Race Wrap Up

The Scratch Report

McDonalds, Fens and Wind

The staggered start and what's next?

The campfire and the start

Preview

Jack Childerstone

Adam Swan

Jan Koller

Rich Rothwell

George Knuff

Nicky Shaw

Naomi Freireich

Lee Jackson

Michiel Seevinck

Pete Crawforth

Christopher Ashworth

Ben Melling

Andy Westmancoat

Russell Miller

Geoff Frost

Howard Spargo

Bjoern Stiel

Tom Silvester

Ben Wormald

Thomas Levy

Adam Cross

Mike Jacklin

Mike Sheldrake

Thomas Becker

Sam Rowbotham & Lauren Nasrallah

Pat Wirenski

Martin Dunn

Sarah King

Andrew Nippard

Stephanie Leak

Jasper Fell-Clark

Christian Bird

Martin Simmons

Elisabeth Koninx

A race that’s often characterised by what it’s not: hilly, easy, and smooth, has wrapped up its second edition of racing. Further East’s challenges are easy to miss at face value; it’s not hilly but rarely flat, there’s approximately 50% tarmac but it’s not smooth and the wind whipped round the course to mercifully dish out a headwind on the outward and inward legs. This year’s route had proportionally more tarmac than the inaugural race last year, but with 25 miles extra it’s not a dissimilarly difficult course, and the hardest parts of the route are kept in for good measure, including the dykes on the northern stretch of the route, the sand of Thetford forest and the old Roman off-road Peddar’s Way.

# A Very British Race

Riders’ numbers were decided on Friday night before when they picked their raffle numbers out of a tin, akin to something from every British village fete’s raffle. Each number marked the minutes past 7am that riders would start on Friday morning, and the numbers on the arm bands riders would don for their Anglian exploration, designed and made by race sponsor Albion with the Further boar on. The boar is a wild animal in the Pyrenees which is the home of Camille’s original race from 2019.

# Those Who Went Further

Four riders whose absence was poignant were the four Rwandan riders who were due to line up as part of Hunt Beyond’s push to enable more European racing opportunities for the riders and to improve diversity at races. Their visa applications were denied last minute and their fellow Rwanda Beyond rider Violette Neza whose passport was held at her layover flight in Istanbul en route to the Women’s Torino Nice Rally earlier this month on the suspicion it was fake. These are all hurdles that riders and fellow citizens from Rwanda and other African nations face when trying to travel to Europe, making racing abroad ever harder for non-European riders.

Since our last report, Nicky Shaw and DotWatcher Race Coordinator came in as first female and sixth overall. We're glowing with pride! Her race was one of good planning and preparation, making her an excellent colleague! She only just managed to hold of second woman who finished one position behind her, Naomi Freireich who was never seen without a smile on her face and a wry comment about the route certainly not being flat. Following a race with the route creator in tow has its downfalls but witnessing torrents of abuse at Josh Ibbett from the riders was rather enjoyable. Naomi did an excellent job of climbing up the rankings through the final day by riding a consistent and steady race. Naomi and Nicky are the only two female finishers.

Of the thirty two riders who did line up, fourteen finished and of the remaining eighteen made it back to the start/finish HQ near Camps End to pick up their things and enjoy another campfire evening. The one pair of Lauren Nasrallah and Sam Rowbotham scratched during the first night due to sore knees and the cold at night. The most common reasons we heard for scratching were needing to be home on Monday and pains from the off-road, such as knees, wrists and shoulders.

The pattern of the scratches shows the both the points at riders started to feel the toll of the route and the locations at which it’s still easy to scratch. King’s Lynn at 300km and Thetford at the 400km mark boast four and five greyed out dots, respectively, giving the eerie appearance of dot graveyard. King’s Lynn is on the direct line to Cambridge which was then only 25km to Camps End and Thetford marked the point at which the route then headed east for a further 280km whereas the direct route back to HQ was just shy of 60km. With the reality of pacing setting in, many who realised they would not make the cut off called it a day to head back. After Thetford, scratching became as hard as carrying on. It was clear to see that the first half of the route was significantly slower than the second due to less off-road, and any predictions we made about the finish time of the leaders using their times to Hunstanton were proven wrong.

A rider whose name many will have recognised is Mike Sheldrake, who is affectionately known as Shell. He crashed on the Peddar’s Way during the first night and snapped his mech hanger, while he was able to set his drivetrain up as single speed, he wasn’t able to coax his mind back round into racing mode. After riding and realised he’d possibly chosen too easy a gear once he his the tarmac and was spinning out, he made the call to scratch. After all the fixing of the drivetrain, he did say he became really good at washing his hands!

