I’m planning to do the SDW in a day (probably 3 or 4 of us). The options for food/support seem to be:

a) Totally unsupported. Carry everything.
b) Unsupported but cache some stuff along the route beforehand.
c) Co-opt someone to meet us at 3 or 4 places.

(c) is perhaps easiest for the riders, but seems to condemn the supporter to a very boring day. If we went with (a) or (b) are we making life very hard for ourselves?

At a guess I’d think that we need quite a lot of calories (perhaps 6000) and perhaps the opportunity of some spare tubes along the way (we’re riding a mix of sizes which is a shame).

Any advice, suggestions please.

Rob

(c) can work. Due to some bad planning on my part, I ended up doing a supported-with-kids ride instead of a unsupported ride with adults only. But it was still a great day out.

This is how we did it:

Van with 2 kids and 4 riders drop off 3 of the riders at Winchester. Then one rider and 2 kids drive c25miles in and ride back up the trail a bit. Meet the group and ride back to the van. Swap drivers and repeat.

So in the end 2 riders rode the lot with cake every 25miles. 2 riders rode 50miles each + the extra distance back and forth on the trail with my kids.

Continuous riding time was 10hrs, but with cake and ice-cream stops, a bit longer. Good, if slightly convoluted day out.

How fit are you all?
How flexible are you on dates?

If you’re decently fit,hard as nails or flexible on dates then do it unsupported as that is a bigger achievement.

If you think there’s a chance you might not be fit enough to do it usupported, or you’re set on certain dates only, regardless of weather, then do it supported. It’ll maximise your chance of success.

When I did the WHW I had excellent support which made it loads easier. I never expected to complete the route IAD so the van was expected to be essential. I could save loads of weight by carrying almost nothing in my ruksack. Without that it would have been much much heavier.

There’s a petrol station you go past by a road crossing…. hot and cold food a plenty.

You don’t need to carry much. There are water points along the route and pubs and shop close to the route to restock.

c)

We did C, it wasn’t too boring for the driver…the waits are not huge when you take into account the fact the trunk roads are a detour, or the minor roads are slower going.

Once you’ve stopped for a couple of coffees and been given instructions to find random treats for the riders en route it turned out to be quite a chilled (albeit long) day for me.

Take a good book and have some sort of tracking system set up if possible. The swapping drivers method seems a bit of a shame unless those doing the swapping are not interested in completing the whole ride.

You’re never far from water or food if you keep an eye on the map. Plenty of train stations you can freewheel to as well if you totally bonk or want to split the group.

Getting 4 people and bikes to the start and then home again is the biggest logistical part of the challenge. If you’ve got a friendly helper to do that then grab the opportunity.

Unless doing an overnighter or double, there’s numerous places you can stop for food on/near the route – Sustainability Centre, QECP, Cocking Farm Shop, Amberley, Alfriston, 2 YHAs, Shell garage near Lewes, Ice Cream Van at Ditchling plus café at Devil’s Dyke…..

Taps will keep you amply supplied with water – you can usually survive on 1 bottle being topped-up

6000 calories! How long are you planning to take?

Unsupported is definitely feasible.

You don’t have to carry 6000 calories; decent breakfast and lunch stop at a pub/garage would leave you carying maybe a couple of malt loaves (when I did it I wasn’t very fit and just took malt loaf and dioralyte sachets as my only “food”). There’s quite a lot of opportunity to fill bottles on the route itself, never mind buying other drinks just off it.
Carrying a couple of tubes each, plus repair kit between you, isn’t going to make or break the trip

That said, if it’s going to be a shitty day weather-wise, a driver with a flask of coffee now & then might be nice.

Thanks for all the responses.

In answer to the various questions:

<<How fit are you all?>>
Reasonably, though we’re planning some fairly serious training between now and July. I have done the SDW before, but it was over 3 days several years ago when my lad was only 13, so not the same sort of enterprise at all.

<<How flexible are you on dates?>>
Not massively, just because of the people involved. My aim is to do it mid-week (so its less busy) with perhaps day either side as a backup. If its been raining loads then we’ll not bother (or perhaps just ride out and see how we fare).

<<6000 calories! How long are you planning to take>>
That was a top-of-head guess. I think a fairly flat hour of off-road is probably worth 400cals, so 14 hours = 5600. That said we can afford to end in calorie deficit. I don’t think how long makes much difference. Certainly for running if you go A-B then most of the effort is moving your mass from point A to point B. Whether its faster (more cals per unit of time) but shorter or slower and longer, the answer comes out about the same.

Rob

I did it without unsupported with a saddle bag, top tube bag & two water bottles. I had some food left over at the end.

Only support I had was being dropped off at the start and picked up at the end. Other than I carried everything I needed and picked up more water from the taps.
As said above, fuel up before, eat something sensible that’s not sweet in the middle of the day and then plenty of bars and gels (for nearing the end!) and you should be ok.

Id do b if you’re not comfortable with a. There’s a few road crossings that are easy to stash stuff near (60m in at Ditchling beacon, I imagine 30m in there’ll be something similar), then you don’t have to annoy a long-suffering relative

Go unsupported and maybe take some powdered energy drink sachets which you can add to a water bottle at the stops.

The pub at the top of Devils Dyke is a good stopping point.

After that, in Saddlescombe there’s a seasonal cafe open for walkers etc. Then you go almost straight past a garage in Pyecombe a couple of miles later where you can get pretty much anything.

