Ride across Britain (RAB) and seven lessons for resilience

“If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” — T.S. Eliot

This month—September 2024—I had the privilege of cycling nearly one thousand miles over nine days, travelling from Lands End to John O'Groats. This was not my first time; it was the fourth, and I had the pleasure of doing this with the CEO of our company, Ky Nichol .

How did this happen, and what have I learned personally? How does this apply to resilience plans for IT?

In July 2017, I didn’t even own cycling shorts, let alone clipless cycling shoes. However, I had arranged to cycle further than I ever had, attempting a 55-mile route from London to Southend, with the option to extend it to 65 miles. This was with most of the team at Cutover at the time. Why? One of our colleagues, Madeleine Wakefield , was undergoing treatment for blood cancer, and we wanted to do something to support her.

Thanks to the people in this picture, I somehow made it the 55 miles to Southend—mostly hiding behind Gordon Kirkland and being motivated by Madz's husband and brother, who were riding on a tandem!

Lesson 1: For the team and a plan to succeed your are only as good as your least fit component (me in this case)??

I continued cycling afterward, thinking maybe I should get a bit fitter. John Hobbs , who had done London to Brighton with me—a 54-mile ride that took us all day—agreed. We ended up doing the Coast to Coast route, approximately 135 miles in three days in May 2018.

My ever-helpful friends know how easily suggestible I am to a challenge. Upon achieving this, they pointed out that I had done West to East and, over a couple of beers, posed the question: when was I going to do North to South?

So, I signed up at rideacrossbritain.com to cycle LEJOG (Lands End to John O'Groats) in September—983 miles over nine days.

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” — Lao Tzu

By this point, I was using the Santander cycle hire scheme cycles to get to our office in Shoreditch from Euston station, ramping up my mileage on weekends and evenings. I was panicking about exactly what I had signed up for, so I fairly religiously followed the supplied training plan.

Cut to early September 2019 just before RAB 1: Strava data tells me I arrived at the start line having logged 3,280 miles—the most I had ever recorded by this point in September.

Lesson 2: Preparation and planning will prevent poor performance?

However, this level of training did not fully prepare me for what nine consecutive daily mileage centuries would be like. Luckily, I met Emma McManus , who was somehow doing this ride for a second time which I thought was crazy at the time, along with Ashley and Hannah. We cycled together as a group to the end. Through rain, wind, and cold, we often found ourselves laughing and joking, pulling each other through the darker moments a ride like this entails.

So, when Hannah’s gear cable snapped just 50 miles from the end, we knew we would finish together. Thankfully, we had agreed to head out as early as the organisers would allow, and at this point, we would have walked up the hills in this last stretch with Hannah to ensure we all finished together. Somehow, though, with Ashley pushing her up the hills, Hannah dropped Emma and me to race to the mechanics, who were 30 miles from the end, to see if they could mend her bike. They couldn’t, but despite this we all made it to the end.

I was cycling regularly by now and, having experienced the high of finishing, signed up to repeat this crazy ride in 2020, thinking I would be able to do it again just before I turned 40.

Lesson 3: Adversity will strike, emotions will run high, human teams are capable of more? ???

Unfortunately, COVID struck, and 2020 was deferred until 2021. At least I could cycle during lockdown.

In September 2021, RAB 2: Emma also signed up, lured by the temptation of a golden jersey for completing this ride three times.

Despite everyone being worried about catching COVID, it was another acronym, namely D&V—that caused the most anguish this year, spreading across the campsite fairly quickly, with everyone’s immune systems battered by riding this far and not being used to large groups after so long. Emma succumbed toward the end of day 8 but, through sheer determination and not knowing when to quit, rode on making it to day 9, seemingly getting better by about halfway. This was useful, as I was absolutely knackered by this point, and somehow we got to the end.