The start list was littered with riders whose names we didn’t recognise, many of whom were racing rookies and others Further rookies. Only Rich Rothwell and Pete Crawforth are riders who also lined up last year. One common mistake some made was to take the race at face value and assume that due to its elevation profile and relatively short length it would be an easy race to start with. While it’s not an easy event, route creator Josh Ibbett maintains that it is a good first race and that all races will be hard in their own way.

There is no one type of person who attends Further, the beauty is the variety of riders who are brought together for a shared experience. Riders with all different backgrounds on the bike communed around the campfire before and after and while their differences were stark, there’s a shared goal for one weekend. Further seems to attract a type of misfit, meaning that nobody really fits in to a typical mould and therefore everyone is always welcome.

The Land of Angles, mostly right angles if you ask me. After two days of straight lines and 90 degree turns, Jack Childerstone arrived after 31 hours 28 minutes of riding to a motley crew of Camille, a handful of scratchers and some media. A rider whose background includes a season of track racing and no ultra-racing before, was welcomed by a true race winner’s celebration. His strategy involved no rest overnight and he remarked on how much he enjoyed chatting to the 11 riders he would have overtaken during the first morning. He shared that his knees were giving him so much pain, had he not been leading then he would have scratched. The word in the copse is that he’s only done one long ride during the lockdown and turned up here with the wonderful naivity of a rider about to discover just how good they might be.

Adam Swan’s tactics of stuffing his McDonald’s down his jacket last night once he had the bit between his teeth allowed him to hold onto his second place through the night and finish, ready to leave a mere few hours later to be at work in the fire station tomorrow. A quick turnaround indeed.

Third place rider, Jan Koller, made up time on Rich Rothwell since the middle of the night as Rich admitted to having struggled from 3am onwards. When asked how Jan rides without showing whether he's struggling or not, Jan answered that that's his poker face, and a fine one at that. His 1hr time penalty is due to not having followed the exact GPX around the dykes and taking a lower path, rather than the more exposed one above the dykes.

Earlier this morning fourth place Rich Rothwell announced that “East Anglia and I are over”. His fourth place just betters his last year’s fifth place after a late routing error cost him a podium place. His recent finish at Further Perseverance in the Pyrenees is still weighing heavy in his legs.

Tomorrow is a bank holiday here in the UK to mark the passing of the Queen. Out of respect for her, many shops will be closing for the day and riders who are still out there tomorrow could face difficulties trying to resupply. However, many shops close in the UK at 4pm on Sundays so many riders will be preparing for an evening and night without resupply options already.

There are a handful of local riders and veterans from 2021, and it’s been interesting to hear their different attitudes to the rookies. Those who know the course or can ride it frequently talk about how they’re able to scratch in knowledge they have done or can ride this route more frequently than others. Whereas the rookies have more of a reason to finish as the next opportunity won’t come so soon.


Day 2 - We have a winner and a podium

We’ve seen 10 scratches during the night following a hard day yesterday and heading into a cold night’s riding, including the one pair of the race Lauren Nasrallah and Sam Rawbotham. Here are the reasons we know of scratching, and hope to learn the others later.

Ultra-racing rookie __Sarah King__ is out due to the knee pain from a crash during the day yesterday, she has the fortune of calling on her parents who live locally to pick her up. As did __Adam Cross__ who called his partner once the reality of this race hit, without any warm sleep kit to rest up his only option was to scratch. While the convenience of having local loved ones to come and extract you when you’ve decided to scratch can be desirable, it does have a bearing on the decision to scratch and can tip the scales in favour instead of having to self-extract and find a way out.

__Thomas Becker__ can continue no more due to a dead shifter battery. In his own words, a rookie mistake! But it’s only fuel to the fire to come back again next year with a renewed approach, and a charger.

Shell’s Highland Trail 550 Comedy of Errors has hopefully resolved with this epilogue of a broken rear mech hangar. A very frustrating way to end a ride.

__Jasper Fell Clark__ scratched in the middle of the night due to multiple punctures and not having enough tubes or patches to fix them. He’s one of two riders we saw fix one puncture, only to realise the other wheel was flat having also been pricked by some of the thorns from the hedge trimming around Fosdyke.

