Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
John_S
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Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by John_S »

Hi All,

I've been a cyclist for most of my life. My mum has never driven and she used to take me around on the back of her bike before I started cycling myself to school etc. from about the age of 7. I grew up in Suffolk and when I was a teenager I would ride for fun on the weekends and during the school holidays all on my mountain bike whether it be on off road trails or doing 100 mile plus rides over the summer. I've carried on cycling and for a lot of my adult life it's been my main mode of transport for both commuting and in some jobs also getting in-between different locations/sites for meetings.

However I've never before taken on any long distance or multi day challenges. I've also never done any cycle racing or club riding because for me although cycling is a great passion of mine for some reason I just never got involved in the organised sport/competitive side of cycling. I've done a few sportives before but although I'm sure there are absolutely loads of fantastic events out there which loads of people really enjoy just for me personally they are not really for me because I'm just as happy making up my own routes and going off on rides myself. In the last year or so I discovered (and I appreciate that it's my own fault for not fining out about them sooner) audax riding. I've been able to enter a few of them and I've really enjoyed audax riding when compared to sportive events. But it's not something I do very often at all because I work long hours and I have two young kids at home and so weekends are dedicated to family time. So apart from say getting two or three days per year to do an audax or just a ride that I've planned myself my cycling is basically made up entirely of commuting.

My cycle commute is a minimum of 11 miles each way but I have lots of different routes that I take depending on the time I have, the time of the year, the weather etc. and so sometimes I'd extend the 11 miles to anywhere up to say a 30 mile commute. Because of commitments of say taking kids to and from nursery/school I've been commuting 3 days a week but that's now changing to 4 days per week. Just based pretty much on commuting 3 days a week I've just clocked up 3,000 miles of riding for the year so now that I'm changing to commuting 4 days a week I'd expect that to be 4,000 miles just from commuting next year.

Now my imagination has been well and truly captured by races such as the Transcontinental and by the people who undertake these extreme challenges such as the late Mike Hall. I love traveling and seeing new places and I've never been to Ireland before and so that's one reason why I think that the TransAtlanticWay really appeals because to me the landscapes which the ride pass through look absolutely stunning!

Therefore my imagination is somewhat running away with me in thinking that I should aim to enter the TransAtlanticWay but I'm worried that somebody like me would be both woefully unprepared and unsuited for such an extreme undertaking.

I'm 37 at the moment and my wife has already sort of given the okay for me to have a go at LeJoG in the year I turn 40. Whilst I think that doing LeJoG would be an amazing thing to undertake for some reason I just have this thing in my head that I'd rather try to do the TransAtlanticWay instead. I think that part of it might be because although I absolutely love many of the places that LeJoG would take me through I have been to a lot of them before whereas I've never been to Ireland and this would be a wonderful way in which to have an adventure to see it.

In a perfect world I thought in my head of trying to work towards such an undertaking by say next year, in addition to my normal commuting, trying to enter some longer audax rides and also planning say one 2-4 day ride as well. I live in Norfolk and I've thought about starting a ride on the Cumbrian coast and heading back home via the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales. Or maybe starting a ride on the Pembrokeshire coast and then heading home via the Brecon Beacons and Cotswolds. Or I could even just look at a nice 3 to 4 day ride around Wales.

Then in this perfect world I thought I could do LeJoG the year after that when I turn 39 all ready to do the TransAtlanticWay in the year that I'm 40. However the problem with this lovely plan is work and family life. Realistically with family life I'm just not going to get 3 nice blocks of time in each of the next 3 years to disappear off on my own to do increasingly longer rides in the build up to an attempt at doing the TransAtlanticWay.

Therefore the only realistic proposition is to keep doing my commuting and try to at least sneak off for a few more days per year to try my hand at the longer audax rides. I'm wondering if this combined with perhaps focusing a bit on training during my commutes, by say doing some interval training, could help prepare me for such an extreme long distance challenge? At the moment I'll admit that on my commute I'm just plodding along from A to B and I don't cycle to race or train I just ride my bike because it's my primary mode of transport plus I enjoy riding my bike and being out in the fresh air taking in the scenery.

