The BB200 is an event I’ve wanted to take part in for a while.
It’s a relatively small event, with a cult like following and an outsize reputation for being tougher than the distance suggests.
It’s been going for many years, with a new route each year (the first few shared the same route), put together by its organiser, Stu.
When I first became aware of it, I thought it was bonkers, beyond that it barely registered. But as I spent more time riding longer distances along more questionable routes and in a wider range of conditions it became something I thought about trying.
I rode a version of a previous year’s route as a multi day tour in the summer of 2023 and experienced first hand the phrase “just because there’s a line on the map, it doesn’t mean there’s a track on the ground”. I wasn’t new to riding bikes, or being outside, but at first I found it difficult to accept a route that contained so much pushing and wandering across bogs.
Perhaps it was Stockholm syndrome, but as the hours and days passed on the route I settled in, and realised that actually this is what I preferred. The ridiculousness of some of the routing choices, the pushing, the bogs, wet feet for 12 hours a day.
From that ride, the BB200 looked intimidating still, but do-able. To go from spreading it across 4.5 days, to one sustained effort was a big ask, but one that felt like something I wanted to try.
I decided not to enter the event in 2023, still not sure that I had the necessary experience, or knowledge of my limits to make a fair attempt.
It seems however, that I was one of the sensible ones. 2023’s event saw around double the number of entrants, and was run over two weekends. In the days & weeks afterwards I saw comments from riders & the organiser that there had been at best a difference in expectations and at worst, people in completely over their heads.
Stu had people who’d never ridden at night before, or had little to no technical off road experience attempting the route. Online entry and a reputation that reached beyond the Bear Bones forum, led to people seeing the event somewhat as one to do and cross of the list – this isn’t that type of event though.
So for 2024 the event became invite only – Stu explained that previous entrants would be prioritised and new riders considered if there were any spaces.
Having had my South Downs Way attempt cut short and my Scotland trip not go to plan (my own fault) I was quite disappointed to lose another thing. I don’t know if at this point I’d also had a DNS for the Brother Cycles Big ‘Un event, but that also happened.
I’d had the 2024 BB200 metaphorically pencilled in on my calendar for over a year, from before the 2023 event actually happened. So I was understandably wondering what to do with my blocked off weekend(s) in October and disappointed not to have the chance to see if I could do the BB200.
So I was very surprised to see an email from Stu pop up on my phone a few days later with an invite to the 2024 BB200!
Full of nerves & excitement I tapped the link and signed up, before logic made me second guess it.
Still recovering from separating my shoulder, the BB200 now loomed on the horizon.
What have I done
I began to plan what I could – the route not being available until the week before. I bought a few new pieces of kit; a new front light, an emergency bivvy bag and a last minute compact bar bag for snacks.
Over the next few weeks memories from my ride in 2023 popped back into my mind, reminding me of so many sections of the route I’d forgotten – something I didn’t find encouraging, as it also made me realise just how long the route is.
A complete lack of long rides wasn’t good training, the only riding in the run up to the event was taking my daughter to school in her trailer and a ride to work the week before.
With a week to go, the route got sent out and I checked over it for any particular obstacles or points of interest, importing the route to RideWithGPS & OS Maps to see the route on a range of map types (I like maps). The first half was relatively well served by possible resupply points, but after Dolgellau at about 90km, the route soon hit its northerly extent and headed back south, with little to nothing available even during the day, the second half was pretty barren.
I decided to try and carry all the food I thought I would need for the route, to avoid the extra time & distance of diverting to a shop, or worse, relying on a shop or pub for food and not reaching it before it closed.
Soon enough it was the day before and I was packing up the car and spending 7 hours driving up (Google took me a super weird way, along loads of small roads and through residential areas) to a campsite near the start.
I pitched up at Gwerniago campsite, north of Machynlleth, a site I’d been to before. Dinner for one in a nearby pub and an early bed time was my pre ride prep.
The next morning was similarly spartan, up in the dark and out from the campsite in about half an hour, to arrive at the start for just after 07:00.
My nerves were not helped by Dee’s (Stu’s wife) surprise when I arrived at the car park, she was very surprised that this was my first time, confused that I’d managed to get an invite.
I parked up and the reality of what I was about to attempt began to hit me.
And so it begins...