__Tom Levy__ crashed a couple of times yesterday and decided not to risk having any more and headed home.

__Pat Wirenski__ scratched due to pain in their ankle. They slept last night in the hope that they’d awake with a better ankle but found the opposite and scratched in King’s Lynn.

__Mike Jacklin__ is out due to wrist pain and the thought of more off-road isn’t appealing.

All riders are heading back to HQ at the finish in order to collect their things and likely stay around for the finisher’s party tonight, because who can’t resist a Further social?

As the sun sets on the first day’s riding, we assess what tonight could bring and how that will affect tomorrow’s riding.

The decisive moment of the race is yet to come: who can ride through the night and who can’t resist the sleep demons? The sun sets around 8pm and the rises again at 6am, forcing the night riders through approximately ten hours of darkness. Almost all the front runners are not carrying any sort of sleep set up, while some have opted for an emergency bivvy. Many of the riders know that unless you are carrying a full sleep setup, you’ll be too cold to enjoy a proper night’s rest and it’s best to keep moving to keep warm. This is easy to say at the end of a warm day’s riding, once the cold sets in through the night we could see plans change. The nights are certainly cooler in the UK now and with the cold northerly wind, they’ll only be chillier. Godspeed to the riders who push through the night. 

I’m currently sat in the McDonald’s in Bourne having watched riders eat their way through big macs, fries, and cokes. The land around Bourne is where the area starts to look a little different, gone are the rolling landscapes, the good tarmac ends and “it all starts to get a little weird from here”, as local lad and route designer Josh Ibbett says.

Bourne has the MacDonalds and a petrol station of an ultra-racer’s dreams as it also marks the end of the more remote stretch of the route. From here on out riders will find more populated villages and small towns which should have some offering for resupply. Following a long stretch without much food, the footfall in Bourne has been high as has the demand for liquids. A long day out in the cooler sun and wind can be a perfect recipe for underhydrating. It’s been surprising to see how many riders are carrying some carbohydrate mix to add to their water, a great solution to ensuring they ingest enough carbohydrate and liquids. I wonder if this could be a new trend in ultra-racing as it’s an easy solution to under fuelling, especially in hotter climates.

![WhatsApp Image 2022-09-17 at 18.42.55](//images.ctfassets.net/6hyijb95boju/4RYJZzQtPUY5RCVCFjBtJy/a0ca890751f967e6ead30be69a206f4a/WhatsApp_Image_2022-09-17_at_18.42.55.jpeg)

*Here's Ben Wormhold’s cockpit with the resupply points on his aerobars.*

![WhatsApp Image 2022-09-17 at 20.05.48](//images.ctfassets.net/6hyijb95boju/2ncYl25GjQlC0LW4O1ICSB/301bcd7fc6a5293292244c90179fc66a/WhatsApp_Image_2022-09-17_at_20.05.48.jpeg).

*Nicky Shaw resupplies in Bourne.*

Early race leader Rich Rothwell talks of his strategy for the day being to push on early to make progress during the daylight and cross the Fens before dark. A goal he’s succeeded in but has since slipped into fifth place, however, Rich is the only repeat offender for Further East following his fifth place at last year’s inaugural edition where he lost two positions in the final 15km due to a routing error. He assures he has got his hands on a replacement Garmin.

First female Nicky Shaw has moved up two places to 7th overall since our report earlier today and came into Bourne and resupplied with the intention of stopping again later. Her resupply plan looks immaculate, and she had estimated the timings well. She’s of the mind that stopping during the night will lead to getting too cold to stop for too long so has the least cold weather clothing of everyone we’ve talked to with only knee warmers and a down jacket, but she does have a merino hat! Whereas Rich is carrying waterproof trousers as defence against the wind during the night.

![IMG 20220917 164506](//images.ctfassets.net/6hyijb95boju/2bTVfvwj5hsqwJoU1uH9CD/65bf71e642ada278f632c802c0e6d781/IMG_20220917_164506.jpg)

*Here's Rich Rothwell enjoying one of the two burgers he bought*

These stationary moments in civilisation are prime for interacting with curious locals and fellow tourists; riders face all the usual questions about where riders have come from and where they’re going. Their astonishment at the distance the riders have done today is a typical response ultra-riders face. An all-too-common conversation outside of a petrol station in a post-industrial town in rural England.

