When is a sportive not a sportive?
When it's the big biking party known as the Garmin Ride Out; held in support of the charity Action Medical Research, it really is a fun ride which this year was treated to amazing weather.
I first heard about the Garmin Ride Out in 2023 after watching Katie Kookaburra's YouTube video of the event. Even then it came across as a fun event, so I immediately clicked on the link to register an interest for the 2024 outing.
Little did I know that by the time I received the email about this year's event I'd have retired, moved to just along the south coast from the ride start, it would be held on my birthday (11 August), the sun would be shining and, better still, I would get the chance to meet Katie Kookaburra. What a day to have a birthday!
On receipt of the 2024 event, I signed up ready for the big day. The cost of the event was £55, but that included the event jersey which, it would appear, changes every year.
Regular newsletters were sent out to all registered riders and about a fortnight before the event everyone received a comprehensive rider's manual containing all the relevant information for parking, registration and other good info plus an additional annex about the rules of riding through the New Forest National Park.
The event parking and start point were at Moyles Court School with parking and registration opening at 07:30. With that being about 90 minutes' drive away I set off just after 6am on a very misty morning to try and ensure I got a parking space close to the event village.
By the time I'd arrived there were quite a few cars already parked and queues at the registration desk to pick up ride numbers, cable ties, jersey numbers - complete with safety pins - and the all-important lunch and breakfast vouchers before moving on to the adjacent desk for picking up the pre-ordered jerseys.
Breakfast was being served in the event village from 08:00 and queues had already formed at the two butty wagons, one for bacon and the other one for a vegetarian option.
With bacon butty in hand, it was just a short stroll over to the Jimmy's iced coffee stand where iced coffee was freely available as another important aspect of the breakfast vibe.
Having arrived so early it allowed plenty of time to stroll around the village and the various stalls that were set up in support of the charity.
One well frequented stall was the SiS stall with various amounts of freebie products. The guy running the stall had developed the multi-tasking skill of just about unwrapping and emptying packages quicker than the punters were picking them up whilst also offering advice regarding each product and reminding folk not to try a product for the first time on such a ride. It didn't seem too long before he was out of stock!
On the other side of the village the Action Medical Research staff and volunteers were selling raffle tickets for the upcoming raffle with most of the prizes donated by Garmin, and what a list it was:
- Garmin Edge Bike Computer
- Garmin Varia RCT715
- Garmin Tacx NEO 2T
- Garmin Rally Rk200
- Garmin Forerunner 965
- Garmin HRM-Pro Plus
I purchased a book of tickets with my eye on the Edge Bike Computer, which would be a great birthday pressie, although I wouldn't have turned my nose up at any of them, especially the Tacx NEO 2T smart trainer that was being freely exhibited on site with many riders taking the opportunity of trying one out and getting a free pair of socks for their efforts.
Next on the day's itinerary was the Garmin Welcome in the main marquee which allowed plenty of time to take it nice and easy setting up the bike, changing into my riding gear and parking the bike in the massive bike park before grabbing a suitable patch of grass to park myself in the, by now, very cool marquee.
The first part of the welcome was a short insight into the work carried out by Action Medical Research by the head of fundraising whose name I unfortunately missed.
The charity has been running for 70 years and was initially started by a doctor, whose daughter had polio, and he started fund raising to find a cure and eradicate the illness. From that point onwards the charity has been instrumental in funding research into children's illnesses and birth difficulties. Due to the ongoing fundraising, supported by many celebrities, the charity can fund over 180 researchers who are presently engaged in 45 projects across the UK. All of this does not come cheap, and the current funding requirement stands at £14 million to continue their very important work and, of course, every bit of support and funding helps.
As if to bring the charity's purpose to life the next welcome was from Jack Fairbrother, Head of Garmin Marketing UK, who, after outlining Garmin's commitment to supporting the charity, gave a heart-rending, nay, heartbreaking account of his prematurely born son's fight for life through countless lifesaving operations, from the moment of his very early birth, to present day and due to continue in his son's future. Thankfully Jack's son is doing well and Jack, his wife and their son still have challenging times ahead of them, but they are all grateful for the contribution that Action Medical Research have made due to their research.
The welcoming agenda continued with the introduction of the supporting celebrity riders, with a surprise addition to those attending.
First up was the ex-England football goalkeeper, Ben Foster. If you have not seen the Matt Stevens café ride with Ben it really is worth a watch and shows what a funny man Ben is, he even had the audience laughing at some of his Q&A answers in the marquee.
