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So, first of all Mission Improbable was the name Louis gave to the project for Alex, Louis, Carl and I to go to the Haute Route Pyrenees in France in early July 2022 as it seemed a ridiculous venture.

It was not the fact that we would not be able to finish it, it was just the logistics that were required to get us there and to work around the course and to get home again with all the other commitments that we have including work and family etc.

This blog is late as it was supposed to be released at the end of stage 1 which was Tuesday 5^th of July but it was a long day and not a day where we could get a blog published for various reasons.

Fitness is obviously required for this type of event which includes riding round the Pyrenees for 5 days and over 400 miles and climbing about twice the height of Everest (which is an awful lot on a bike), but the logistics are equally as difficult.

From a long way out, we were able to enlist the help of our friend and colleague, Carl Dunstan (who has some experience of this role from a 24-hour bike ride we did 10 years ago) who would drive the support car and allow us to take on this point-to-point race without having to get embroiled in the organiser’s arrangements for hotels, buses, transfers, meals etc which was so fabulously arranged by superstar Marie!

So, on Sunday we travelled for 16 hours in the car to arrive at our mountain side Airbnb to set up for stage 1. Stage 1 started at 8.30am on Tuesday 5^th July and included 90 miles of cycling and 13,000 ft of climbing.

For Louis, this would be 6-6.30 hours. For me (if I was able to complete it), it would be something closer to 9 hours. For Alex, a little bit over 7.

The weather was not amazing but not terrible, but it obscured all the fantastic views that we could have had.

The way the designers built the course, we started from St Jean Pied De Port at 8.30am and cycled steadily (actually too quickly) for about 10km out of the town.

At this point we hit what would be the hardest and most brutal climb of the week of 9km at 9% but with some 12% km stretches in the middle.

This was not much better than farm roads (it did have cows walking on it and a lot of cow sh*t) but the 12% sections were absolutely brutal.

I haven’t met anyone who took on this stage who wasn’t ‘red lining’ in heart rate from the earliest possible time.

To ‘red line’ for 60 minutes at the start of a 9-hour day is a tough ask and all three of us felt the pressure of this.

Carl was waiting at the top of the second climb where we could stop, refuel, resupply and then head on down a big descent and into the valley for a chase at 20-30mph until the next climb.

That was one of the best sections of bike riding I can ever remember as I managed to find a group of about 5 or 6 guys who were at the same level who were working together to make it happen.

It falls right into the top 3 times I’ve ever spent on a bike including in 2018 in Italy and 2017 in France.

Louis was way up at the front in the top 50 (top 10%). Alex maybe 20 minutes behind and me maybe 20-25 minutes behind that.

Louis finished 54^th overall in this stage and 9^th out of 3 under 30-year-olds (he’s 19). Alex would come in 45 minutes later, both of them busted after a 28.5km final climb (that’s 18 miles of up).

I had already decided that I was not likely to get past the feed station at 55 miles out of 95 but as I headed towards that in the group that I’d found, I had no intention of stopping at that stage.

We effectively flew in and flew out in 60 seconds and carried on for another 45km to the 77-mile mark.

It was around the middle of that section that I felt how little training I’d been able to do for the past 18 weeks and how I just did not have the legs to make it up 18 miles of climbing to the end of the stage if I had any intention of turning up the next day.

And so, at the bottom of the valley I put my bike on the back of the car absolutely delighted with my days effort and happy that I would be able to start again tomorrow.

The four of us connected at the top of the hill and drove down into Spain after which we started to find our Airbnb.

The Pyrenees are different to other places and life is at a different place. On arrival at the Airbnb, we got a message from our host staying that we had to drive another 30 minutes to collect the key because the person who was supposed to come and give it to us had ‘gone home’.

The last thing we needed was a 60-minute round trip to somewhere in the middle of Spain but hey ho, that’s the way it goes.  

We had a beautiful little Airbnb overlooking the most extraordinary scenery and although it was a bit frantic because we were short of time, we were able to get all the work done that we needed to do, to recover from the day, to eat, to prepare for the next day and to get to bed ready for a 6am start the following day for stage 2.

Throughout this process we decided to raise money for Cancer research in conjunction with the guys at The Campbell Clinic in our two-pronged attack.

Some of the team decided to take on the Race for Life on the 26^th of June and some of the team decided to take on the Haute Route Pyrenees.

At the time of writing these blogs, our combined efforts of fundraising, including gift aid, are at about £15,000. You can still donate here for the Race for Life or here for the Haute Route Pyrenees and we’d love you to help.

Blog Post Number - 3133