The Bike: 2024 Orbea Orca OMR  Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset Deda Gravel100 handlebar Selle Italia Novus Boost Superflow Endurance saddle OQUO Road Performance RP35TEAM carbon rear wheel Handbuilt SON Dynamo carbon front wheel Pirelli Cinturato Velo 700x32 tyres Profile Design Tribars Post-Race Insights My overwhelming takeaway from this race was that the bike was outstanding, I really couldn’t have asked for a better steed to take me up the mountains. Smooth, comfortable, lightweight, and handled beautifully through the hairpin filled descents. It also held its own off-road, not that I would recommend taking it onto trails quite as rough [...]

It’s a little under a month to go until the start of the Trans Pyrenees race, a reportedly 1700km (but closer to 2000km in reality) road ultra through the mountains of France and Spain. The total distance, and thousands of metres climbed, will vary from rider to rider due to the self-routing that takes us from Saint-Jean-de-Luz on the west coast of France to Palafrugell on the coastline of the Costa Brava in Spain, before we turn to pedal back on a mostly fixed parkour along the route of Le Raid Pyrénéen Randonneur.For those who want to read more about the [...]

The dust has settled on the second edition of the Blaenau 600, and we’ve slowly started to reflect on an incredible few days. From waving riders off as they embarked on their adventures, to chasing dots around the Welsh mountains, and ultimately welcoming them home one by one and sharing tales from the trails over pizza and beer, it was a joy to be a part of! The people make the place, and the people made the race. Once again we were lucky to have a brilliant group of riders take to the start line, and the sense of [...]

In the final instalment of this series of the adventure diaries, staff member and ultra rider Molly takes us into her final night in the race and her decision to scratch the next day. Struck down by some sort of respiratory infection, she was left with no choice but to leave the race, but that doesn’t make the decision an easy one to make. In a departure from the usual format of these blogs, Molly swapped a pen for a microphone and recorded this as an episode for her new podcast, The Unsupported Podcast. Taking you on a deeper [...]

I awoke from an interrupted few hours of sleep, weary and aching from the effort of the previous days. My lungs were full of congestion, but despite the frequent and horrendous sounding cough I had developed, my breathing still felt clear. Well, not exactly clear, but functional at least. This remained an annoyance rather than a big problem, and I chose to believe that it would stay that way. Packing up once again, washing down some stale bread from the night before with a bottle of coke, it was time to go. It was by far the mildest morning [...]

Dragging your tired body out of a bivvy bag and hitting the road is hard enough when you would much rather roll over for a few more hours of sleep, but it turns out it’s much harder to leave a cocoon of blankets and a comfy bed. It’s best just to rip the band aid off, so I got up and out as quickly as possible. It was 2:30am, the start of a new day. Down the stairs, into a room now packed with bikes, the hotel owner had stayed up all night looking after them as he had [...]

Rolling out of my sleep spot , the trail immediately began climbing upwards. I felt tired, weak, weaving from side to side, and within a few hundred metres I was off the bike being sick again. It dawned on me that it wasn’t a great situation I found myself in, hours from any semblance of civilisation in either direction, with a mountain between me and the next chance to stop and resupply. Just keep moving, slow progress is better than no progress. I kept telling myself this as I continued to climb. The surface began to deteriorate, the gradient [...]

Pedalling into the new day, willing the sun to break through and warm the air; a routine that would become all too familiar. Despite the hours of daylight having technically begun, the presence of anything approaching heat would take its time to appear. Stunning colours began to fill the sky, oranges and reds, light glinting past the hilltops that lay ahead. These were some of the most beautiful sights of the entire ride, moments I had pictured myself in during the leadup to the race. I picked up the hose of my Camelbak to take a drink, and with [...]

Starting a race at 6pm is a new one for me, and most riders agreed that it wasn’t our favoured time to kick off a 1300 km ultra through the Atlas Mountains. We would be riding through some of the most incredible landscapes, up to the highest point of the race, in total darkness, and we wouldn’t have slept for an entire day before riding even began. Still, it’s all about the adventure and this certainly wasn’t an experience we would have in a world outside of this event. My day was spent checking the bags and bike a [...]

The kit faff is always a big part of any event, even when you think you've got your packing list dialled. This is exacerbated when you're heading into fairly unknown weather, with temperatures ranging from -5 degrees and snowing to 20 degrees and sunny. It doesn't help if you leave for said event when the forecast is saying 0, and it drops the bonus 5 degrees as you fly. Nothing a quick dash to decathlon can't solve though. I've known for definite what I'll be bringing along on the Atlas Mountain Race for a few days now, but I've [...]