Svensk version: Race Around Poland 2023
| Race | Race Around Poland 2023, Warsaw, Poland |
| Date | 15–26 July 2023 |
| Distance | 3,618 km / 33,000 m |
| Format | Unsupported |
| Bike | OPEN U.P. |
| Result | 11 of 23 (26 % DNF) |
| Total time | 259:45 (moving ~159 h) |
| Overall avg | 13.9 km/h |
| Moving avg | 22.7 km/h |
| Rest % | 39 % |
Prologue
The preparations in the weeks leading up to the race could’ve, to put it mildly, gone much better. In the process of replacing the oval Rotor 48/35 chainrings with round Carbon-Ti 46/33 ones, issues arose. The original plan was to use SRAM’s own 43/30 due to the abundance of steep climbing, but when it was time to mount the crankset with its small 94 BCD, it turned out that the frame simply couldn’t accommodate it: the spindle would hit the frame. Perhaps this could have been solved by converting to WIDE, but who would want to cycle bow-legged like a duck, as Vroomen puts it.
The short version is that the front derailleur broke before I managed to sort out its settings. Panic ensued with less than two weeks until departure, so I ordered two new ones from two different stores to increase the chances of getting at least one, as well as a complete XPLR/e*thirteen 1x kit and a new rear derailleur as paranoia now had me in its iron grip. I managed to get everything delivered on time and succeeded in replacing the rear derailleur and setting up the front one correctly.
I haven’t managed to squeeze in a long ride in weeks, as the bike troubles have consumed all my available time. Luckily, I did manage to cycle back and forth to the double 50th birthday celebration Malin and I hosted for the closest family on Öland during Midsummer at least. All I could fit in were a few short indoor sessions.
I’ve got the car journey down by now. It should be possible to arrive at the hotel in Warsaw by midnight with an electric car if everything goes smoothly. It didn’t last year, and it didn’t this year either. At least the ferry isn’t delayed, but I do get stopped by a couple of customs officers who decide to X-ray a couple of bags. Then, the faux off-road vehicle gets to prove its mettle on incredibly bad sand/gravel roads through the forest due to road closures. I’m not the only one who sees the opportunity through the forest and therefore encounter many oncoming vehicles where there really isn’t enough room. Many stop me and ask if the road really does lead to Świnoujście in the end, and I can confirm it does. I’ve lost over a precious hour which could’ve been spent sleeping since I have to work the next day. At least the charging points are available along the way unlike last time, so it’s not much past one in the morning when I roll into the parking garage.
Sleep
I then manage to get two good nights with almost eight hours of sleep each. Wonderful! The plan is indeed to maintain a high level of safety in the at times very tough traffic, i.e., to cycle as mindfully as possible. This also means that I heed the wise words from the book Masters RAAM, “resist the temptation of cutting out your first sleep break, fatigue is cumulative”, and sleep in a booked room on the first night. The hope is to set the alarm for four hours and fifteen minutes to a half-hour should provide around four effective hours of sleep per night, and that should suffice. Boy, was I wrong. The Sandman makes his inevitable entrance every day, and I end up taking short siestas in particularly bus shelters, which are plentiful in the country, but also on benches and the occasional restroom.
It’s very hard to know in advance exactly how easy it will be to sleep at a timestation, and I have major issues in shared rooms due to noise, light, and movement. This, of course, greatly contributes to poor recovery and an increased need for a daytime nap.
The race and its rules
Now that timestations have been mentioned, it’s appropriate to talk about the race and its rules. Let’s put the supported category aside (which this year had WUCA World Championship status and was brilliantly won by the Swedish cyclist Jimmy Rönn and his amazing team, who cheered me on along the course during the race and then a day after their finish as they headed north; it was a real energy boost to chat with Jimmy for a minute, hanging out of a family bus window). I competed in the unsupported category as usual and the race is divided into twelve approximately 300 km long sections, each ending with a timestation. The unique things about this race are firstly, that you’re considered a finisher the moment you reach your first timestation. Secondly, each timestation also has a cut-off time which is one day per timestation since the start (so you can indeed be eliminated during the course of the race). Thirdly, you’re allowed to leave one drop-bag per timestation before the start. It’s a real luxury to have fresh bibs and not have to rely solely on gas stations, Mickey D’s and the like, but rather have the security in carried energy such as Fortimel, Sponser Ultra and SiS Beta Fuel.