After almost seven hours of racing, the effects of the staggered start are beginning to melt away and riders are settling into their positions in the race. Let’s take leading women Nicky Shaw and Naomi Freirich as examples: their rider numbers are 11 and 33 respectively which means they set off 22 minutes apart, but at 12:30 on the 112km mark Nicky came through and Naomi followed 57 minutes later. This 35 minute actual gap once you account for the 22 minutes start time difference is Nicky’s lead over Naomi. However, another measure of each of their efforts is how many positions they’ve climbed through their morning’s efforts and as the start positions were unseeded it’s showing a different effort for each of the women. Nicky has climbed two positions overall to ninth, and Naomi’s climbed 13 positions to 18th. Regardless of which measure you prefer, there’s only an hour between the two riders with still 568km left to go.

![IMG 20220917 122757](//images.ctfassets.net/6hyijb95boju/30KxaPsIwFvJ9vUE3TRjOQ/605e3958978a4de613a7d4fd55330860/IMG_20220917_122757.jpg)

![IMG 20220917 132444](//images.ctfassets.net/6hyijb95boju/4n5BOSzxyPZZb26McgpZUj/59111a79ac9eb949f8973650af86997e/IMG_20220917_132444.jpg)

It’s worth noting that the leaderboard on Follow My Challenge is currently ranked by average speed. This works on the assumption that if riders had all started at the same time and ridden at their existing average speed, this is the position they would be in. It’s an imperfect theory in practice as the psychological boost of chasing riders ahead of you is widely-accepted. The reason for the staggered start was to avoid a bottleneck into some of the narrow singletrack early in the race.

Leading rider on the road is Rich Rothwell, but the fastest rider is Jan Koller. With the 30 minute start time difference between them, Jan is yet to catch Rich. If Rich was to hold Jan off and finish knowing Jan is close to him, we could see a time trial finish where Rich sits in the hot seat sweating for 30 minutes, a la Tour de France time trial stage.

Heading north means the riders are currently battling the cold northerly wind which is likely to slow progress across the dykes which are both exposed and slightly above sea level. We estimate most riders will tackle this section as the sun sets which could make this section very cold and not a tempting place to bivvy tonight. The civilisation after the dykes was the scene of many a scratch last year and the deceptively hard stretch across the dykes finished many riders’ campaigns. It’s the long very flat stretch in the middle of the route and may have conned some riders into thinking it was easy…

Further’s reputation as being more than just a bike race holds true and last night’s campfire was no different. At a lower elevation and with more 4G than the start at the Refuge du Ruhle as the sister race in the Pyrenees late August, this start was certainly less magnific, but that’s of lesser importance when the company is so good. Notably there are enough ultraracing rookies here to sense an air of nerves and uncertainty. In many ways Further is an excellent first race: resupply is relatively frequent, race organiser doesn’t Camille doesn’t care for traditions and it’s a very welcoming atmosphere. However, it’s easy to underestimate how hard this race is going to be, its elevation profile belies its difficulty as riders will constantly be on the pedals and there’s no respite on this course. We await to see how much of a toll the headwind and attritional nature of this deceptive course are.

![IMG 20220917 073354](//images.ctfassets.net/6hyijb95boju/72RtH5CUpRXAzrEhgKSwvh/03143d241721c1d533ffa307c7626ee3/IMG_20220917_073354.jpg)

*Shell (Mike Sheldrake) set off as the second last rider this morning, a position he intends to defend the whole race!*

On the tools last night, Josh Ibbett biblically cooked enough sausages on a tiny BBQ to feed all the hungry riders and organisers whilst the campfire provided  warmth at a time the evenings in the UK are starting to cool, made worse by the cold northerly wind that’s been working its way down our little island to wave goodbye to summer. It’s into this wind riders will spend much of today riding, and a cool morning in the copse made for many an indecisive rider removing knee warmers last minute and putting down jacket back on. Once out in the sunshine they’ll be stripping off layers in no time.

The racers picked raffle numbers from a tin last night and their number indicates their start time and the number on their arm bands, which have been made by race sponsor Albion using some repurposed fabric. In a traditional time trial start style, riders were set off at one minute intervals and their number indicates the minutes past 7am at which they left. Rider #5, Rich Rothwell, left at 07:05 and Jan Koller (#35) at 07:35, this 30 minute time difference could take Jan hours to close, if at all. However, the advantage of chasing is well documented so we suspect Jan will take energy from all the overtaking he will be doing this morning. It’ll take a couple of hours for the effects of the staggered start to peter out and we’ll be able to observe the real racing.

