Le mercredi 6 décembre 2023, j’ai eu l’opportunité de participer à un événement de Tailwind. Le sujet abordé était le fait d’abandonner une course d’ultracyclisme. Vous trouverez ci-dessous le texte qui m’a servi de base à mon exposé et que j’ai agrémenté d’anecdotes en live.
Hello, I’m Baptistine. I’m working at a bike messenger company. I commute daily with my bike and enjoyed short or long trip. I’ve had my fist bike holidays when I was 12. I’ve always had one foot on the bike since … forever. The quieter period without my bike was during my university time in Louvain La Neuve. It would have been a big commute.
In 2021, I discover ultracycling through the North Cape 4000. I decided that one day I would do that insane trip. 2023 was the year I tried it. The idea is quite simple: you start from Italy and you cross Europe from South to North and end up at the North Cape. It’s “just” 4300km to do in maximum 25 days.
My journey started on the 22nd July in Italy, a country I never went before. My legs were on fire and I could rode with other participants, which is quite rare for me #turtlesquad. The day after, I was already in Switzerland after crossing the Alps by BIKE ! The day after, I was in France. 3 countries in 3 days. The bad weather started around Dijon. With my experience on the Race Around The Netherlands, I knew I could ride with headwind for a long time. But I wasn’t expecting it for 400km …
Neither did I expect the heavy but short rain shower in the middle of nowhere. I tried to hide a bit but couldn’t avoid it all. On the 4th day, I had to use one of my joker “call a friend” to be cheered up.
On the 8th day, I started some knee pain because I wrongly placed my feet on the pedal. It kept my mind busy for 2 days before not feeling anything bad.
While that happened, I crossed Belgium and The Netherlands. At that point, I’ve had crossed 5 countries in 7 days… Insane!
I entered Germany with a good mood even if I was starting to calculate that I was not moving fast enough to finish on time. I tried to be focus on what I already did and not what was left because it was overwhelming. Since Paris, I had a beautiful tailwind but the rain also started. Not all the time, but just enough to be wet, dried a bit then got wet again.
I tried to find accommodation where I could dry during the night but it wasn’t successful as nobody was putting the heater on in the middle of summer. So after 10 days, every morning I was putting on a bib short slightly wet from the day before. 10 days was also a new gap: I never did an ultra-race or a holidays on bike that was longer than that. My moral took a hit when I had a detour of 15km near the first ferry in Germany because one bridge was open. I was quite pissed at that moment! On the night of the 10th day I woke up because I was hungry. I spent a lot of time eating during the day but I was still hungry at night…. It happened every night after that until I went home …
I entered Denmark, the 7th country of this trip, after 12 days. It was under pouring rain. I miscalculated my hotel that night and thought it was 10 km after the border. It was 22 … it was pouring rain and I had a flat … I can fix a flat no problem, but the moral was quite bad that evening. I started to realize that I was not having so much fun. Denmark wasn’t as nice as I thought because the road the organization choose were not that nice. But I was moving on and kept coming closer to the ferry for Oslo !
On the 3rd of August, after 13 days, my mental broke down. I had almost one straight line for 180km that day. With a bus that was ending up in the city I had to go… There was one passing me every hour and I dreamed of putting my bike into it but I would be disqualified then. Rain and wind were worse every hour. At 14h I still hadn’t done 100km … It was weighing on my moral.
8 km after Vejle, I stopped, sat on the grass and starting calling all my jokers while crying like a baby. After listening to several advices, I went back to Vejle and took an hotel. I was soaking wet, hungry and tired. I needed a rest day but I couldn’t have it otherwise I wouldn’t be finishing on time. That night, I slept 9h but still woke up tired. That’s when I decide to stop.
I scratched on the 4th of August after having done 2098km in 13 days. And I was ok with it. I was ready to push my limits and I’ve already did a lot of thing I never thought I could do.
If you had told me that one day I would cross the Alps with my bike I would have laugh, and yet, I did it! In total, I climbed three summits higher than 1000m of altitude. I visited two new countries. I met awesome people. I was able to find solutions to my small mechanicals issues every time they happened.
I did my first wild bivy night in the mountains. I never bike that much and that long. It was the first time I was alone so far from home. In the end, I had a lot of “first times” during this journey and it was quite satisfying.
But … yes there is a but. I didn’t achieved my goal and I have an “unfinishing business” feeling. I decide I need to train better and strengthen my mental. And since it’s also quite a budget, I decided to take 2024 “off” and be ready for North Cape 4000 2025. For the last three years, most of my bike journeys were evolving around ultracycling. And I like it, but I also want to go back to “basics”. Meaning, day that can be “only” 50km, stopping every time I want and for as long as I want. Mid octobre, I had three days on the bike like that and I really enjoyed being out but not pushing my body every time.
When I started Ultracyclism, I told myself that I HAD TO enjoy being on the bike. If I was not enjoying it I didn’t saw the reason of doing it. That’s also why I scratched. It was not just because I was exhausted and hungry, but my mind started to be in a really dark place where I was thinking that it would be easier to quit if I got hit by a car. Nobody would tell anything if that happened. It wouldn’t be my fault if I had to stop after having an accident. I know that I’m not supposed to pay attention to negative comments on social networks but at some point I felt like I was going to disappoint complete strangers on the internet if I scratched. But after hearing my friends and family all I could hear was how proud they were of me. And I knew that they would never told me that I failed. It helped take the decision and I thank them for that.
If I have to sum up my speech, I would say: go out, enjoy any kind of journey you do. The destination doesn’t matter. Listen to your body, he knows you. Dream big or dream small, it’s your dream. Focus on the things you can change. Yes, rain and wind are pain in the ass but there is nothing you can do about it. Don’t use energy trying to change that. Fixe small objectives daily that you can focus on. When it’s hard, divide you day is small task that you can do.
