The Hope 1000

Somewhere in Switzerland...

The first signs of dawn on day 4 (or was it day 5?) were aparent as I lay there in my bivy, trying to steal a few more z's knowing that I really ought to be getting up. Nick had already packed up and gone. I would catch up with him later I thought. We had spent most of the previous day riding together on and off after a similar staggered start. That evening, after sitting out the first of the week's storms, we climbed out of Meiringen, past the impressively floodlit Reichenbach Falls, towards the Grosse Scheidegg pass. Mike elected to pedal on as Nick and I pushed our bikes into a damp field just off the road to find a flat spot to bivy out. Nobody would notice our being there: It was gone midnight.

The climb up to Grosse Scheidegg that morning was tougher than I expected (delusion?). The on/off drizzle didn't help, neither did the build up of fatigue. This was, afterall, day 5 (not 4) of my first ever bikepacking race. I didn't pick the easiest race to start: 1,000km across the very much not flat country of Switzerland, on and off road and up and down 30,000m worth of alpine passes. A lot of people asked me why I picked it. The simple (and boring) answer is: logistics. The finish is very close to home, I could get to the start by train, and if things went well I could finish it on my 44th birthday. I'm not sure why I thought I could ride it in 7 days, since that would mean every day would be longer and harder than any single day I'd ridden in my life before by quite some margin.

You've got to start somewhere, right?

For me, it started in November '21. My entry was secure and now all I had to do was prepare. Actually, it started the year before, when I first heard of the race and signed up for the entry notice. I knew this would require training. I'd never actually trained for anything before so the whole process and science of it was new and interesting to me. I set myself a target to start training properly after christmas. That gave me a couple of months to figure out how to train for such an event. I already owned a turbo-trainer (thanks, Covid) and wasn't altogether unfit, so kept up on that whilst I worked on my plan.

The training plan

It turns out that training for an event like this is probably how you might guess: Ride your bike. a lot. Easier said than done when you live in a ski resort in the winter, but thankfully it was a dry and mild one so the turbo wasn't used as much as it might have been. In the 6 months leading up to the event, I logged: 316 hours (94 rides & 37 turbo sessions), 4,995 km, 91,260 meters elevation gain. I even snuck in a Mont Ventoux summit.

The bike & kit

I went with my Norco Optic trail bike over my hardtail due to the added comfort it would offer over the long days. The weight penalty was negligible and since I didn't need to carry too much with me, the lack of a frame pack wasn't an issue. If I were to compete in the event again and trying to get the best time possible, I'd take the hardtail - the added efficiency offered would outweigh the comfort IMO. The absolute ideal bike is probably a lightweight 100-120mm XC / marathon bike with the ability to lockout both fork and shock for the long tarmac climbs.

The other side of the prep was dialling in the kit. A few overnighters helped me decide on the minimal gear I would need. Here's what I took with me:

• Norco Optic
• Spirgrips One inner-bar-ends.
• Vittoria e-Barzo 2.35 tires – fast rolling, decent grip, tough sidewalls.
• OneUp pump + EDC tool + bottle for electrolyte tabs
• Magicshine lights
• Garmin Edge 530
• Wolftooth 0.6l bag containing spares, lube etc
• Oveja Negra gearjammer saddle pack for clothes: long sleeve base layer, boxers, 1x socks, liner shorts, baggies, down jacket, waterproof jacket + shorts.
• Revelate Designs down-tube bag with first aid kit, 20,000mh battery, emergency blanket, toothbrush, packtowel (didn't use it).
• Alpkit top-tube bag for snacks + small battery pack for keeping the Garmin powered up past 5pm
• Rockbros (aliexpress special, really good!) bar bag with sleeping kit (OR Helium bivy, 5 degree marmot down bag, Nemo sleeping pad, Sea-to-summit pillow (luxury!) and a (pointless) sitting mat
• (Not pictured) Camelbak Chase 8 pack for more water + snack & sandwich carrying capacity.

Meanwhile, back in Switzerland

My planned 7 days would mean covering around 150km and over 4,000m of climbing per day. The first morning flew by. A mixture of fresh legs, excitement and relatively flat trails were the cause. As the heat of the afternoon kicked in, so did the climbing. I learned pretty early on to ignore the stats and just ride. The garmin spent 90% of it's time on the map screen: follow the red line and the distance would come. The day ended high up on a mountain pass. My left thigh was cramping up on each pedal stroke, it was dark, and I'd ridden further in one day than I ever had. Time to stop.

Day 2 started with a pre-dawn 1,000m descent (no better way to start a day!). Then the race against the sun was on to get the first major climb out of the way before the temperatures soared into the 30's again. Climbing up from a lake shore that afternoon was brutal, racing between the shadows, pausing every few hundred meters to cool down, desperately conserving water. It took 3 hours to cover what might normally be done in under 1. By the time I'd found food in the valley on the other side, the sun's stregth had faded and the climb out was much more bareable. On the summit was a covered picnic area, I fully expected it to be full of fellow racers, but to my surprise it was empty. Sure enough as the night went on so more and more guys arrived to this makeshift camp.