With plentiful food and beer, riders retreated to their tents and bivvies well fuelled by 10pm. However, it transpires the media were the only people to drink the beers, the riders stayed tee total.

![IMG 20220917 065152](//images.ctfassets.net/6hyijb95boju/4KY0jLHn48dkCloyR9BV4d/7f1b83896c05a58db90fd424c521e4be/IMG_20220917_065152.jpg)

*Here's Nicky Shaw's arm band #11*

# Further East Preview

__Further__ than what? __East__ of where?

In the depths of East Anglia, where the roads are straighter than the train lines and pylons stand tall to be seen from miles around, 35 riders will leave a copse in a quiet village just south of Cambridge and embark on their 685km ride.

# When?

The riders will start between 7am and 8am on Saturday morning, their start time will be decided tonight at the pre-race gathering. More information will follow once the gathering has happened, you’ll have to tune in later to find out the surprises for riders tonight.

The finisher's party will take place on Sunday night which is a very tight time frame for riders to finish within, so much so Camille has extended the cut off time to Monday evening. But the social's still on Sunday night. Akin to Further Pyrenees, we suspect we may see many riders scratch around the halfway point and make a beeline for the finish as the roads are aplenty.

![DSF6995](//images.ctfassets.net/6hyijb95boju/7fp1B9Gh229IUX94vxd8wE/eab4677aa7620f646503619c04aedd97/_DSF6995.jpg)

*Both photos from Camille McMillan*

# The Route

<iframe src="https://ridewithgps.com/embeds?type=route&id=40946013&metricUnits=true&sampleGraph=true" style="width: 1px; min-width: 100%; height: 700px; border: none;" scrolling="no"></iframe>

The route has ebbed its way a little further east compared to last year’s inaugural edition, clearly Josh Ibbett’s route round much of his home riding went down a storm. Speaking of storms, riders will be mightily glad for the dry weather in the lead up to the race as the littlest of spattering of rain would turn this hard packed dusty ground into peanut butter mud. The type that weighs down the soles of your shoes until you can barely trudge and any attempt to remove the mud is futile and offers only short lived respite.

An easy mistake to make would be to ascertain that this is an easy route given how little climbing there is, and you would be wrong. One takeaway from last year’s race was how deceptively hard the route was; what doesn’t go up, can’t go down and therefore will not benefit from the rest on descents.

The racers will make two trips to the seaside this year: they return to the dykes before The Wash at Hunstanton after 255km and they’ll be graced with the East coast once more in Southwood at 532km. On the run into Hunstanton Promenade, riders will find themselves riding below sea level at times on these grassy and bumpy tracks around the dykes and if the wind’s blowing unfavourably then it’ll be slow going on this exposed section.

# The Riders

The select few who dare to go Further includes only one returning rider from 2021: __Rich Rothwell’s__ ill-fated Highland Trail 550 campaign has left him with the tail end of the season to fill with riding and he comes in fresh off Further Perseverance in the Pyrenees a mere few weeks ago.

A name that's dotted around our results database is __Mike Sheldrake__. While not a contender for the win, his name is one who veteran dotwatchers love to hear, and his tongue-in-cheek story telling is always a delight. See his [Series of Unfortunate Events](https://www.instagram.com/p/CeLjbRRs81J/) from the Highland Trail this year.

__Naomi Freirich__ is a rider whose HT550 race went much smoother and she’s also since completed a Lakeland 200 ITT this year as part of the Steezy Collective’s mission to increase the number of women on the finisher’s list. We look forward to watching her line up again.

__Jan Koller__ is lining up for his first race of the year following his 9th place at Badlands last year. With experience on the rough stuff around Grenada and some fast pace in his legs from some dark days as a road racer. 

Jan’s our race favourite, but there’s a long list of names we don’t recognise. I’m a broken record when it comes to finishing the rider preview, but I love nothing more than seeing an unknown rider brutalise the race and cause a string of questions about who the rider behind the dot is, what’s their background and how they could possibly be so good.

It's Beccy Waters here, and I'll be following along in one of the media crews so stay tuned for some updates from the road.

Beccy Waters

Further East Tracking: Race tracking and commentary for Further East 2022. FURTHER EAST TRACKING: FURTHER EAST takes you deep into the East of England on a gravel epic.

Further East Tracking 2022

FURTHER EAST TRACKING: FURTHER EAST takes riders deep into the East of England on a gravel epic. Flat and fast; blink and you'll miss it.

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