That should keep you going until you get to Alfriston where more shops etc. Easily doable and more fun.

Biggest annoyance is transport back at the end (which is why I parked at Amberly and rode to Eastbourne and back)

My last 14hr ride I ate 17gels, 6energy bars, 2 bannanas and drank 5litres of Torq (it was hot). The large amount of energy drink was a way of getting energy for low weight (carry the powder and mix at taps). Backfired – 11 pee breaks.

The Torq formula of a unit of drink and 2gels/bars per hour works well.

More thanks, this is all brilliant information to have.

Rob

I forgot to add that after Ditchling Beacon, once you’ve turned right at Blackcap hill and arrived at the A27, 500yds on your left is a garage. I’ve mentioned a lot of these places as I live very locally so tend to use all of them and more to the point, at roughly 2/3rds distance you’ll probably be needing to stock up.

After there, aside from Alfriston there’s not any other options for supplies.

It’s not difficult to carry enough food for the day. Just make sure you’ve got an idea of tap locations. Bikedowns.co.uk is a great resource.

Pasta salad in a ziplock with a spork is a good alternative to a sarnie.

I carried all my own food then dropped my last sandwich in a puddle two hours from Winchester! A guy in the car park at QECP saved my life (may be exaggerating) with half a packet of 5 year old Dextro Energy tablets from the bottom of his glove box!

Know where the taps are. Then plan for half of them not to work.

It’s a great day on the bike. Just don’t go too fast and don’t stop!

Alfriston is (more or less) where Banoffee pie was invented. You weren’t planning on not stopping there, surely? 😀

Doing it one-way in a day is perfectly possible to do with just whatever malt-loaves/bananas/whatever you can stuff in your jersey pockets.

Tubeless. Plenty taps. Pork Pies. Lunch @ Amberley. Pint @ 8 Bells Jevington. JFDI.

Unless it’s wet then forget it.

Me and my bro did it in a day, train to train.

I wasn’t 100% (shouldn’t really have done it, as I was back in my sick bed the day after next), but it was quite enjoyable, reasonable weather and we took all our own food, train to the start and from the finish (he lives in Brighton).

We did it 2 days after doing the Brighton Big Dog, which probably wasn’t that good for the bug I had either.

There are plenty of taps, and we could’ve bought more on the way and carried less.

http://www.bikedowns.co.uk/
is the place for info regarding tap locations, road crossings, elevation etc.

I’ve done it unsupported and supported.
West to east is easier if you have the prevailing wind.
East to west gets easier in terms of getting the relentless climbing done whilst you are fresher.
If there are four of you, you could do a leg each and see if you can sneak in under 55 hours!

Unsupported
If there are 4 of you you can take 1 decent pump, not 4 pretend ones. That will save space and weight.
Take 1 x 750ml bottle each, use your camalbak for food / clothes. There are tap stops every 12 miles or so now.
Forget Pub stops, forget Sustainability Center and stopping for bacon sandwiches at QECP.
If you are sensible you will start early and they wont be open when you pass. Also, you really do not want to stop for 25 – 30 mins at every burger van . It will take you 16hrs with that attitude. Likeise the pub. Bin that idea right now. Time lost moving is impossible to make up.
All the ‘ grab a pint and cod and chips ‘ rubbish will not get you to the end. Sorry , but riding 60 miles , stopping for 45 mins in the pub, in the belief alcohol and lard will magically transform you into Tom Morris ( 7hr 45min) when the actual result will be alot of your blood going into your stomach to help quickly digest the food and will make you cold, slow and sicky

Carry malt loaf, flap jacks, bananas, fig rolls, jelly babies and at each water stop fill your gob at the same time. Likewise if you find yourself pushing up cardiac out of washington on the A24 . push your bike and eat a Mule bar or 2. Then at the top dont stop to eat something, jump on and go.

Yeah what Singletrackmind said. Rob – shall we finally bimble it together this year?

Yes Andy , we shall . One sunny day in August time , as it will take me that long to get ‘fast’ again.
Sub 12hrs ?

This is on my bucket list too, Andy. Gives me something to work towards…… if that’s OK with you?

I’ll message you both…

What singketrackmind said.

I did it last year with bhf. You really dont want to stop for more than 15min as it’s hard work getting started again. I stopped for 5min every hour for a sausage roll/scotch egg/energy bar and a smoke!

Plenty of water stops enroute to refill my camelback.

Didn’t use sun cream which was a mistake.

I live near Winchester so was dropped off there by my dad. The car was filled with spares and my dad was on call for the rest of the day. He had to meet me in Amberley to give me a spare tyre after it got slashed on the flint.

Leaving a car in Winchester is an option and getting the train back from Eastbourne. Takes a while though.

I had to carry all my kit but travelling with others I’d spread it out.

Mentally I struggled at the end so having others might help but if you have a slow group member that could be a bigger problem.

Climbing up cheesefoot head and watching the sunrise is my favourite mountain biking moment.

Cobrakai I did the same event and funnily enough the insufficient use of suncream is also one of my lasting memories.

Anyone on here that has sponsored my JustGiving page is more than welcome to leave a car securely at my place in Winchester whilst they do the SDW.

Unsupported FTW! The Taps are easy to find, and frequent enough I’d do it with one bottle now. When I did it there was a bit of a gap to the first one so I carried two. Stopped for 17 minutes in total. All food in jersey pockets or small Camelbak.

It really does depend on your fitness though. I was aiming for sub-10 hours.