More often than not, cycling event names don’t really reflect what you’re letting yourself in for. The name Fred Whitton Challenge for instance doesn’t exactly quantify just how hard those eight high mountain passes will be, and the cake stops on the Richardson’s Rumble leave your stomach far from rumbling. However the Hell Rider, a new event for 2011 this June in West Wickham Park, Buckinghamshire, delivered all it promised and then some more. There was pain; there was torture. And it was all our fault for signing up because the Hellrider did exactly what its name suggests.
Beforehand, The Bike List team, Oli, Paul and Barry, had the vaguest inkling that this event would be pretty tough; Hellrider is an 8hr duathlon comprising alternate running and biking legs either solo or in teams of three or eight. However, once half way in, we knew it really was going to be one hell of a day.
“It seemed like a good idea,” said one of the organisers, Paul Magner, laughing as the first runners tore up the first hill. “I think they should pace themselves a little better,” he mused. “As far as I know this type of enduro duathlon hasn’t been done before.”
Here’s how Hellrider works. Leg one involves a 5km run. ‘Not that bad,’ I hear you thinking. Most strong bikers who never do any running can just about cope with that. However, the first 5 minutes involved running up an unrelenting climb on soft, unforgiving ground that reduced even the best runners in the field to survival speed. Essentially the idea was to break you, and break you early. If that failed, Mr. Magner and his team had something else up their sleeve. After a short respite, disguised as a narrow track twisting down a steep descent through a wood there was climb No.2, followed by a short drop and then climb No.3, which just about finished you off.
To be fair, even Hell can’t punish you all the time. The run did gently drop down towards the finish line, easing before a final cruel blow, a short wade through waist-high water, followed by… another wade through the same water a little bit further down just in case you had forgotten what it felt like. Any rhythm you had generated in that final half mile of running quickly turned to survival again as the deep water reduced you to the slowest of walks. One or two tried to run and fell into the murk!
Of course, that’s only half the equation. What was to follow next really was Hell – the bike leg. Fortunately our team bike was a Giant Anthem X 29er full sus racer, the perfect machine for the route ahead. Relay teams gratefully handed over to the next team member, while individuals jogged into the transition zone and readied their bikes for the 7km leg. The distance sounds friendly doesn’t it? Just 7km. For road cyclists that’s barely 10 minutes of action. Hell residents needed to think longer, much longer. Remember that running hill? The bike leg offered something steeper. Right at the beginning you had to search for the smallest gear available and reduce your pace to a survival crawl, just as the run had. Then, like the run again, recovery was offered with a mildly technical descent through the woods. Admittedly that was fun and actually pretty quick with plenty of room for passing other riders, lulling you into a false sense of security about your place in the race.
Welcome to Hell. As you flew out of the woods, a steep climb awaited – so steep most riders had to get off and push. However, Team Bike List found that Giant’s Anthem X 29er was impressively steady at low speeds up this hill, allowing us to grind all the way to the top - providing our legs would let us. More twisting descent followed before – you guessed it – that old trick of one hill, swiftly followed by another. The first was just about achievable, but on the next, rider, after rider got off and pushed… again. And remember this was only a 7km ride. There was still 2km to go. However, that was the worst out of the way and all that remained was to fly down the hill, back into transition and… for your team-mate to head out again on another run, the same run that tortured you so much slightly earlier in the day.
As a point of reference, The Bike List team included one former sub-four minute miler, another speedy runner and an excellent cyclist. Currently the runners of team Bike List can do around 18min for a 5km, but this Hellish 5k took them 28min, which should give you some idea of how horrible that route was. Even our best mountain bike man still took over 20min per 7k bike lap, thanks in part to the bike. Each of our team managed just three runs and three bike rides in the allotted eight hours, although amazingly some teams did manage more. The finish line never seemed so welcoming, even if it did involve wading through the river one final time to get to it. Hell was over. But the funny thing is, now it’s over, we’d do it all again next year!
Want to compete? Go to www.hellrider.co.uk they’re desperate to meet mad athletes like yourself…
Posted on Friday, 17 July 2011