Mechanicals
I’m quite paranoid over the mechanical aspects in light of the troubles before the start. The chain drops first once, which requires a bit more effort as it gets stuck inside the chain catcher (the irony…), and then yet again. This time, the catcher is removed but to my horror, I discover that the front derailleur is very misaligned. Adjusting this is what has cost me so much time back home. I feel the panic creeping in, but realize that the only thing that can be done is to loosen it and try to adjust it. Incredibly, this goes very well. I found the right line and height on the first try, then stop and fiddle with one of the limit screws a few times, and it should shift flawlessly for the remaining 2,500 km.
What’s worse, around the 1,000 km mark at a Mickey D’s stop, I find that what I thought was a branch I need to remove from the rear derailleur is, in fact, a broken spoke. At this point, I believe that finishing in Warsaw is out of the question, and that it’s about wobbling to as many timestations as possible before more spokes give way. However, I’ve ridden the second half of an Everesting with three broken spokes on an older version of the 303 Firecrest, and the latest model that I’m racing on also has Sapim spokes, so I still have hope. It’s bloody lucky that I’m riding a frame with space for 42 mm tires as the wobble significantly increases the effective width of my 35 mm tires. With an aero frame hugging the rear wheel, it would’ve been over.
Roads and traffic
The road conditions are sometimes a really tough challenge and I don’t know how many times I’ve seen speed bump road signs with an additional sign indicating kilometers. This doesn’t mean that the road has speed bumps for seven kilometers, but that the surface is really rough with large cracks, potholes, and the like.
I entered the race in race mode, however, with the caveat that I would run my race according to my plan and not let myself get caught up in other’s tactics or care about how they were doing. For unclear reasons, probably fatigue, I was unable to push as hard as I would have liked and, worse, I ended up taking quite long breaks. Mentally, I needed that iced coffee or Coke in the heat and not another warm Fortimel. The weather varied from 36 °C down to quite low night temperatures (I rode the last night with a down jacket under a rain jacket), as well as from blazing sun to heavy rain with thunder. Unfortunately, I also had bad luck with the wind, which was mostly against me throughout the race. Early on, I completely lost the desire to drive myself into the ground and also gained a lot of respect for the fact that the lion’s share of the race’s 33,000 meters of elevation are found between km 400 and 1,800, and I wanted to come out of them with my knees relatively intact, especially now that I had to settle for 0.92 as the lowest gear ratio (yes, I stepped off and walked up a steep hill one night for the first time in my cycling life…). I simply threw out my ten-day plan and switched to rando mode, i.e., finishing in twelve days and completion is good enough. Later it gets “even worse” as the days in the saddle break down all my defenses and I start wearing my heart on my sleeve. It’s hard to explain and probably needs to be experienced, but for example, Hurula’s summer talk turns into an unprecedented crying fest. I keep pedaling and try to find ad-hoc accommodations that fit the rhythm and avoid timestations for anything other than short naps.
Unfortunately, I was right about the traffic and often feel unsafe, which makes adequate rest even more important for me a bit into the race. I also arrive a few minutes after a fellow competitor who has been hit by a car and is standing with the offender by the roadside, and I realize what I know, the danger is real. However, he says that he is okay when I stop and ask, and a hospital visit will fortunately later confirm this. At timestation 11, there are quite a few of us riders gathered and we are informed that a total of four people in the unsupported category have been hit by cars, one with fractures as a result. Kamil, who is present, is one of the four and he also tells about how he has thrown himself off the roadside three times when impatient drivers don’t wait with their overtaking and there simply is no room for a cyclist. Perhaps my middle finger has been raised a few times in similar situations… We are asked to be extra careful for the last miles into Warsaw and the city’s rush hour traffic. This is advice I will later follow as best as I can in the traffic chaos.
