Cyclist
We who travel have stories to tell: The Pan Celtic Ultra race
The squawk of a bird forces me to open one eye. It’s 4am and rural Brittany is still impossibly dark. My face is inches from the damp tarmac and there’s a faint smell of something you’d associate with phone booths. Within minutes I’m shambolically re-stuffing my saddlebag to leave it looking like a snake that’s eaten some kitchen utensils.
Pulling on my damp and filthy kit, I crack a can of baked beans, clip in, do a quick scan of my bus shelter bedroom and freewheel down the road. It has only taken three days of riding the Pan Celtic Ultra, but already this is my new normal.
Started by Matt ‘Mally’ Ryan in 2018, the Pan Celtic is an ultra-distance event that takes a different route each year, but always navigating the Celtic nations, of which there are six: the Isle of Man, Cornwall, Brittany in France, Ireland, Wales and Scotland.
Welsh Mally has a fondness for every nation: ‘Ireland is just so beautiful; the people are so nice and it reminds me of Wales. I like the tenacity of the Cornish people and the hardiness of the Scots. Brittany is spectacular, and I can’t wait for the Manx experience next year. All nations have their special traits but yes, Wales will always be my first love and my last.’
Each race accepts around 300 riders, measures between 2,000-2,500km and takes in up to three of these nations. They often include gravel sections, a good few ferry crossings, a long and short option, and frequently end – conveniently – in Llandudno, Mally’s home town. Whatever the distance, the race’s mantra will accompany you: ‘An té a bhíónn siúlach, bíonn scéalach’. Or ‘We who travel have stories to tell’.
Grand Départ
The 2023 race starts in St Malo, Brittany. On a Sunday. Whispers of closed shops and vacant boulangeries whizz around the peloton like escaping sealant. Within minutes of departing I’ve stopped to buy eight bananas and a couple of baguettes to ensure I stay within the self-sufficiency rules.
Following the lead of famous ultra-events such as the Transcontinental and the Race Across America, rules are scarce but important. There are no stages, it’s just an A-B routed race including mandatory checkpoints.
Drafting is banned unless you’ve registered as a pair. You can only accept help that is available to every other racer. And then obvious stuff like no shortcuts or mechanical doping. But the main rule is one Mally coined himself: ‘Race. Make friends. Have a good time. Don’t take life too seriously.’
The route takes us along coastline replete with oyster vendors and miles of sandy gravel track. We wind inland, skirting past historic Fougères and its thousand-year-old fortress, and onwards through endless fields of maize and corn. When night falls, I join a scattering of riders squatting around a colossal vending machine. Unbelievably, it is dispensing freshly cooked pizzas.
Eventually I bed down in a public toilet next to a church, which is warm but not for the sensitive of nose. Before sleep I check my stats for the day: 321km, 2,285m climbed, 24.1kmh moving speed, 16 hours elapsed. Bedtime 00:37.
Early next morning, my befuddled brain barely notices the Alignements de Carnac: 3,000 megaliths from 4,000BC that rear up out of the ground like an army of horns. The Quiberon peninsula, however, is impossible to miss and pedal-stoppingly beautiful, peppered with craggy coves and the stone houses of fishermen.
Dinner is steak tartare in Ménéac before getting back on the road before 7pm; there’s still another 100km before Checkpoint One. I share woes and Haribos with a group of riders for almost five hours and then collapse into the checkpoint at midnight. I inhale what I can find – cold Bolognese sandwiched between four slices of bread – and then shower using some washing up liquid. It’s all perfect.
Struggling through
Day three starts with a smoky cappuccino in a roadside Tabac, sodden gloves hanging mournfully on the radiator. Then its westwards towards the Atlantic Ocean, through the charming fishing town of Douarnenez and up the 10.5km climb of the Forêt de Cranou. Dinner is a kebab in a deserted town, followed by skirting along an estuary to the sublimely illuminated Morlaix Viaduct. Bed is a bus stop with a roof. It’s cold but at least it’s dry.
By now I’ve covered 965km. Flirting with France’s northern coastline on day four provides a welcome antidote to the interminable maize fields. Green shoots of commerce spring up the further east the race heads. A group of us empties a boulangerie of baguettes, and later we eat pizzas in a graveyard. For a moment there’s a deep contentment that comes from the simple combination of exercise, the outdoors, food and company.
The high is fleeting. My bum and the ulnar nerve in my left hand are giving up the ghost. I stop to address a rattling spoke and have a brief exchange with Welsh Jacob, who is convinced he can still make the morning ferry. He looks just as ruined as me and would need to ride through the night without sleeping.
The night shift is long and cold. I stop in a village so that I can neck a can of beans in the glow of a street light.