About an hour later, at 08:02 I’d faffed all I could and I’d been through the pre-ride checklist on my phone. Stu noted down my time and I rolled out of the car park, to start my attempt at the 2024 BB200.
There was no actual start/finish line, no crowd and a complete absence of grandeur.
Yet to warm up, and with an early morning chill, I was a few minutes into what would easily be my longest ride ever, both in distance and duration. Right at that moment though, I felt almost innocent, naive to the effort it would require. Minutes in, the next 24+ hours stretched out ahead of me.
It wasn’t long before the route began to climb and I’d warmed up. I enjoyed the early morning light that was making it through the clouds, illuminating the hills with a golden glow.
Slowly I caught up to a rider in front and we stayed close for while until our paces diverged and we separated again.
This would become a common theme of the rest of the ride, it was as if were we all connected via elastic, shuffling along the route, sometimes close to another ride, before pulling away again at our own pace – doing our own ride, together.
The route headed up to its highest elevation within the first 20km, and stayed up high until about 50km. This was both reassuring (once you made it up here, you’d go no higher all day) and a harsh warm up. Though I think at least one climb in the rest of the route was relatively higher, starting from a lower elevation.
In the first hour I’d already had a slow loss of balance onto some heather, had to push both up and down a hill and got both feet soaked, a state in which they would remain until returning to my car the next day!
This high section was enveloped by the early morning cloud, adding to the chill, and contributing to my difficulty in looking ahead (literally and metaphorically) and seeing the rest of the route.
A open grass slope was the first descent of the route, taken very cautiously (still yet to regain confidence after separating my shoulder, and very aware I still had a long ride ahead), down to a gate, followed by a very rutted and gorse & heather lined track.
A small group of us had bunched together, “I’m not riding that” I said in the vague direction of another rider who was seemingly waiting for me to go, I watched as he tentatively rolled along the track, only to catch a wheel and be thrown off into the undergrowth – thankfully uninjured. I’ve since since a video of another rider doing the same thing on the same 50m of track, so I don’t feel so bad about choosing to walk!
Honestly, from this point things begin to blur into one indistinguishable timeline of highlights. I tried not to focus too much on how far I’d ridden, so it makes recounting the ride a bit tricky.
The route overlapped itself a few times in the first/last 20km or so, which I’d made sure to check over and try to get familiar with on paper, before riding the route in person. A few riders got a little bit mixed up here – one ended up doing an extra 25km by taking the wrong turning at the wrong point in the route!
For the first few hours I was very aware of my stomach, hoping it was just the effect of nerves.
This might actually go okay
It wasn’t too long before I began to recognise where I was, having ridden here last year. Riding the opposite direction this time, I enjoyed a similar feeling of remoteness the second time just as much as the first.
The elastic behind me pulled two riders up to join me for a while, as we rode along and down into the trees. A bottle flung out of my new bar bag (not for the first time, a result of using untested kit) and I stopped to retrieve it.
I caught back up with them after a stretch of gently descending double track, thankful I’d seen them disappear from my horizon as it made me glance down at my Garmin and notice that the route dived off the track, across the bog to the left. It took me a while to realised where I was, in relation to the map I’d studied. This was the bit where the route took a little loop off the track, missing a ford and apparently treating us with a bridge, if satellite view was to be trusted.
I trudged through the first tussocky bog of the route and the bridge was easily visible – but not so easily reached. It took a bit more pushing, a sacrifice of each of my mostly dry legs up to my knees, and a little scrambling up over a rocky outcrop before I was across.
In the process I had somehow managed to drop my chain, this took a while to get back on, thanks to the chain guide which should’ve made it near impossible to come off in the first place. I faffed with my muddy & dripping wet chain for what felt like a very long time before I managed to force it back on, only to get it offset on the narrow wide chainring incorrectly and then really struggling to sort it out.
The weather was warmer and with more blue sky than expected, and was a welcome treat compared with the anticipated grey skies and rain.
Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, I continued
I passed through Nant Y Arian, joining the same stretch of road & trail I’d ridden previously. Somewhat oddly, it was drier now than last summer when I rode here previously. Still puddles everywhere, but smaller and shallower.
Up a bit, down a bit.
Then up quite a bit, followed by tarmac for a bit then down a doubletrack, to a river crossing I’d been across last year. Last time I had just dried my feet out and was incredibly reluctant to get them wet again, tiptoeing around the first bit of water, only to find an actual unavoidable river crossing just out of sight around the corner. This time, a combination of knowing what was coming and accepting I would have wet feet the whole time saw me just stomp on through.
