Words by Cordelia Hughes

GBDURO: a 2000-ish km self supported ultra cycling race from Land’s End to Cape Wrath, half road, half off-road. In 2024, as the one and only pairs entry, Cordelia Hughes (one half of Roll Models) entered GBDURO alongside her beloved friend and housemate Lucy Wood. In order to cement the experience into her memory, below Cordelia shares a handful of stories from the journey.

This is exactly the sort of silly thing I would sign up to. What’s not to love about cycling to Scotland, making memories with one of your closest friends, and eating whatever you want for the whole duration?

Granted — the cycling, memories, and food choices I am about to write about might all sound a little extreme, and you may wonder why we decided to enter this as a ‘race’.

I’ve heard that you reach the flow state when something pushes at the edge of your comfort zone: when it’s hard enough that you’re completely immersed, but not so overwhelming that you’re veering into anxiety or despair. To me, events like GBDURO are all about seeking flow and playing around at the edge of it. This felt like something worth exploring, and the prospect of an adventure of this scale made me determined to make it happen.

Lucy and I were spurred on to do this by Ollie Young, a local Bristolian we met in the pairs race at Dorset Divide last year, who couldn’t have better things to say about his own adventure on GBDURO. I believe his exact words were ‘I really didn’t want to leave Bristol once I had sat down’, ‘the Quantocks destroyed me’ and ‘the best ride of my life’.

I’m afraid that some of our stories might already be long forgotten, but I hope this will help me to remember many of them. I didn’t get to write about the frog Lucy picked up and perched upon her aero bars, and I didn’t go into detail about how I dried my socks routinely on my own, but I hope you can enjoy the parts of this adventure I have been able to share.

The Start Line

I’ll come to moan about the weather later on, but we were truly blessed with sunshine for beers on the beach at Sennen Cove with the other GBDURO riders the day before the start. I made sure to dip my wheel in the sea as is tradition on an end-to-end. We had planned to do this on my last Land’s End to John O’Groats attempt in 2020, but didn’t realise that Land’s End is perched at the top of a cliff.

Ross Phoenix, another Dorset Divide alumni, was kind enough to let riders camp in his garden near the start line. His beautiful wife Harri has grown their colourful garden around the home that Ross built, their patch just around the corner from a Cornish cove. Arriving at such a place at golden hour, with curry being served up and fully packed bikes lining the walls, I was in a strange and mesmerising heaven.

Ross introduced us to his family, and I enjoyed speaking to their remarkably switched on six-year-old about what life was like living by the beach. Ross and Harri shared stories with us into the night, and I left their home feeling inspired for the life I hope I’ll be able to build one day.

Lucy and I had our first of many sleepless nights before riding out to Land’s End.

It was exactly the sort of morning you’d envision starting something like this: clear, blue, and stunning. I had a list of tiny urgent kit adjustments to do when I got there, but on the start line was informed that my race tracker wasn’t working, and instead had a big old panic.

We set off 15 minutes behind everyone else, with our own personal countdown. Sorry Lucy!

We quickly put our minds to it, and the day provided a sunny and straightforward beginning. We were in great spirits pinging over the smaller gravel sections and to-ing and fro-ing with other riders along the way. We began to pick up on people’s moods and mindsets: the 26 starting riders quickly spread out, but all the people we had met stayed with us throughout the race, and we regularly philosophised on their progress and moods.

The Road to Bristol, Pizza and Our Loved Ones

We witnessed an incredible Exmoor sunrise as we passed different riders slowly waking up along the route. We pedalled past a pub garden where a number of cyclists in bivvies had started to stir, and began the climb up to the tops of Exmoor. Fellow rider Sam rode alongside us, eating his breakfast of a steak and kidney pie.

Exmoor had been my favourite spot for riding that year and I couldn’t wait to experience it all over again. Despite trying to keep speed, the rich colours of ferns, trees, and soils were not lost on me. The sun cleared out the morning dew as we flew over the top of Dunkery Beacon (Exmoor’s highest point), and down the rocky descent. Soon we were on the Somerset Levels with Bristol fast approaching, and only a few hills and trails between us and our loved ones.