The following morning I pass Jacob, whose ferry bravado has evaporated like the warmth. Excluding disasters, anyone I meet on the road today should be safely tucked up on the 10pm crossing to Portsmouth. Despite the cold, I am blessed with blue skies as I pass the gothic spires of Mont-St-Michel, rearing above the sandy sea like a Disney castle. More architectural beauty arrives in the form of Bayeux Cathedral, only to recede again during my umpteenth visit to a branch of McDonald’s.
A 20-minute sleep behind a hedge revives my body slightly, although my bike continues to suffer. The rattling spoke has now evacuated. The wheel seems true enough so I loosen the brake slightly and pray to the cycling gods.
The final 30km on French soil is mercifully flat and, in parts, spectacular: scorched fields are stroked by the lengthening afternoon shadows while, down near the Utah and Omaha beaches, aged French townhouses peer across the harbour to Le Havre and the English coastline far beyond. The hang gliders above me get the best view.
I arrive at the ferry port littered with bedraggled riders. The mood is exultant. They’ve broken the back of the race and everyone is assured a hot meal and at least a warm floor tonight. We are the lords and ladies of all creation.
Back in Blighty
Day six. My lack of spoke is worrying me enough that I decide to make a lengthy mechanical stop in Salisbury, with thoughts of my wheel crumpling in a dark Welsh lane softening the time loss.
I attack the horrendous cobbled climb of Dorset’s Gold Hill, which at 140m doesn’t sound like much but the 21% average shows me otherwise. Then it’s Longleat, the Bath cycle path, my home town of Bristol and a beautiful crossing of the Severn Bridge. After a full pub supper, the Llangwm descent to Usk – almost 5km at minus 4% – just as the sun is setting is easily my favourite nine minutes of 2023 so far.
I weave through drunken revellers in Abergavenny and then there’s nothing between me and Hay-on-Wye except hills and impenetrably inky darkness. Almost two hours of riding later, I’m on the brink of bivvying down in that worst of locations, a dewy field, when out of the nothingness rises Clodock church and its ambrosial porch – complete with freshly picked flowers for what must be tomorrow’s wedding. I feel like the luckiest rider in the race.
Day seven is my birthday. My present is a series of ungodly 20% pitches on desiccated surfaces. I can scarcely appreciate the beauty of the Llangynog climb or Horseshoe Pass, so brow-beaten am I by a day of rain and wind. At one point I take shelter in a roadside barn and bail out water from my top tube bag with a spork.
The birthday celebration culminates with a kebab in Llangollen and a bivouac under a church roof. I take some solace from the fact that I have now accumulated 2,000km.
The last leg
The final day. My left hand barely works and I smell like I’m decomposing, but I feel strangely proud of my body. Following the climb west of Ruthin, I arrive onto a plateau in dazzling sunshine where I spin past reservoirs and forests and stare northwards towards to the sea where I know Llandudno is hiding.
It’s hot now. With just 45km to go, in full sight of Kimmel Bay and the northern coastline, I descend a hideously steep road that – combined with the temperature – does for my rear rim. I can feel the pad melting the track like a hot knife through butter. I loosen off my rear brake to allow for the warping, and pray that it lasts me.
Approaching the finish, the route takes a final spin around the headland of Great Orme just to the north of Llandudno. After a week of 250km-350km days, my body is begging to be allowed to stop, but as I reach the peninsula’s northern point, I know that right ahead of me, across the sea, lies the Isle of Man. That’s where the 2024 edition of the Pan Celtic Ultra is due to start from.
Already an idea is forming in my mind.
The details
One for Celtic fans
What Pan Celtic Ultra
Where (2023, pictured) St Malo, France, to Llandudno, Wales
How far Long route 2,293km, short route 1,716km
Next one Starts 6th July 2024
Where Douglas, Isle of Man, to Inverness, Scotland
How far Long route 2,295km, short route 1,842km
Price £465
More info pancelticrace.com
Locked and loaded
Pack for the Pan Celtic (don’t bring any pans)
For seven days and more than 2,200km of the Pan Celtic Ultra, this is a list of everything Cyclist carried on a (gently weeping) Genesis Equilibrium bike:
Ultralight sleeping bag, inflatable sleep mat, ultralight down jacket, thermal base layer, legwarmers, windbreaker, rain jacket, helmet, cap, beanie hat, snood, musette bag, cycling shoes, shoe covers, two pairs of gloves, two jerseys, three pairs of socks, sunglasses with two types of lenses, chain lube, mini pump, tyre levers, cable ties, multitool, two inner tubes, tyre patches, bidons, suncream (lots), toothpaste (little), toothbrush, wet wipes, chamois cream, painkillers, Rennie, SiS Beta Fuel powders, Habanero Tabasco (makes anything taste better), spork (useful for more than just eating), bank cards, passport, two phones, two powerbanks, bike computer, USB front light, two USB rear lights, charging cables, plug/adapter, headphones.
• This article originally appeared in issue 151 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribe
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