily the big work was behind me.

Hawes marked the 150/200km point and I was now feeling completely confident that I would be making it to the planned stop in Bolton that day. I had another long-ish break with banoffee cake before pushing on to Kirkby Stephen. I think that stretch between Hawes and Kirkby Stephen was the most memorable - I highly recommend it to everyone. When I reached Kirby Stephen I found the bench that I sat on when doing the C2C walk just over a year ago. I took a rest soaking up the moment .

As I was getting closer to Bolton I caught myself thinking that the bike was my friend. I know that people say it a lot, how they get attached to bikes, give them names and all that, but I never really felt that way exactly. Well, I guess I did now. It is nothing unusual if you think about it. The longer the trip the more you start to depend on it, how reliable and/or fixable it is, you may even learn new things about it, its strengths and weaknesses. You really start to listen to what it has to "say".

The New Crown Inn in Bolton turned out to be a pub with a few bedrooms, which was fine, however I had to leave the bike outside at the back of the kitchen for the night. As I unpacked I realised I left both wall chargers in Doncaster. I still had a fully charged 5K powerbank as well as the unused front light which could also be used to charge things so I was not really worried. I ate a grilled salmon with loads of noodles and chips and went to bed. Again, I don't recall any sleep issues that night.

The next morning I left at 7:30 without any breakfast hoping to find one on the way as I was only 15k away from Penrith, another familiar place from the C2C ride. The knees were now officially bad. In fact they seemed a lot worse then when I finished riding last night. But as long as I kept going easy I could make progress and so I decided to stick to the plan unless the pain would get unbearable.

The only open cafe that I could find in Penrith turned out to be really good, they fed me a delightfully huge breakfast wrap filled with all the mandatory items. I then made it to Carlisle where I stopped to get a new wall charger. Soon after that I was passing Gretna, which marked my entry to Scotland. As soon as I crossed the border a "cycling lane" appeared out of nowhere and started following me no matter where I went.

I started hearing a familiar rattling noise from the front mudguard soon and leaned over to see how bad it was. As soon as I touched it both the attachment bolt and the rubber washer came off. I cursed in disbelief, stopped as fast as I could and prepared myself for the worst only to find both 30 seconds later. After I reattached the mudguard and got moving again I remembered a good advice that one should always take a few zip ties on adventures like these. Something to remember for the future.

From here onwards the weather started taking turn for the worse. In fact when I got to Moffat I was soaking wet from the waist down. I was saved by a cash only chippie and the excellent public toilets, where I rested for about an hour in total. How is it that the most delicious things that we eat end up being the most basic? Simple, you just have to be wet, cold and hungry.

After Moffat the rain stopped as I climbed the Devil's Beef Tub, which actually turned out to be a really pleasant 9km uphill and the views were spectacular, however it got extremely windy at the top. Because of that I opted for an immediate descent, which seemed endless. And indeed it was. Looking at the height profile it was almost 30k of gentle, beautiful and very windy descending. At some point I finally turned north-east towards Edinburgh and caught the backwind. Speaking of the devil. I am pretty sure it was coming from south-west throughout the trip and although not very strong it mostly translated into side wind given my main direction of travel.

I finished in Dalkeith at 7:30pm on 13 April 2024. Technically it wasn't Edinburgh yet as I was just outside the A720, but given Edinburgh hotel prices I decided it would be appropriate to declare victory anyway. Just before finishing I witnessed a magnificent rainbow.

The night before travelling home I spent at a quite an unusual but very nice B&B. We had a laugh with one of the guests and the host over breakfast (with totally random food items) and then I got back on the bike. I was thinking of doing a 50-60k loop around Edinburgh before getting on the train, but 3 minutes in I let these thoughts go as I realised I might not even make it to the station. That's how bad the knees were. The odd thing was that they only began hurting after 2-3 minutes of pedalling, even under the slightest load. I only had just over 10k to cover, but it took me more than an hour as I made numerous rest stops. I promised Anna not to look at any sights as we wanted to visit Edinburgh together some day and the pain did a very good job at that.

To finish off here is the complete list of things that I ate during the trip excluding on-bike fuel:

• Day 1 - toast with cheese/jam and tea, pan a raisin, chicken sandwich, snickers ice cream, crisps, can of coke, jacket potato with fillings, dr pepper, double espresso, salmon with chips, banoffee cake, two ales

• Day 2 - full english breakfast, banana, pan a raisin, cheese sandwich and chips, ginger ale, tonic water, banoffee cake with ice cream, coffee, salmon with noodles and chips, ale, tea

• Day 3 - Crisps, huge breakfast wrap, flat white, sausage and chips, can of coke, two choc bars, ham and cheese sandwich, banana, huge tandoori plate with rice and lots of naan bread after finish, a celebratory beer

• It's totally doable! I finally dipped my feet (and knees) into the multi-day long distance cycling and overall I consider this a success.

• The knee pain came in as an unpleasant surprise. My post-ride reasearch lead me to a conclusion that I most likely run into patellar tendon issues.

• Next time I will try to go slower, rest more during the day and spend less time sleeping.

• Taking the drone was not the best idea as there was just too much focus on simply getting to the finish line. I constantly felt being under time pressure even though in retrospective I am not really sure I was. You actually need to factor appropriate non-moving time in to the schedule for things like these, at least 2 hours per day. On this occasion I simply ended up carrying the extra weight.

• My clothing strategy worked really well. I used everything that I had including the insulated jacket. The only thing I really missed was some sorty of rain protection for the legs. Will be looking more into this.

• Bring zip ties. Apart from the mudguard incident I nearly lost (found by one of the host's dogs) one of the orange straps that attach the Hip Pack to the steering bar and a zip tie would have saved me.

• Mitts are not my thing, but maybe its just this particular pair

• Nutrition - all good, no surprises here

• Ok, next time I will probably leave the spare chain at home. The reason I took it in the first place was that I had the horrible experience of breaking it in the middle of nowhere. I know you can fix with spare links and all of that, but I just wanted to have the luxury of having a 1 minuite fix just in case. Its not that heavy. I will still take the tubeless sealant though.

Thanks for getting this far!