We collected Ben, Mark, Ella, Cara, India and Ollie for a descent through Ashton Court. Ollie’s support to sign up to this race and continued words of motivation had been ringing in our ears, and it was so special to see him mid-race. Over Clifton Suspension bridge, we sat down for a pizza and a deliriously happy 45 minutes with friends. We impressed people with the weight of our bikes (heavy) and our faff technique (extensive).

I was filled with emotion saying goodbye to Ben, but rode off into the dark with a lot of energy. We even raced around the roundabout-to-nowhere (the local unofficial velodrome just off the route) before heading over the Severn Bridge.

But with bright lights of the bridge behind us and chilly Welsh countryside in front, serotonin wore off and tiredness crept in. Lucy kept me going with crystallised ginger and words of gentle support, until we pitched camp in the first patch of forest we could find, utterly exhausted.

Three Days in Wales

The Welsh section of the route was wild and wonderful; a journey of savage climbs, windy hilltops, and never-ending forest tracks.

We ventured across the grey, ominous-feeling Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, and fought our way through The Gap with winds at full force. This epic Welsh landscape of quarry, mountain, and bog felt particularly unforgiving that day, and we did experience an incident where Lucy’s bib shorts were ripped open in her wheel whilst drying on the back of her bike. Merde!

A long and lonely road across the hilltop army training area of Sennybridge ended with the heavens opening — and we descended down for refuge in a Llanwyrtd Wells’ hotel, seemingly frozen in time in the 1940s. Inside, we not only found a group of other GBDURO riders, but also two soggy Belgians who had ridden past us earlier, on holiday along the Welsh section of our route. They seemed perplexed by the group’s choice of riding all the way to Cape Wrath.

We shared a hotel dinner whilst still determined to ride off again into the night. But as rain continued to pour down outside, I eventually found myself booked in for the night, sitting in a bathtub and having a ‘shower’ with a stick-on attachment that seemed to have been designed to clean a dog.

The others had rightly convinced us that having a roof over our heads was much better than riding out into ‘The Never-Ending Forest’ of mid-Wales and catching hyperthermia, and this was the first of many good decisions that kept us going until the end. Alan wisely affirmed our choice to stay by philosophising that ‘any fool can be uncomfortable’.

I saw a rider set off from our window the next morning and later heard he had decided to ride home, along with many others over the next few days who caught wind of a big storm on the horizon.

We moved forward that morning and skies cleared as we entered The Never-Ending Forest. To be honest, I would have been quite happy for this section to never end. It was beautiful; a mix of forest road and rocky track, wide open space and the sweet sound of silence throughout.

Arriving in Machynlleth, we parked our bikes outside a fish and chip shop which drew in two other riders Martyn and Mike to sit and eat with us. Over a masse of fried food, we compared notes on how many bananas was too many bananas to eat in one day. This stop fuelled us over the climb of Bwlch-y-Groes but already left us hungry for a nighttime, nightmare foray into Eryri.

Lucy and I cycled up and over an exposed and off-road hilltop in the dark, and in a terrifying wind. Any mechanical issue that might have caused us to stop would have certainly left us freezing, and even more hungry than we were already. All we could do was fight to stay upright on the bike against the wind, pick a line avoiding puncture, and think of our mothers. I created a little chant for myself until the descent delivered us to the valley floor, where we sat comparing notes about the whole experience and the tears that may or may not have been shed.

The next day we were emotionally and physically exhausted, and a climb up the Llangollen horseshoe was emotional for both of us. But we were doing it. Every scary thing that we had met so far was behind us, and coming up that climb I cried with my first tears of pride.

Up The Spine of England

Climbing out of Manchester and up to the Pennines was soggy. It was grey, the sky was heavy, and I didn’t see much point. The need for caffeine was urgent.

We came across rider Caroline in the nearest cafe drying out her very minimal gear. Caroline is a London-based Swiss cyclist, has a cracking sense of humour, and is one of the most badass women I have met. She was one of those riders with tactics to pedal as continuously as possible. After meeting her briefly in Llanwyrtd Wells, she had ventured into The Never-Ending Forest at around 2am to keep up her pace.

The camaraderie between strangers in these ‘races’ is unrivalled. Caroline had been out there day-on-day with us, if not quite a bit ahead. She laughed about the same ridiculous gradients we’d cycled and experienced the same fear that we had on the windy mountain in Eryri. We hadn’t actually spoken before this, but we immediately knew her, and knew that she was sick of being wet.