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Lesson 4: The thing you planned for and put mitigations in place for probably won't be the adversity that strikes

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RAB 3: By this point, I was able to qualify for a golden jersey as well and was fully up for doing this stupidity again. When Yichen Wu asked about it, we ended up signing up together. On top of the sheer madness of attempting this challenge yet again, I also set myself an additional target that I wanted to achieve, which I had never managed before: to cycle up the Lecht on day 8 without stopping. The Lecht, for lucky people reading this who have never had to ride up it, is a 2.6 mile climb to a Ski centre including ramps of 20% gradient.. So, I stuck to a rigorous training plan and did plenty of prep beforehand, including completing the Coast to Coast to Coast ride 270 miles over two days . Originally, we planned for five of us to do this sub-challenge, but Hannah got COVID, and Emma fell off a wall and broke her arm. So we were down to three of us in Yichen, Ashley and I.

Yichen hadn’t quite realised that trains that far north were not like the London Underground, so like any good product manager, he adjusted the scope and made his ride Coast to Coast to Carlisle rather than C2C2C so he could catch a train back to meet his partners expectations of a Sunday evening return.

Riding as two is definitely harder than riding as three and much harder than riding as five, where you can shield from the wind and help motivate each other.

Lesson 5: The team you have is the team you need

So come September 2023 and RAB 3, I met my aim and rode up the Lecht after 800 miles cycling and sleeping in tents without putting a foot down. The fitness to achieve this was required on day 7 when we rode up and over Glenshee, battling 15-40 mph headwinds for the entire 120-mile day.

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“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill?

September 2024 RAB 4?

COVID struck me in January, and I really couldn’t shake off the last remnants of it. This, along with life’s demands, meant I was ill-prepared in my training. However, I managed to get a couple of hundred-mile rides in but was far short of my normal September mileage. I had just about managed to cover the distance I was going to expect to ride in a little over a week when I arrived at the start line. It didn’t help knowing that Ky is a much better cyclist than I am, and his wife, Laura, had put in some serious training hours, which made me panic!

In 2023, the weather in Scotland was unkind to us, but England was kind; this year, the tables were reversed. It was horrendously cold and wet, particularly on day 5. At the first pit stop, Laura, along with many others, was swiftly taken from her bike to a waiting car with its heaters on full, and told to wait until she warmed up.?

Unfortunately, many riders had their rides cut short that day due to the extreme weather. I was also close to having to withdraw but, at least due to my lack of training, I was carrying a bit more insulation from the cold. However, my seat post clamp had decided to snap at mile 20. Channelling everything I had learned earlier in the year on the Tour of Flanders about riding in wet conditions and hovering above the saddle, I nursed my bike to the next pit stop and the mechanics, where we made a makeshift solution by wrapping insulating tape around my seat post so a too-large clamp could be used as a temporary replacement until I could find something more permanent. They had me doing star jumps to keep warm whilst we were looking at this!

A shout-out here to the very helpful Arragons cycle shop in Penrith https://arragons.com/ , which I can highly recommend and were able to help me and many others in getting parts for damaged cycles and bodies at this point due to the weather and mileage required to reach this point.

I definitely rode myself fit on this ride, unsurprisingly given the lack of training miles, but struggled in the middle of day 2. Knowing physically I had done this before, but being aware of the climbs still to come was hard to say the least.

However, I think the smiles on all our faces at the end of day 9 say it was worth it.

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Lesson 6: Mental resilience and having done something repeatedly before gives you the knowledge to push through?

To all those that have sponsored me and supported me on this ride previously, thank you, we raised loads of required funds for Bloodwise, Northampton Cats Protection, LOROS hospice and UNICEF.

Will I be back for a fifth RAB? Well, Ben Milner who I met on my third ride shouted across to me in Hopwood services whilst we were waiting for the coach to take us to Lands End “I thought you said you were never doing this again”. Yet he himself had also told me he would not do a second but along with Paul, as well as helping numerous others complete this ride by offering a wheel, raised an amazing amount of money for SNAPs and their donation page is here for a truly worthwhile cause.

https://snapsyorkshire.enthuse.com/pf/ben-and-paulsrabride2024 and Laura who raised funds for another great local cause https://www.justgiving.com/page/laura-nichol-1713618588111

For those who enter in 2026 I will likely be at the start line to see what other lessons I can learn.

I’ll close with the final lesson, that anyone who has been involved in enacting a plan for a major incident or completed this ride can also agree with. The motto of the organisers of this super ride;?

Lesson 7 “More is in you” - Threshold Sports?

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