As a result of this I just wondered if anybody could offer any advice and for example tell me that I'm absolutely stupid to even think that it could be possible for someone like me to consider entering such an extreme long distance event. Worst case scenario if I do realise that for example the TransAtlanticWay is an unrealistic proposition for me then a fall back plan of doing LeJoG under my own steam on a route that I fancy when I turn 40 wouldn't be the end of the world.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts and advice.

John
landsurfer
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by landsurfer »

Wife swap required .... worked for me and Jules ...
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”
Be more Mike.
The road goes on forever.
John_S
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by John_S »

Hi landsurfer,

That's very funny and I nearly ended up spitting my drink on my keyboard. I'm glad it's worked for you although I don't think any kind of wife swap will be on the agenda for me. My wife is perfectly happy to get out on her bike for short journeys and trips with the family around town but long distance cycling is just not of any interest to her.

Plus even if my wife wanted to come with me for a long distance cycle event we couldn't leave the kids behind. Maybe you're already pointing out one of the fundamental flaws in my dream and I'll just have to leave this as a sort of pipe dream on the unfulfilled bucket list of things not getting ticked off.

Thanks,

John
nirakaro
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by nirakaro »

Are you seeing it as a race, or just a fabulous route to ride? If the latter, you're perfectly fit enough to set off tomorrow. I was a couple of decades older than you, and had hardly ridden a bike in ten years, when I decided to do a long ride. I did a practice run to make sure I could do twenty miles on three consecutive days, then set off. Two months and 4000km later, tired but happy, I rode into Palermo. Unless you're in a hurry, the challenges of riding long distances are mostly psychological rather than physical.
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meic
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by meic »

There is a rule of thumb that your weekly commuting mileage will make you good for that same mileage daily while doing a tour. Though be wary that not all miles are equal!

I remember a rider came from London to do our local 300k Audax and all he had behind him in the way of cycling was his commute to work. Not only did he finish our hilly 300k but he was the first to do so.

There used to be a popular saying "Just Do It". Though I do reckon any preparation that you can reasonably fit in will be of benefit.
Yma o Hyd
simonhill
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by simonhill »

If you are doing it as a race, then you will need to train and be ready for the rigours of that discipline. If you are just doing it as a tour then you will go at your own pace and should have no problem as long as you have plenty of time.

The question I would ask myself is do I want to race. If that is your thing, then OK. Personally I would rather take my time and enjoy the many and varied aspects of a ride like that.
John_S
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by John_S »

Hi nirakaro,

I wouldn't be seeing it as a race in the sense that I was racing to win. That's because I've never before done anything like this and also there would be loads of people with a tonne more experience of this sort of riding than me and also a load of people who I know would be a lot faster than me.

Therefore I'd be seeing it as just a fabulous route to ride and from what I've seen on photos and video of last years event the scenery looked absolutely stunning. Although you did have to be prepared for everything that the Atlantic weather threw at you. Congratulations on your 4000km to Palermo and I'm sure that it was a wonderful adventure and experience!

At the moment at this stage in my life although I would not see this as a race that I'd enter to win it would be a physical challenge of endurance for myself as well as a race to be as quick as I could personally be to complete the course in enough time to fit in with work and family life. At this time (although I'd love to) there's no way that I could get say two months off work and even if I could I wouldn't want to take that much time away from family as I have two young children. However when I'm older I'd love to do something similar to you and I guess I've got time to keep planting the seed of a long distance cycling adventure to my wife just to see if the seed of an idea ever takes her interest.