The mental game
For a while, I considered writing a very different race report that would only focus on the mental aspect because of the inner journey that took place. My dear competitor Kamil wrote before the race that it was time again (he came in second last year) to be broken down to the atomic level and put back together. I thought a lot about that quote during the race, but felt that I was not only broken down into my smallest components, but also put back together as a slightly better version. Very pretentious, hence why this won’t be such a race report. I also began to meditate seriously late in life this year, and this may have contributed to the deeper thoughts. Many were the hours I thought that this was my retreat and that the cycling and the competition were secondary. It’s very interesting how you can get in touch with parts of yourself that you haven’t really encountered before. Interesting timing that we listened to Josh Ibbett being interviewed by Sherry about his TCR merits and her upcoming TCR and how he managed the mental aspect during such long and tough races in the car on the way to Kołobrzeg. My favorite listening during long cycling ordeals is rockumentaries and this time, among others, Hvem Er The Minds of 99? was included, and not least a fantastic passage about how the whole band trips on mushrooms together. It ends with the advice to be an adult and have landed in yourself before you do that. I thought it fit nicely into ultra-cycling as well, but with that said, the youngest participant this year was only 20 years old. What was being jumbled in his head, however, I know nothing about…
Why RAP
For quite some time, I have wanted to participate in a really long race like the Transcontinental Race (TCR), even though that race is very low on my wish list because of wild dogs, which I have had enough of in southern Italy, and especially the time it takes to create your own route. For me, there is an enormous value in enjoying a scouted and sensible route. I had a North Cape 4000 (NC4k) starting spot as early as 2021, but due to many border crossings, unclear vaccination status, and varying restrictions in different countries, I chose to participate in The Length of Sweden and 1001 Miglia that year instead, as I also had spots for those since they were postponed a year due to the pandemic. The Length of Sweden resulted in lifelong friendships, so in hindsight, it was a very good choice. Poland and RAP were chosen in 2022 instead of the NC4k simply because of the logistics. I’ve flown a lot with my bike and I hate it, so being able to drive was a significant factor. An even more important factor was finishing with Malin at the finish line and enjoying some cozy time together. We usually do this in conjunction with my races and have enjoyed places like Paris, Rome, Milan, and Aarhus. However, she was very sure she wasn’t going to make the trip up to the North Cape… When I was forced to drop out last year due to a broken rear derailleur, there was never any doubt. Already on the ferry home, I asked the organizer Remek if I could keep my start number 22 and do it justice in 2023. “It’s yours for life,” was the answer I received ❤ The great impression I got from the organizer and a level of professionalism I had never experienced before also heavily contributed. Indeed, all logistics and other aspects worked like a Swiss watch during the race. The organization is large with, among other things, a fantastic official at each time station, but special thanks to the main characters Remek and Mateusz 🙏🏻
Poland
Aside from the aforementioned traffic and road conditions, a trip around Poland does not disappoint. There is a lot of eye candy in the mountains and plenty of opportunities to see wildlife. For example, a moose sauntered right out in front of me, but I missed the bears that fellow competitor Grzegorz had warned me about during our joint dinner the night before the start. He actually lives in the area where the route is most densely populated with bears and had, for example, encountered four (!) moose during his last training ride before the race. There is a lot of agriculture and long, peaceful passages through gigantic fields and farms. Lakes and especially beautiful forests abound. The infrastructure is good, with many gas stations with generous opening hours, as well as Mickey D’s. As a person originally from Småland, I also appreciate the price level in the country for accommodation and food, which is considerably lower than back home, despite our depreciating krona. Not least, a long-distance cyclist appreciates the large, nice bus shelters with equally large benches when it’s time for a siesta and a nap. The Polish ultra-cyclists are at least as friendly as in the rest of the world, which creates an incredible camaraderie that makes the feeling of competition hard to come by. Unfortunately, there are often as big language barriers as in Italy, but you can get far with body language and hugs. If Poland sounds appealing but 3,600 km / 33,000 m seems a bit much, Grzegorz recommended the 1,008 km long Bałtyk Bieszczady which he has ridden several times. As a southern Swede, the start in Świnoujście is also convenient. The country also offers the Race Through Poland which is over 1,500 km long and, according to Grzegorz, contains some tougher gravel sections in the spirit of the TCR that the organizer wishes for.
