My First Bonk

I think this will disappoint you, this is not about the summer of ‘95 but rather a cold, wet day cycling around Sussex and Kent. I had signed up for the ‘Tour De Weald’ a 100 mile bike ride starting and finishing at Burgess Hill. The day didn’t start out well, missed my train at Victoria and my friends on it, this meant I would be riding solo. The weather was, wet, windy, cold everything you didn’t want. The course was empty and a lot of people had dropped out, out of pure luck I bumped into a couple of people I knew and off we went picking up another make it a group of four.


The advice I had been given prior to the race was to consume an energy bar or gel every hour. So that was the plan, although how you are meant to open one of these damn bars whilst cycling with wet, cold hands is beyond me. I did eventually just rip it open with my teeth. Ok, so it’s open, now to eat! If you have been lucky enough to eat one of these bars then you will know just how chewy they are. I did have to slow down to eat it without choking but once over this I was happy to have eaten my first bar, just 6 to go!

After 30 miles, we stopped at the first Food Stop. This was in a Scout Hut, with lycra clad cyclist huddled around old electric heaters, puddles of water produced by the stream of water coming off everybody’s cloths. There where more energy bars or cake and little ladies giving out Tea. Here we lost the first of our little group, nobody really blamed her it was a disgusting day. One of the other guys decided to change to the 65 mile route and myself and the final member decided that we would push on, once you’re wet, you’re wet!

Down to two, our next target was the Food stop at 75 miles. The course flattened out and it stopped raining for a bit and things looked up. I had stopped eating every hour due to the amount of cake I shoved down my mouth at the first stop. This is where it went wrong. With a fully tummy we battled on and just 5 miles outside of the final stop it started to go wrong.

My energy levels dropped, I could barely keep my legs going round, an awful headache came out of nowhere, my neck hurt and I just wanted to vomit! My first bonk, just about as painful as the one in ’95! This is also known as ‘hitting the wall’, it is really the point where your body has depleted its glycogen reserves and it feels like you absolutely have no energy or fuel in your body at all. We couldn’t ride anymore, jumped off the bikes and walked, luck was on our side it was only 300m to the Food Stop. We drank very sweet tea ate more cake. After 10minutes we where back to normal but had no desire to get back on our bikes. The ‘broom wagon’ picked us up and took us Burgess Hill slightly dejected.