Just Passing Through – with Mega Mileater Steve Abraham

On Steve Abraham’s journey to 75,065 miles or more, it was time to play away from home and sample some randonneur hospitality.  Chez Brevet Bird was the first stop of many by Steve to numerous AUK homes for a high speed bed, breakfast and evening meal.

The day had been made a bit more challenging for Steve with mega headwinds.  So he needed to forge a cunning plan to accumulate miles but minimise the draining effect of the headwind.  Steve’s rather neat solution was to form a one man circuit race and ride in circles, so getting turn and turnabout headwind and back wind with some sidewind thrown in for free.  Steve’s tenacity and dedication to doing what is needed for the record meant that he spent about nine hours in this lapping pattern.  Then it was time to head off for the dénouement of his ride, arrivee in windy Pinner.

As Steve wanted a route of least resistance that could be ridden at 16mph, I formulated one using a local evening 10 mile TT course plus some routes my Dad had taught me when we first went out cycling together with the Marlboro AC.  Dad’s mantra was always ‘why go up a hill if you can go around it’.  The most cunning part of this was sneaking around a rather fine and very steep hill that lives at Rickmansworth.

By the time I’d ridden like a girl and fought the headwind and lost, I didn’t quite get to the pre-arranged rendezvous with Steve at Costa, Wendover.  As Steve had my route on his Garmin, it was a simple matter of riding until our paths crossed.  As we were the only ones to be daft enough to be riding bikes at 7:30pm on a Saturday night in winter, it wasn’t difficult to spot Steve’s bike headlights coming towards me and do a U-turn.

With the wind on our backs, Steve assuming the position on his tri-bars and me scurrying on his back wheel, we sped along the A413 to Amersham.  Things slowed down a little bit on the climb out of Amersham as Steve is riding to a very specific heart rate in order to ride as efficiently as he can each and every day.  It was almost time to enjoy the descent to Rickmansworth when I found I had a rear visitation from the Psttt Fairy.  As time is miles, Steve continued solo.

Once my bike had both tyres with air in them, I recommenced pedalling as fast as I could.  I needed to be back at home to change from route guide to cook.  Arriving home just in time, I was able to have the pre-prepared dinner ready for Steve once he had showered.  Dinner, upload GPS track to Strava and it was, as Zebedee says ‘time for bed’.  As Steve headed for a very hard earned sleep, his cycling kit was fed to the washing machine.  In six hours, it needed to be ready for Steve to wear again.

All too soon, the sound of the Tour de France could be heard; the alarm had gone off, it was 4am.  Then it was check the weather station, get dressed, have breakfast and then get the pedals turning.  The weather station indicated that it was, for stupid o’clock, quite warm at 3C. However, with the wind again not behind but in front, it was pretty chilly.   The destination was one of Rocco Richardson’s favourite roads, the A4.  With little or no traffic about, we were able to utilise main roads as well as carefully chosen smaller roads andavoid Slough with its never-ending traffic lights.  Riding in the dark when most sensible people are still asleep, it felt like the late Pat Kenny was with us.  Riding at odd times of night and day was one of Pat’s fortes.  I’d never heard anyone else needing to go for a bike ride in the middle of the night to get a glass of water.

After some careful hill avoidance work, we arrived at Maidenhead and the A4.  Steve was to continue on the A4 until it was time to turn and head home with the back wind, and I had a significantly shorter ride back to my home.  Being a mileater, and despite the still very early hour of the morning, I looped around some of my favourite roads.  It was very nice when dawn popped up to meet me and the sun shone.  I arrived home at 10 am with 100km in the bag. Steve was back at his home at 8:30 pm with 299km and another milestone; 2000 miles since New Year’s Day; only 73,065 to go to join Tommy.

A Mileating Start to 2015 – Steve starts chasing Tommy

I’ve known Steve Abraham for so long now, I can’t really remember a time when his antics both on and off the bike haven’t been a part of my life.  Riding a November 600 with Steve and Ian Hennessey particularly stands out.   Steve’s ability to cover lots of miles, usually on brevets, and to eat large quantities of food is legendary within the Audax UK community.  Steve is putting both of these extra-special talents to take on Tommy Godwin’s long-standing year mileage record of 75,065 miles, set in 1939.

Being an audaxer used to riding his bike at odd hours of the night and not wanting to waste a minute of the 365 days he has to accumulate more miles than Tommy did, Steve started turning the pedals of his Raleigh bicycle at 00:01 on 1^st January 2015.

After spending the night a-wheel, Steve rocked up at 10am to ride his club’s New Year’s Day 10 mile time trial.  Well, every little helps!  Donning a number befitting the winner of the Tour de France, Steve sped (relatively speaking, with 116 miles in his legs) down the North Bucks Road Club course.  Playing with a rather evil headwind and sleepy tiredness, Steve returned to the time keeper half an hour later.  After speaking to the men from the telly, it was time to get pedalling again.  As Nev Chanin used to say, time is miles.

Steve departed with a small peloton of AUKs in the direction of Bicester.  One of these being Drew Buck, well-known super-AUK for his exploits on various crazy machines around Paris Brest Paris.   Bunch banter was good with Drew telling us various stories, including the PBP where he and Steve shared a triplet bicycle with Nigel Winter as their middleman.  The persistent headwind was a bit pesky and the appearance of hedges and houses to slow the wind down was much appreciated.

After a night feasting on flapjack, the hunger gods tapped Steve on the shoulder and it was time to head to a source of food.  Cue an early visit to Bicester on top of the one planned at 3pm for a mega feed before heading back to Milton Keynes.  Steve’s encyclopaedic knowledge of food emporiums was deployed and a baby KFC was chosen.  Standing in the queue, Steve enjoyed a brief moment of normal life.  Once replete with chicken (sans tea or coffee, as the machine wasn’t working), it was time for Steve to ride in circles until his next scheduled rendezvous with Bicester’s eateries.   I swung in the opposite direction to meet up with the Bike Butler and then home.

Score on the One Year Time Trial door for 01/01/2015: 222 miles (358km in new money) – mine was considerably less.