Next up was Chris Hall, a very accomplished ultra cyclist. His 'palmares' speaks for itself, 107 miles every day for 107 days, rode every stage of the 2020 tour de France whilst fundraising and a ride across Australia in twenty days. I think today's venture will be a stroll in the forest compared to those achievements.
Following Chris was Katie Kookaburra, the inspiration for my attendance, whose achievements through her YouTube channel have contributed to many people taking up cycling and continuing to ride on.
Katie's adventures are numerous, from bikepacking to Audax and more recently a self-planned solo expedition across the Pyrenees. Her videos show the highs and lows of her adventures and she never shies away from the downsides of her challenges, it's always warts and all.
A big advocate for the Zwift platform, Katie regularly shows her training performances and even has her own riding groups that anyone can participate in. If you haven't seen her YouTube videos the channel is well worth a view.
The present-day pro cycling world was represented by two pro cyclists joining in the festivities. Rory Townsend, a member of the Q365 cycling team, has wide experience of a few teams that he's ridden for. In response to a question about his racing experiences he admitted that the hardest race he'd taken part in was Paris-Roubaix; his experience of the Arenberg section of cobbles left him traumatised.
At the slightly younger end of the pro cycling world was Cormac Nesbitt who is a member of the Soudal Quick-Step development team. Truly at the beginning of his career, he was able to give a short account of joining the team and arriving at the team HQ for the first time. A name to watch out for.
At the opposite end of a pro cycling career was the surprise guest, Johan Museeuw: an ex-pro with three victories at the Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix plus countless other victories to his name. And yet, in response to the difficult question about what stands out in his career, he chose wearing the world champion's jersey. Interestingly he said that he would love to have been able to take part in an Olympic Road race, not possible during his career, and wished Cormac might get the chance to take part in the future.
Each of the celebs was happy to answer the questions thrown at them but it soon became time to shepherd them away for the ride of the day to commence, once the final brief was given out.
It was now time for the raffle draw and everyone who purchased tickets was hoping to hear their name being called out to grab a win. I was really hoping the raffle gods would smile down on me, as I'm sure everyone else was, in a hope that I'd get the Edge 1050 bike computer as an extra birthday present, but it wasn't to be. Never mind - maybe next year.
In keeping with the careful planning that had gone into organising the event we were introduced to the colour coded starting groups and reminded of the rules of riding in the New Forest: observe the rules of the road, ride single file when required, be aware of pedestrians and hikers but, most importantly be very aware of the New Forest ponies.
These ponies do really rule the roost across the national park, they choose when and where they want to go and if they are just standing in the middle of the road, which we witnessed several times along the route, and they are blocking your route you will have to slowly manoeuvre around them or wait.
Prior to retrieving my bike, I did have the pleasure of meeting Katie and have a chat with her, brill.
Most, if not all, of the bikes were stored on the copious bike racks just across the gravel road from the marquee and very quickly it materialised that the assembled mass of riders was not sticking to the colour coded start - perhaps because it was roasting hot and I've no doubt that everybody wanted to feel the riding breeze to help cool down.
Unless the riders are positioned into starting pens it would be a procedure that would be hard to police and as no one was getting upset the start continued and everybody just took their turn.
Whilst stood in the queue to start I heard a new take on that well-known formula about the numbers of bikes a rider needs, ie N+1 (N being the bikes already owned). The new equation appears to be D-1 where D is the number of bikes that would instigate divorce proceedings. I'll let you choose which formula you prefer.
Finally we were underway, in accordance with the New Forest requirements, no more than twenty riders at two-minute intervals, and after traversing the gravel driveway and getting onto normal tarmac I realised that I had not put my nutrition bars in my jersey pocket.
It was pointless panicking or getting uptight about it, I certainly wasn't going back to the car for them. My bottles were full of cold hydration drinks and the first feed station was at the thirty-five mile point so I should be fine but, if there was an issue, I'm sure I'd find a shop or garage where I could get some sort of bar to munch on.
Having never visited the New Forest I was looking forward to the experience, but it was far beyond any expectations. At one moment you are pedalling along a dapple shaded tree-lined road before climbing out into seemingly flat areas where the crosswind contributed to the self-created breeze whilst riding along.
The aromas were totally different, wooded scents through the trees and the sweet breeze across the flatter more open areas, I'm not sure if it was the heather that was so prolific in these areas but whatever it was, it was pleasant.