For some reason the landscape of the TransAtlanticWay really seems to have grabbed my attention but at about 2,500 km I do wonder if it would be physically beyond me to complete it within a certain amount of time. If I had say a month or a bit more just to relax and enjoy taking my time and stopping when I wanted to then the distance wouldn't worry me too much. However with a need to get back to family & work within a reasonable timeframe perhaps thinking of entering this particular event is a bit beyond me and that's just what I'm trying to figure out.


Hi meic,

Thanks for the advice and for providing some decent inspiration there. Living in Norfolk I'm not sure I'd be particularly well prepared for the mountains that riding the TransAtlanticWay would have along the route. However using your example of the commuter from London who faired very well on your audax maybe I should stop worrying and like you say just do it because otherwise I could always look back and regret not giving something like this a go.


Hi simonhill,

I'm definitely not a racer at all and I never have been. I'm just somebody who has used a bike as their primary mode of transport for pretty much all their life and I really like riding my bike. As mentioned above I wouldn't be entering this with any foolish notion of competing to win because there would be far more capable riders than me in a race like this. I would love to take things in my own time but I'd also have to balance this with the need to complete an event or course within an amount of time to allow me to get back to work & family. At the same time I would not wish to show any disregard or disrespect to an event which is set up and established as a long distance endurance cycling race & challenge. Therefore I do I need to do a bit more thinking to work out whether this is the right event / challenge for me. Although perhaps I should just follow meic's advice and get on with it because life is too short to live with regrets.

I guess that if ultimately the TransAtlanticWay is beyond my physical capabilities with respect to the need to complete the 2,500 km in such a time as to allow me to get back to work and family within a reasonable amount of time then I'll just have to consider alternatives. There is always LeJoG which I think is approximately 1,500 km but it could be all sorts of variations on that depending on what route you want to take. Or I think that there are other rides such as the Tuscany Trail (at about 600km) or the Torino - Nice Rally (at about 700 km) although I think that both of those involve a lot of off road riding and so I'd have to perhaps consider a different bike to my current one. I'm sure that there might also be lots of other events out there to consider as potentials but it's just that I don't know about them.


Thanks again for all of your thoughts and advice which is much appreciated!

John
yutkoxpo
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by yutkoxpo »

Hi John,
I just had a long post written out based on the humour of trying to ride a bike across the Atlantic..... and then I googled it and saw that the TransAtlanticWay is an actual race! Silly me! (In fairness, it is a silly name!)

Looking at the results from last year about 50 people finished; the winner in 6 days, the last timed in 16 days.

Personally, I think that's mad! The last person timed averaged 160 km every single day (the winner over 400 km!)

To do that day after day requires a whole lot of preparation & training - if you want to survive! :-)

To my way of thinking, it seems a shame to ride that route at such a speed. In that vein, let me throw a couple of alternatives at you...

Do it in stages. A couple of weeks one year, a couple the next. Maybe a long weekend or two if you can manage it. That way, the pressure is less (you can make up next time what you didn't do this time), the planning becomes a bit easier, more time to appreciate where you are. It may take 2 years. It may take longer. But you're doing it!

Or
Make it a family event.
Take the car over. Wife (& kids?) drive the route, you cycle. No need to carry lots of gear, you have your own personal support vehicle! If you pitch it right you might even be able to keep your LeJoG :-)
(On a slightly devious tangent, I've heard of people doing things like this for charity and their work giving them paid time off).

As regards physical ability.... unless you're racing 18-20 hours per day, there is nothing overwhelming on the route for any reasonably able cyclist. But do remember the Irish weather - especially on the west coast! It can be .......... challenging :-)

Finally, if you really want to race, but 2500 km is too long, check out Malin to Mizen (or vice versa). I think there are several races from the top to the bottom of Ireland. You don't get the same scenery, but it is shorter, therefore fits in better with your requirements.

Best of luck!