A few riders were congregated on the other side, the river providing a reason to stop, both a water source and a sort of natural landmark to have a quick rest.
I dug out my filter and set to filtering some water, which proved to be a very frustrating experience. I was about 6 hours in, and had settled into the ride, but was already tired. Waiting for my filter to dribble out water really tested my patience, and would put me off filtering water again for (too) many hours.
I think it was at this refill that I put a cola and berry flavour electrolyte tablet into my bottle together, a combo I wasn’t sure about, but it worked well. Though done a second time later in the ride, it proved to be too harsh for my throat and I ended up pouring most of it away.
Push for a bit, ride for a bit
I was glad to be more familiar with the character of these routes, no longer surprised to be faced with completely unrideable obstacles.
I traversed some more stunning landscapes, many hours later than initially expected on the approach to Machynlleth, I’d been here before and was happy to have another chance to look around. I finally rolled down into Mach, having crawled my way down “The Chute” – a steep, loose descent.
I’d set off with all the food I expected to need, so I rolled straight through Mach. Vaguely aware of a few other riders dotted around.
In the 25km and 2.5 hours between Mach & Dolgellau there was about 700m of climbing (only to end up back at basically sea level at Dolgellau), and I felt every metre. A long drag of a fireroad climbed followed a steadily rising stretch of road.
Water is good, who knew
It was somewhere in this stretch of the route that I’d been going without water for some time, until I finally stumbled across a closed campsite with a telltale flash of blue pipe visible from the road. I rolled up to the locked gate. Hoping that the supply hadn’t been turned off, I took my bottles off my bike and climbed over the gate. Relief was palpable when a turn of the tap released a torrent of water.
Now with water the route continued to climb steadily along the NCN8, kicking up through a lovely little pass – though a tough climb at this point in the day. I was glad to make it to the top without resorting to walking, but in hindsight perhaps I should of.
The sun was really starting to disappear on me now, the cloudless blue skies had been helping to eek out the last of the light as it set.
Darkness
Once there was no longer enough light from the sun, the battery powered lights came on and from this point my world was blackness, punctuated by two relatively small orbs of light dancing across each other as my head and bars moved independently.
Having no real sense of my surroundings in the darkness hasn’t helped with my memory of what, nor the order in which anything in the rest of the ride, happened.
I spent longer riding in darkness than I had in daylight, and yet due to this darkness, my memory of those hours is so featureless that it feels like lost time.
Civilisation!
I eventually made it to Dolgellau, having taken a path down between a gap in a roadside hedge and emerged a couple of hundred meters later thinking the BB200 riders ahead of me must have been the only people to come this way for years.
I paused in Dolgellau to offload some rubbish – it’s weird how long you can go until you find a bin on rides like this. As with Mach, I could see a smattering of bikes & riders as I rolled through.
A fish & chip van provided a can of Vimto to keep me going, now that I’d run out of Dr Pepper and I pressed on, along a nice flat cycle path along the river.
I popped out the tree lined bike path and found myself next to the Penmaenpool toll bridge – I’d seen mixed messages online about the ease of crossing the bridge with a bike outside of its proper opening hours, but as it was I just stepped through a pedestrian gate, paid my money and I was soon making a racket rolling over the wooden planks.
Over the bridge I began to winch myself up the climb the other side. I glanced at my Garmin and came to realise I was almost halfway along the route, which simultaneously brought a feeling of relief for making it to this significant halfway milestone, but also the thought that this was only halfway! A real glass half full/empty situation.
All I could do was keep spinning the pedals.
A few turns later, I found myself at Coed Y Brenin, somewhere I’ve ridden many times, but not like this. I’m used to parking in the car park and doing a nice 2-4 hour ride around the trails. This time I was already over ten hours into my ride and had at least the same to go.
I had made an assumption about the route here, I thought it passed much closer to the visitor centre than it actually did and had relied on refilling my water here. As it was, I passed through the whole forest without ever being that close, or with any desire to lose the elevation I had and drop down to find the tap I knew existed. So I kept going and eventually popped out the top of the forest without getting water.
Despite my concerns about water, it was nice to ride through a forest I’m relatively familiar with and see the mountain bike trail signs I recognise.