As with all riding events small informal groups are formed with short conversations between riders before moving along to the next group, if required.
At one point I was behind a group of riders who seemed to have some sort of music speaker playing so that all the group could hear the music that was being played, not my cup of tea, but each to their own.
Occasionally some drivers would honk their displeasure at the number of cyclists on the road but there didn't seem to be any aggression.
Many places along the route introduced us to the 'lords of the manor', the ponies, and they lived up to their image. Several times on the road cyclists would use hand signals to indicate the need to slow down, nobody wanted to shout a warning so as not to disturb the ponies, and, as predicted they would just stand where they were, have a look at who dared to try and cross their path and leave you waiting until they chose to move on. It was very tempting to stop and take photographs of the sights, but it would have probably taken up too much time.
At one village we approached the main T-junction was totally crowded by the ponies in each direction. The whole of the village had come to a standstill, but at least the ponies did have the decency to leave gaps for us all to get past.
The scenery was amazing, some of the climbs testing but it wasn't too long before we arrived at the feed station and although I hadn't felt any adverse effects, I was ready for a banana and/or a flapjack.
The entrance to the feed station was attended by one of the charity volunteers advising all riders of the presence of yet more gravel. I have to say that I was most grateful for the heads up as I'd once gone over on gravel and had no desire to repeat the experience.
From the roadside to the bike park and entrance it was a mini uphill trek across the deep, maybe limestone gravel, before reaching the hall. Signs at the entrance asked for shoes to be removed prior to accessing the goodies and toilets etc.
Unfortunately, by this time the only snacks available were crisps and orange segments, gutted. Asking the young lady at the tables about alternatives she was able to tell me that the flapjacks and bananas had already gone, double gutted. After a couple of orange segments and bags of crisps I topped up my bottles and I was about to leave when one of the volunteers came in with a large box of cakes, so all was not lost.
Having grabbed a couple of buns and reclaimed my bike I made my way across the gravel back down to the roadside to ride that last fifteen miles back to the event village.
Not much further down the road my right foot slipped out the pedal, something I've never experienced before, and clipping back in became a bit of a palaver and even when I managed to clip back it wasn't the reassuring tight resounding 'clunk' that I'm used to.
The slipping out became annoyingly regular for the last few miles but if I didn't apply too much pressure, I felt sure I'd be ok. I guessed it was something to do with my cleats, but I wasn't prepared to stop and check until I finished the route.
On approaching the finish gate one of the volunteers was waiting for the finishers and ringing a bell to welcome everybody home, with other volunteers applauding and congratulating everyone.
With the finishing drive being the reverse of the start drive there was more deep gravel to negotiate so I dismounted and walked the last few yards to the actual finish arch to be greeted with a very refreshing can of ice-cold rhubarb and orange drink, most welcome.
With the bike parked up it was just a short walk across the gravel to join one of the lunch queues.
The most popular, and longest, queue was for the pizza oven and the subsequent pizzas looked the real deal, but I took one of the shorter queues to grab a chicken burger and fries, all washed own with a free Erdinger 0% alcohol beer. Delightful!
Interestingly whilst chatting with another rider in the queue I discovered that he was also hoping that he'd win the Edge 1050 bike computer, just like myself, but neither of us were too disappointed by losing out.
Shimano had provided an oversized deck chair that was, maybe, just a tad too large to be able to chill out on but many riders had found some very large scatter cushions that they had adopted whilst eating their return lunch of choice.
After a steady stroll back to the car I finally got to see what caused the clipping in problem: my cleat had totally disintegrated, possibly because of spending too much time on the gravel, and just a small part of the yellow clip remained in place.
The fact that I'd only done three or four rides after fitting the cleats was a bit annoying but at least I managed to complete the ride, and cleats aren't too expensive to replace.
A great day out on and off the bike.
Garmin and Action Medical Research have created a great experience that benefits riders, via the raffle, and the charity via fundraising and the raffle.
The weather played its part and the whole experience of cycling within the New Forest was a joy.
After the event everybody in the village looked relaxed and content with their efforts for the day and judging by the number of riders wearing the previous year's jersey, I'm sure they will be returning next year to repeat the experience: I know I will.
Thank you to Garmin, Action Medical Research and the countless unsung volunteers that made the day possible.
Garmin Ride Out will return in 2025. Find out more at action.org.uk.
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