A lot of riders who arrived after me, also left earlier than I did. Was I taking this "race" seriously, I thought to myself? No matter - another mountain top sleep meant another descent to start the day off. I had half a pizza from the night before as breakfast and got a good 60km in before the first stop. As would become the norm, each town we passed through had a few dusty tired looking riders paused for fuel.

Nick, a brit whom I'd met briefly on day one, turned up at the cafe as I was mid second-breakfast. It turned out that he was one of the late-arrivals / early starters at the previous night's camp. I learned an unwritten rule (or perhaps just common race etiquette) during the first few days that boils down to something like this: Ride, chat & make friends with your fellow competitors, but you don't need to wait for them, and they in-turn do not have to wait for you. You'll most likely meet and part ways multiple times anyway. And so it was – we spent most of the next few days riding together-ish.

Ryan (a young french guy) and Mike (another brit) were also on roughly the same schedule and so we would ride together on and off throughout the week - sharing tails from the trail, endless climbs and the amazing views as we went.

After Grindalwald came the inappropriately named Kleine Scheidegg (nothing "kleine" about it!) followed by a very welcome descent towards Interlaken and my first "wash" in 4 days. The sun's fierce heat would soon give way to a huge storm, forcing an unplanned stop in a tractor shed half way up the next ascent. The coming pass was up near 2,000m and I didn't fancy doing that either in the dark or in the middle of a massive storm so I had to make a break for it during the lulls. Thirty minutes climbing later I was once again sheltering from the wind and rain. I was up at around 1,800m and with all my clothes on at this point - if the storm didn't pass, I might have had to retreat back to my shed.

Thankfully, after another hour or so, the storm did pass and, as the last light of the day was fading, I made it over the top. I heard cheers and my name being called as I passed through the first village on the other side – dotwatchers had been tracking the race! This gave me the boost I needed to keep going down to the valley floor where, cold and damp, I found myself a cheap hotel for the night.

Day 6 started with yet another climb, this time rewarded with a great descent into Lenk - making the full use of the Optic's sure footed suspension - perhaps it was worth the inefficiencies of zero lockout full sus afterall. After catching up with Nick in Lenk (he'd made it over the previous day's pass in the storm and found a different hotel to dry out overnight) for a hot and tasty bacon quiche and coffee we started on the next climb. The legs were feeling good somehow so I pushed on, not wanting to be caught out in the days predicted afternoon storm near the top of another pass.

I made it all the way down into Gstadd and half way up the next climb before the heavens really opened and forced another hour's pause in the porch of a vacant holiday home. Once the lightning had passed, I knew I had to push on. We're not made of sugar afterall. The switchbacking road descent next to a very swollen river did make me wonder if I should be out, but I was here now, I thought.. best just get down.

I sat out the rest of the storm in a restaurant near at the bottom. I was soaked through, but luckily I had some dry clothes and the restaurant wasn't too fancy. So un-fancy in fact that it didn't accept cards and I didn't have enough cash for my dinner - a 15k roundtrip to the nearest ATM was required. Oops.

Fueled up, warm and dry, I set off into the darkening evening. I knew I only had around 150km to the finish, so wanted to get to within easy striking distance of Montreux before getting some sleep. I'd also spent around 3-4 hours that afternoon not moving. I stopped around 2am and set up the bivvy just off the road for hopefully my final night out.

Day 7. What a difference in temperatures and weather we had encountered over the week. From pushing high 30's under clear blue skys to this, my final day. Rainy & cold at altitude. After the first descent of the day I got myself breakfast and a coffee in the dank drizzle. I knew there was only 60 or so kilometers to go. Somehow I had convinced myself that there was at least 3,000m of climbing left – I daren't look at the Garmin for confirmation - just pedal and the meters will come.

The heavens opened once again just as I got down from another climb. My bike was crunching away with all the mud on my drivetrain. I looked at the remaining profile left on the GPS, fully expecting to see a further 2 spikes between me and Freddie. To my absolute glee there was only one! How this had happened I do not know, but suddenly I was looking at just 600m or so of climbing left. At this point the rain was absolutely hammering down. I had my waterproofs on, my surgical gloves under my riding gloves, time to finish this off.

"This is a monument, not a bike stand"

By the time I was descending down towards Montreux, the sun was trying it's best to peak through. My back tire was also losing some air - I just had to nurse it home down the technical stepped route into town. 6days, 10 hours and 1 minute after setting out from Romandshorn, I had made it to Montreux and the official finish at Freddie Mercury's statue. We'd been told to hang around at the statue so the Spot tracker would register a finish. "This is a monument, not a bike stand" someone said. Sorry about that.