The bike
For the dedicated nerds, the bike used is likely to be of interest. I knew already last year that my Cervélo S3 had too aggressive geometry and insufficient comfort for the aforementioned road surfaces and an aging body. Not even “short” races with nice roads like the 1,600 km Race Around Denmark (RAD) have been able to be completed without problems with neck and lower back in recent years. While licking my wounds after last year’s fiasco in the hallway on Öland, it was decided that a bike optimized for RAP should be built. It would also be suitable for gentler gravel ultras. I was really keen on a nice titanium frame, but as the Vroomen fanboy I am, it of course became a fourth such. This time the choice fell on OPEN U.P. Had planned to build a fully wired 12s Di2 (one battery to rule them all), but when I realized that an adapter was required for my beloved shifting buttons in the aero bars and a mess in the cockpit, the strategy was switched to wireless and AXS. I wanted to avoid an XDR-body and while blips in MagCad mounts do the job, they cannot be compared to the nice, elegant Dura-Ace buttons I’ve spoiled myself with. I also terribly miss my buttons for Edge screen change in the handles. These have been replaced with an Edge remote which indeed turned out to be indispensable when the bike computer freaks out in the rain and the screen needs to be locked. A kit with a suspension saddle post and handlebar stem from Redshift was a given, as well as wide light Zipp Firecrest 303 wheels. After many years with different Infinity seats, a decision was taken a few weeks before RAP to test E1XC as it would suit the more upright position this build was aiming for. I could even splurge with carbon fiber rails as this bike has Tailfin’s pannier system and the rails should not be used to attach a heavy saddlebag. Most bikes have UCI-legal small forearm supports, but the ultra world has no such limitations and my choice fell on a pair of Culprit CSR (which garnered much attention in Poland). These, along with the suspension cockpit, Profile Designs’ highest risers, and shift buttons at the aerobar ends, mean that the lion’s share of RAP can be ridden in a comfortable aero position. Absolutely fantastic and exactly what I had hoped for. RAD was ridden on fast 30 mm Pirelli P Zero Race as usual, but I wanted more puncture protection and comfort for RAP. Had early bought three Strada Bianca Pro 36 mm, but then Specialized launches new Mondo which had been tested in this year’s Paris–Roubaix and I get four of them. These were ridden puncture-free with high comfort during my 160 hours of pedaling. Magical.
What’s next
Are you pondering about the next thing after this overwhelming knockout, or are you hanging the bike on the wall and curling up in a fetal position? The former, of course! Right now, my thoughts are leaning towards an in-between year in 2024 with two races in the spring, preferably the Race Around the Netherlands (RatN) and RAD, as the entire family intends to visit our dear friends who have moved back to Shanghai after having the luxury of them being close for over a decade in Sweden.
In 2025, I’m considering a “5225” challenge, that is a significant challenge as a 52-year-old in the year ‘25. This challenge will ideally be the Bike Nonstop US. A “mellow” race over 3,500 miles (5,600+ kilometers) across the US on mixed surfaces, with a focus on bike infrastructure and as few cars as possible. With relatives not so far from the finish line, the dream is that the whole family will come over and that we will visit them and do something fun in the US together. Those who live will see, but one must dream!
The result
The result was an eleventh placement. I had the sub10 plan since the two previous editions had found their winners there. This year, however, significantly more and well-qualified riders showed up, with Krystian as the shining star and pre-race favorite after nearly beating Strasser himself during last year’s TCR. He did not disappoint and crushed the track record.
I had decided on a longer five-hour night’s rest 450 kilometers before the finish line and to have my first hotel breakfast to get through the night with a 45-minute session in a bus shelter. Everything went according to plan, but with only 110 kilometers left, I was so exhausted that two half-hour naps were needed to finish, and the fight for the last top ten spot fell through.
However, I felt like a winner when parts of the RAP team came out to meet me with both a flag and a photographer with big smiles, not to mention how much I felt like a victor when I see my utterly fantastic better half Malin at the finish line. In the end, I achieved a solid sub11 in approximately 260 hours, of which around 160 were spent pedaling (and struggling…).
Strava, or it didn’t happen! 😉
Epilogue
A surprised Anna wondered how I can vacation after long races with corresponding severe exhaustion and sleep deprivation. In the case of Ale Wino and Woda Ognista on the same evening as the finish day, it was about two hours in bed before we hopped in an Uber. I’ve never thought about it before, but it becomes a kind of race in itself. It wasn’t until we got back to Sweden, some business in Bunkeflostrand and then the calm on Öland that I started catching up on sleep. At the time of writing, I have slept more than nine hours four days in a row… Also didn’t cycle for a week as I promised myself during the race, but yesterday’s leisurely ride with my wife’s cousin was just as wonderful as it could be 😃
Finally, a big thank you to those who encourage during the journey with an extra big 🙏🏻 to Per who ran a race thread on my Facebook page with daily updates. I also want to ask for understanding that some messages may be missed and that there is rarely time/energy/opportunity to respond. But let the encouragement flow in next time as well! ❤
More photos