Frank
simonhill
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by simonhill »

I meant to say that a brief description of what the event is would have been useful in your first post. Like Hobbes, I first thought it is the something to do with crossing the Atlantic, or a cross US or something like that. Praise Be to Mr Google for helping me out.
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meic
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by meic »

The ride statistics show a lot of climbing in that long ride.
A hundred miles a day is no big deal across the plains of France but with about 2,000m of climbing thrown in each day it gets to be a lot more challenging to keep going for that long.
Yma o Hyd
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Tigerbiten
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by Tigerbiten »

I've found the hardest part of any ride regardless of distance is just getting out of the door.
My brain keeps telling me it's to .......
Hot, cold, wet, windy, dark,too much traffic, etc, etc.
Just like how you're thinking reasons you cannot do your ride.
Once I'm out, most rides turn out better than I thought.
And the ones that don't turn out to be epics which you can look back on with pride ..... :D
So you need to start thinking outside the box of ways you can do this ride.

I've found that I can up my daily distance by around 50% at the start of a tour.
Your riding further but over a longer time, so the effort per mile should drop a bit.
You do need at least a couple of long rides just to find out what hurts at distance.
The classic one is the saddle that's fine at 50 mpd but hurts like mad at 100 mpd.

Anyway luck ............. :D
salv90
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by salv90 »

meic wrote:There is a rule of thumb that your weekly commuting mileage will make you good for that same mileage daily while doing a tour. Though be wary that not all miles are equal!

I remember a rider came from London to do our local 300k Audax and all he had behind him in the way of cycling was his commute to work. Not only did he finish our hilly 300k but he was the first to do so.

There used to be a popular saying "Just Do It". Though I do reckon any preparation that you can reasonably fit in will be of benefit.


I completely agree. I think many people have this belief that touring requires significant physical preparation. I recently finished a 10 day cycle from Bilbao to Tarifa (1200km) with the only preparation being an 18 mile round trip commute to work.

Cycling distance for me is a psychological battle for about 3-4 days, then the body just 'switches'. After that it's plain sailing, very hard to describe if you haven't experienced it.

Also the Transatlantic way race, on the results page, are the times given cumulative riding time?
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Tigerbiten
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by Tigerbiten »

meic wrote:The ride statistics show a lot of climbing in that long ride.
A hundred miles a day is no big deal across the plains of France but with about 2,000m of climbing thrown in each day it gets to be a lot more challenging to keep going for that long.

I get ~1,300 miles covered and ~65,000' climbing. That works out to only be 20 miles per 1,000' climbing.
Sorry, but I'm English and work in imperial units, not this foreign rubbish ...... :P
That's on lumpy side of rolling terrain but no way is it mountainous. That's only 10 miles covered per 1,000' climbing.
To put it into perspective, fixed route is easier than both the "North Coast 500" (~14 miles per 1k climbed) and "JoGLE" (~17 miles per 1k climbed), it's just a bit longer.
So if you can do either the NC500 or JoGLE then you can do the Trans Atlantic Way given enough time.
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horizon
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by horizon »

simonhill wrote:If you are doing it as a race, then you will need to train and be ready for the rigours of that discipline. If you are just doing it as a tour then you will go at your own pace and should have no problem as long as you have plenty of time.

The question I would ask myself is do I want to race. If that is your thing, then OK. Personally I would rather take my time and enjoy the many and varied aspects of a ride like that.


I agree.

Because it's a long distance race, the issue of sleep alsocomes into it (although there is now a three hour minimum sleep/rest break rule in place). It may be that long distance audaxes are a better comparison than either racing per se or long distances like LEJOG done over several days. I get the impression from the OP that he wants to do a challenging long distance ride: this route would be a beauty but it is first and foremost a race IMV and I'm not sure it is actually his thing at all.
When the pestilence strikes from the East, go far and breathe the cold air deeply. Ignore the sage, stay not indoors. Ho Ri Zon 12th Century Chinese philosopher
John_S
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Re: Is undertaking the TransAtlanticWay a completely unrealistic & foolish idea for me?

