Badlands - day one

Day 1: Granada to Gorafe Desert. 15 hours 8 minutes. 172km. 3,750m.

Day one ventured out of Granada into the Geopark offering some of the best views of the race. Mountainous terrain like I’d never seen before and energy levels high enough to aid recall. I started to meet some of the people I’d end up bumping into throughout the race.

Naomi and Matt from The British Army team who had special dispensation to ride the race. Hooked up to body temperature probes with remote tracking from an army base in Kent, they were under strict instruction to stop riding if the weather exceeded 40 degrees and/or their body temperature became dangerously high. Matt scratched that evening having destroyed his back wheel and derailleur.

The riders I met throughout the race was what made Badlands unique. A unique bunch of people , each with their own story. I met one rider from Barcelona who waxed lyrical about the dangers of sports nutrition, riding on a mix of corn syrup and homemade Himalayan salt pills.

There’s a bar situated just before you enter the Girafe Desert. Having thought the Corneto I enjoyed a few km earlier was going to be dinner, this was an oasis with the desert in sight. They had the live dot tracker on screens in the bar and mountains of bocadilos ready to grab and go.

This bar was a turning point. As up next was a loop through the desert - 150km with no option of resupply. I was surprised to see I was tracking in 166th place. I hadn’t planned to get this far on day one but here I was. Into the desert and into the night we went.

I was a bit hesitant about riding at night. Riding at the night in the desert was another level, but it was strangely calming. Riding at night however fast you were going were free miles in the bank!

I rode through to 11.30pm before deciding to bivy. So here’s where I admit to never having done this before. Finding time to test out my bivy just didn’t feature in the training plan. As soon as I got setup and climbed in, I knew this wasn’t going to work. The desert heat, a raised core temperature and zero breeze meant I was sweating in a plastic bag. Maybe I slept for 15/20 minutes, but either way having laid down for two hours, I packed up and cracked on. It was a new day.

Headphones on. Turn the peddles. Today was going to be a long day. Riding the desert at night was probably a good decision. It wasn’t long before I bumped into another rider. American Matt. A Californian. He sounded exactly like John McEnroe, swearing and cursing at every slip or raised incline. He had no idea where he was going. He’d lost his GPX. He was tagging onto whoever came by just to keep moving forward. We quite quickly jumped onto a bigger group of riders and gained some momentum but the pace was a bit high for my liking so let them go. It was at this point Matt said he needed to lay down. I guess you can be so tired that not having a map or idea of which way to go becomes less important than closing your eyes.