Issue 142 UK Adventure: The Art of Not Suffering

Sanny sets off to prove that bikepacking need not involve long periods of misery and discomfort. When it comes to tales of adventure and derring-do, there is a strong correlation between achievement and suffering. Whether it is Andy Kirkpatrick and his wife sitting out a two-week winter storm on Denali with barely enough food, unsure whether they would actually get out with all their limbs intact (or even at all) or Hinault’s 1980 Liège -Bastogne-Liège win that left him with permanent nerve damage, there is almost a perverse pleasure to be drawn from enduring and suffering. Sometimes it is the hardest rides that become the most memorable. I vividly recall a snowy ride in Glen Ample where drowsiness, confusion and the unrelenting pain of the hot aches got so bad in the freezing and bitter cold that my mind started playing tricks and was encouraging me to lie down in the snow for a sleep. It is as close as I have ever come to hypothermia and it is not an experience I am keen to repeat.  Glory in suffering As bikepacking has grown exponentially in popularity, so have the tales of suffering. Miserable nights spent under a flapping tarp in sodden sleeping bag and driving rain, being set upon by midges the size of eagles that suck your blood dry in seconds and 100-mile death marches in searing 110-degree heat where fantasising about Slush Puppies and Strawberry Mivvis creates your own little theatre of cruelty and despair.  Bikepacking is...

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