Hello wind
I’d had some wind throughout the day, but now it really began to make itself known as the route started to loop south. I stopped at a small junction in the middle of nowhere to finally decant my can of Vimto into my Dr Pepper bottle, as I did so a rider appeared out of the darkness. We had a slightly confused conversation, thanks to a mix of tiredness and the fact we were riding two different routes (he was riding the longer BB300 route). It had been a while since I had seen another rider as anything more than a flash of light in the distance, so it was a slightly surreal experience.
From here I really struggle to piece together a timeline, so things may be out of order.
At some point I caught up with another rider as we pushed our bikes along a perfectly rideable double track, but the head wind was far too strong to maintain enough momentum. It was quite a slog in the darkness, pushing into the headwind for, I think, about an hour, until the route finally came out onto some tarmac.
It was little relief though, because the wind remained and turned a nice smooth road descent into a near white knuckle experience. Squeezing the brakes the whole way to avoid picking up too much speed and being at the mercy of potential cross wind gusts and being blown off.
It’s likely a function of the dark, but it felt like all the gates on the second half of the route were much more annoying to operate than the first half.
I finally used my water filter again, having been running on empty for a while. It was a relief to get some water again. I really need to be better at drinking and getting water.
At about 1am, my way forward was blocked by a 6 foot high wall. I stood and pondered for while, exhausted.
Eventually I figured I only had two options:
- Get over the wall and continue
- Don’t get over the wall and DNF
So I did my best to hype myself up a little and I lugged myself and my bike up the ladder stile and dragged it over the top and down the other side.
I hadn’t even considered that there would be more than one, even just one seeming a ridiculous prospect – but thankfully there was only one more. The second one was positively hurdled in comparison to the first, having worked out the technique and already summoned the resolve to climb over the first one – it was amazing how easily I accepted the second wall, having had to reframe what seemed normal.
At about 4am I finally found a public bin in which to offload some uneaten food I’d been lugging around with me and had become obvious wouldn’t get eaten before I finished. I tried to eat a Quorn pasty before throwing it away but it was way too dry and I was just generally struggling to eat by this point, so in the bin it went.
Realising that I needed to eat something, I was fuelled solely by Haribo tangastics cherries & cola bottles for the rest of the ride.
By around 08:00, and 24 hours, I reached the stage where I’d originally expected to have finished the route, and my estimated remaining time seemed to stretch out ahead of me, never decreasing.
I began to think of the distance that was left and realised I was thinking of it as “only 50km left”, when normally I would think of 50km as a big ride on any other day.
Just keep moving forward
The last few hours of the ride were as hard as any of the others, the end being near providing no respite. With over 20 hours of fatigue severely limiting my average speed, it took all I had to just keep moving whether pedalling or walking.
I reached the point in the route where it criss-crossed itself and had to be very careful to ensure I followed the line on my Garmin correctly – not wanting to extend things.
Agonisingly slowly I spun up to the top of the final climb, then rolled down the other side like a dead weight, the cold morning air cutting through my layers.
Finally I found myself on the home straight, only 5km to go. It was only now I really let myself think about actually finishing.
With less than 2km I had to double back, thanks to a closed bridge (which I deemed impassible, but I later found out some people had ventured through the building site).
Eventually, 26 hours and 38 minutes later I was back at the start.
With a sense of relief more than anything, I began packing my bike into the car. I’d just done one of the hardest things I’d ever done and here I was just quietly packing away. The complete absence of fanfare and grandeur was hilarious – years ago I took part in Tough Mudder, which was quite the opposite and no where near as difficult.
It just reinforced the bonkers-ness of the event. You don’t do it for the atmosphere or the cheering crowd at the end, you do it because you’re just the type of weirdo that enjoys this kind of thing.
Automatics are great
Back at the campsite I collapsed into my tent and slept, eventually resurfacing at 7pm, dehydrated and aching.
I hobbled around and packed up my tent in the pouring rain, getting wetter than I had done during the entire BB200. The wet grass of the campsite threatened to trap me, but with a little thought and some momentum I reached the gravel without needing a tow.
I drove home in the pouring rain, grateful that traffic was light and that my car is so easy to drive. Automatics are great. I arrived home at about 1am having had one of the easiest long car journeys ever and collapsed into bed.