This is part of a series of Going Long with Cycling Weekly stories about long-distance, bike packing and adventure riding. Click here to listen to explore dozens of Going Long podcast episodes.
One Sunday morning at around 0400hrs, amid the first fuzzy fade of a new day, I found God. I was riding through the little village of Pegglesworth – a hamlet tucked in among the gentle rucks of rural Gloucestershire – when I happened upon a cottage, at the front of which lay an immaculately manicured lawn.
I was taking part in an annual off-road ultra event run by MTB Epics. The Cotswolds 200 may sound innocuous – perhaps even rather quite quaint – to the layperson, but to those in the know it’s one of the most brutal 200 miles imaginable. The parcours describes a sinuous path up and down the Cotswolds (an area of Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the UK), sending riders on an intrepid voyage across sweeping landscapes, through ancient woodland and up every hill it can lay its hands on. The event takes place in September meaning nights are long, the ground is often moist and mulchy with the first offerings of autumn, and temperatures can dip into low single digits in the small hours.
I’d prepared for such conditions of course – two sets of lights front and rear, wheels shod with Maxxis Ardent for grip and protection, and extra clothing to match any potential chill.
What I had neglected to do though was to make a note of how woefully provisioned the Cotswolds is for resupplies. Yes, the weary cyclist isn’t exactly fighting away offers of sustenance here: gas stations, convenience stores, fast food vans were all notable by their absence. If you want any pastureland or a country pile you’re quids in, but if you’re bang out of luck if you need anything to eat. Or drink.
I’d drained the dregs of my last bottle about an hour ago after having made what I thought was a quite reasonable assumption: that there would be some form of liquid refreshment in the town I was currently in. A pub, a takeaway, an outside tap – anything would suffice.
But it quickly became apparent that Chipping Campden – despite its elegant limestone-clad charm – was one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. The lights were off. Doors were closed. It was deathly quiet. I thought I’d taken a wrong turn and ended up in downtown Pyongyang.
An hour and a good few clicks to the south later things had gone from parched to positively arid. To be genuinely thirsty – not just a little bit dehydrated, but a bonafide ‘I can literally think of nothing else but the procurement and consumption of water’ kind of thirst – in a world where we’re able to simply turn on a tap and imbibe at will, is a strange sensation. One that only few of us will ever have the misfortune to experience.
So when I saw a church hove into view under the haze of a flickering street lamp, I thought I’d been spared. Churches, you see, are invariably equipped with an outside tap. The thought sent me into a delirious frenzy as I hustled through the graveyard and circled the building, certain of catching the glint of a tap in the beam of my headtorch round the next corner. Or the next one… Or the next?
Nothing. I’d found the only church in Christendom without any exterior plumbing.
In and out of the wee small hours I rode, dragging acute dehydration up hills, skirting fields, wondering when I’d find some semblance of civilisation.
Then, the first fuzzy fades of a new day, and Pegglesworth. It’s practically non-existent on the map so my hopes weren’t high. Nevertheless, there WAS hope.
Never, and I mean, never, had the simple act of rehydrating taken on such an ethereal experience – I was, well, in heaven.
This is when I first started to love ultra-distance riding. Not because of this particular hose pipe in Pegglesworth (although it will forever remain in my heart), but because life had been stripped back to the bare bones – food, water, warmth, survival. Every time I go long it feels like an ‘up yours’ to modern society: I’m going out on my bike, I’ll leave the mayhem to you.
Leaving that little cottage and its manicured lawn behind, I doffed the proverbial to its unseen occupants and, restocked with enough water for the next few hours, rode into the sunrise and another day of undiluted living…