After a slow, undulating, and gate-filled day along the pennine bridleway, we ran into Caroline again that evening. The heavens had just begun to open to make way for an arriving storm, and the three of us threw ourselves into the closest pub to find a room.

Affordable rates, triple-layered bunkbeds, and toiletries lining the bathroom shelves: the bunkhouse we were given access to was drool-worthy. Above all, we were most grateful that we got to share this encounter with such a strong, hilarious woman, and we ended the night sharing stories of the race so far.

A night inside hadn’t quite saved us from Storm Lilian. She whipped through our bunkhouse courtyard, wind and rain lashing down as we cracked open the door around 5am. I turned around to witness Caroline laid on her bed, fully packed and dressed, with a face of pure misery at the sight of yet more rain. Her words from the night before rang in my ears — ‘We should have at least done this for charity.’

We decided to ride out together, a group of three women versus Lilian’s hooning wind. We struggled to stay upright over bridleways and river crossings, and Lucy was blown right off the bike altogether. We regrouped, huddled behind a dry-stone wall, and made the decision to divert off-route.

Around 9am we descended into Hawes. Fingers and toes were frozen, every warm layer was sodden, and the others both bought some warm, dry socks. ‘Is it going to get better?’ Caroline asked her partner on the phone.

We collapsed in front of a Full English Breakfast and prepared for whatever was coming next.

12 hours later, we were packing bike bags with tins of minion-themed spaghetti hoops for the road ahead to Scotland. We had successfully crested Great Dun Fell, and completed the hours of bog-trawling that lay beyond its dead-end road.

This day was at times genuinely terrifying, and featured many extremes. We had survived fear, nausea, and broken bikes together, but we had laughed, and laughed, and laughed. This was a day that required the best of us; and reminds me of something I once wrote down , ‘all the good stuff wins’.

Mum I’m in Scotland

I went cold-turkey from coffee for a month before the race to eliminate the risk of caffeine withdrawals whilst far from civilisation. It was nearing Kielder, the most remote village in the UK, that Lucy confirmed to me my strategy had failed.

The only establishment for 200km was closed that morning, and both mood and surroundings felt hopelessly bleak. We pulled into a holiday park, and Lucy resorted to asking the woman working there whether she had any coffee behind the desk. She pointed out the coffee machine we walked past on our way in.

I downed a double espresso, and staggered over to pay for another. ‘You can have that one for free love’ she said, after I blabbed on about our mission to be plastic-free. You can’t always tell the difference between support and pity, but that one was a win I’m sure.

Next, the Scottish Borders, which felt far more expansive and wild than I had expected. A tiny, silent singletrack delivered us across the border, immediately plunging into twists and turns of forest road and a touch of bushwhacking. The riding was exciting, peaceful, exhausting, and awe-inspiring, all at the same time.

By dusk, we found ourselves undertaking a long hike-a-bike, where we had one of our best heart-to-hearts on the journey up to the top. We had fallen short of our target to get to the next town in time for kitchen opening hours, but the lack of food didn’t feel like it mattered as we encountered a 360 degree view of Southern Scotland in the final minutes of light.

Torch-on-helmet and bum-on-bike, I rocketed down one of my favourite descents of the trip, carving around the side of the hilltop and swooping down to the valley floor, picking my line through the rocks, but I arrived at the grim realisation of a cold, hungry night.

Lucy and I just about communicated that we needed to find a hot meal, and diverted off route in silence to the nearest town. I think Lucy had assumed I wanted to carry on and take a risk to get further in the race, but really I just needed warmth and food, and was dreading the idea that Lucy might want to pitch a tent in this cold.

We found room at the inn in Peebles, hugging and apologising about our shoddy communication as we assured each other we had both wanted to be safe, warm and dry as much as the other. After slurping our takeaway noodles, we slept safely and soundly side-by-side in a King-sized bed.

The morning sun showed itself and flooded the valley with light. I was so proud that we were out pedalling again, and grateful that our bodies even worked enough to carry on. Waves of emotion crashed over me and I cried with a huge smile on my face: I’m sure Lucy thought I had fully lost the plot.