Post by John_S »

Hi HobbsOnTour,

Thanks for your message and like both you and simonhill have said it would have been much more helpful for everyone if I had of posted a link to the ride and led my message with a bit of a description. Please accept my apologies because I guess I’ve been thinking about this and with blinkers on I asked for advice and went straight into questions without giving anybody the context or background info on the event itself.

For anybody reading this at a later time please see below a link to the TransAtlanticWay website:-

https://www.transatlanticway.com/

Your idea of just doing a similar route myself outside of the event itself and breaking it into bite size chunks to complete over the years is a good one. That way you’d certainly get to enjoy the scenery and stop to take in any points of interest along the way without the constant pressure of having to keep moving in a race scenario.

The turning it into a family event is also a good idea. I actually like the idea of cycle touring with kids and having listened to the following podcast which was titled, “All Aboard! Cycle-touring with kids on the Devon Coast to Coast” I think that it’s definitely possible.

http://thebikeshow.net/page/2/

However for now I don’t think that I’ll be getting my wife to sign up for a cycle touring holiday with the kids. It’s not that she’d be totally opposed to the idea but in a joint effort with my wifes parents we’ve got a static caravan and so given the cost of investment in that most if not all holidays will revolve around that for the foreseeable future and I don’t want to shatter family harmony.

If it were a case of getting back up and support from my family coming along with a car then I wouldn’t be able to do the actual TransAtlanticWay event because it’s an unsupported ride plus it takes place when my son is in school term time. But if I did take up your idea of doing a similar route outside of the event itself at a different time then I could do it as a family trip with vehicle support. However following my oldest child having recently started school it already seems like a juggling act of trying to get enough holiday from work etc. to cover the time when kids will be on holiday from school.

Thanks for all of your advice and also for recommending another event.


Hi simonhill,

Sorry for having been a pain by not actually starting with a link &/or details of the event I was talking about.


Hi meic,

Thanks for your message and yes I’d definitely have to try and factor that in because I’m not exactly experience when it comes to climbing what with living in Norfolk where although we have some ups & downs compared to say parts of Lincolnshire or bits of Cambridgeshire around near Ely. However compared to that amount of climbing I have never before undertaken that sort of challenge.


Hi Tigerbiten,

Thanks for your message and I like the positive outlook and perhaps I do need to be a bit more glass half full rather than empty and look at reasons why I can do something rather than focusing on why I can’t. Also thanks for breaking down comparative rides and looking at distance covered versus the climbing involved for this event compared to the NC500 or JoGLE.


Hi salv90,

Your message is much appreciated giving me a great example of what can be achieved off the back of commuting as preparation for a longer cycling trip and I hope that you had a fantastic adventure. It’s funny that you’ve mentioned the psychological battle being as much part of it as the physical challenge. Having been watching a few films about ultra-endurance riding it does seem that a lot of it is about being able to train your mind to push your body on to do the miles as much as it is the body & legs ability to carry on.


Hi horizon,

You’re absolutely correct that I’m not a racer and never have been and so potentially this is not the event for me. However there is a bit of me that is fascinated by the challenge and given that my time to go off on my own on the bike is very limited due to work & family commitments then the added motivation of being in a race to help push you on to cover the miles would help to actually motivate myself to cover a reasonable distance within a certain time without the luxury of having say a month or even more for a touring trip. Also if you sign up to something it’s a good way to lock yourself into taking on a challenge rather than just saying I plan something myself one day and never getting around to it meaning that one day I’ll look back and regret not having taken on such a challenge. But I would definitely need to remember that it is a race and if you enter such an event you’d need to treat it as such and not just approach it as a take your time tour. Trying to be realistic though perhaps taking on the TransAtlanticWay is a bit unrealistic and beyond me given the types of times posted by other and I need to search for an event which is shorter and less competitive to better meet my abilities and less racy approach.


Thanks again to everybody for your thoughts and advice which is much appreciated!

John
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