These happy emotions helped us get through the day that followed, turning out to be the wettest yet. We appreciated the easy roads of central Scotland, and just rode on, getting on with it.

Sheltering from the rain next to the Falkirk Wheel, I remember some delirious voice note exchanges with our friend Jo, weighing up the benefits of him signing up to GBDURO next year. I wasn’t sure whether I had given the correct advice after I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror of a bus station bathroom.

The weather cleared for our arrival in the Trossachs: Scotland’s first National Park. Wet shoes couldn’t take away from majestic pine forests and craggy peaks. There is something regal about this place, with castles perched on hilltops aplenty, and that evening, we certainly dined like queens.

We spotted a motel on the map, and despite our initial apprehensions, we arrived at a surprisingly cosmopolitan establishment. Etta James was playing out on the speakers, small plates were on the menu, and the place was full of Glaswegian buzz. Months later now and back in our right minds, Lucy still describes it as ‘one of the best nights of my life’.

Highlanders

The Corrieyarack Pass crosses the Monadhliath Mountains, connecting the two communities of Fort Augustus, in the Great Glen to the north; and Laggan, in Badenoch to the south. The 25 mile Pass takes you through scenic glens and past ancient woodland to open moor and high hill, following a historic route used by travellers for centuries. — writes this article funded by the Highland Council

‘Listen for the distant lament of the lonely piper, said to haunt the pass’

Indeed, a lonely piper’s lament would have complimented our mood going up Corrieyairack. We had some sense of the depth of history and size of the climb from what we had heard about this place. Although I hadn’t researched it, I knew that we were riding along General Wade’s Military Road, and my mind wandered through possibilities of what the pass had seen. The climb was challenging, picking up out of Melgarve, full of ruts and twists around sharp zig zags. The peak sits at 762 metres, the track then flowing down a long and twisting descent almost all the way to sea level at Fort Augustus.

I took a fall coming down an off-camber turn, and let my emotions get the better of me as I cleaned up ripped waterproofs and bloodied knees in yet another Chinese takeaway. The evil spirit had won.

A message arrived from beloved friend and rider Caroline just at the right time. She was in Fort Augustus too, and met with us, sharing that her race was ending here as she needed to make a train back to London. We carried on with wounds bandaged, more peaceful now knowing that she wasn’t out there in Highland Wilderness alone, sleeping in random woodsheds and riding at any hour of the night. What wild stories she had collected from her last few days on the road!

Caroline passed over her determination and strength for the final stretch to Cape Wrath. She assured us that we were going to make it.

Exhausting hills were climbed in pissing rain, and a chippy was found in the final town of Contin. Three times that day, strangers had taken a look at us and asked us if we were okay. In fact, we were far more chuffed than we were exhausted, out there on the final roads of our epic journey.

I had been thinking for months about Alladale Wilderness Reserve, lying on the same latitude as Southern Norway, wondering how it might feel. We spent a night here and set off in the morning to watch the sun rise over it. Home to deer, midge, turbulent and boggy trail, and a dusty beach-like track, Alladale gave us all of the good stuff. Only 150km to go now.

We hopped onto the aero bars for the roads to the end and crossed paths with a rider Jamie, cheering us to the ferry, on his way back from his own finish line.

Physically going over to Cape Wrath required chucking our bikes and ourselves onto a little ferry named Beulah, and motoring over to the final outcrop of the British mainland. A cruel 20km of rough, up and down gravel then lay between us and Cape Wrath’s Lighthouse. We veered around final corners of landscape whilst playing witness to every season Britain wanted to offer. Wind came in from the North Sea, sunshine peeked through the clouds, then a dramatic, pissing rain soaked us completely upon arriving at the Lighthouse.

We wandered into the building that marks the end of the trail, where a woman named Angela lives. On her curious end-of-the-world, she runs a simple bunkhouse and cafe for travellers on far-out adventures like this one. Angela was softly spoken, and cooked us a delicious dinner from her dimly lit kitchen before we rested for the night.

As is tradition on GBDURO, Jamie had bought us a drink to enjoy at the finish line, and we bought forward a beer for the next rider, Lily, hoping that she finished with just as much joy and satisfaction as we had.

Flow Adventure and Friendship on GBDURO