Congratulations to Andrej Horvath

In Andrej's Words

The SDW double is something I've been thinking of doing for about 3-4 years but with a young family it was always too difficult to find the time. Even now it required a lot of sacrifice from my partner, Hannah, to whom I am very grateful. Originally, I planned to set off at 11pm on a Friday night but to get a bit more sleep I ended up leaving Brighton just after 4am on Saturday. I stashed my supplies behind a bush at the top of the Ditchling Beacon and set off at 4:50am towards Eastbourne. I got to Eastbourne in 2hrs 35min thanks to a gentle tailwind, all was going very well. Quick photo by a dog walker later I was on my way back. This was the point my gears started playing up a bit and I could not use the easiest gear without dropping the chain into my wheel spokes. Despite this, 2hrs 45min later, I was back at the Beacon (the starting and finishing point of my ride) where I picked up my nutrition for the rest of the journey.

At the Devils Dyke I had a coke and some crisps, and said hello to my two boys Ziggy and Felix, I checked my brakes and continued on towards Winchester. My dear colleague Paul kept me company for about an hour to Chanctonbury Ring. Then I kept tapping kms away and sticking to an average speed of 16km/h which felt quick (for me) but sustainable. At the hottest part of the day, I had an unplanned stop at one of the Cadence cafés to pour a few bottles of water over my head to cool myself down.

In Winchester I got some party goers to take a photo of me in front of the statue of Alfred the Great and set off for the last leg to Ditchling Beacon. All was going well, I was having my planned stops at the taps, topping up with carb mix, and sticking to my avg speed, ticking the climbs off. Then at 303km into the ride around 2am disaster struck, I overshot the gate at the bottom of Steyning Bostal and wiped out in fine dusty path. A bit bashed up and battered but with only 17km to go, powered by adrenaline, I pressed on despite a non-functioning front brake (cable ripped) and rear mech still not shifting into the easiest cog. I arrived at the Beacon at 4:10am, with 20hrs 32min moving time and total elapsed time of 23hrs 22min.

For my attempt I used my modified Specialized Chisel with drop bar handlebars (profile design DRV/GRAVEL 38c on top) and GRX shifters. I went for the very fast Schwalbe Thunder Burt tyres, setup tubeless at 17psi on hunt race xc alloy wheels. I used an exposure sixpack bar light and an exposure diablo head torch. Everything worked as it should.

For nutrition I started off with 6 large home made vegan rice cakes, 2 bananas, 5x 200g of carb mix (caster sugar and dextrose 1:1), a coke, a San Pelegrino, an orange juice, 2 pork pies and 180g of gel. This probably still did not cover the estimated 18,000 calories that I burned during the ride. I had also taken on 3x1500mg electrolyte tabs and a pack of salt sticks. 2x750ml bottles plus a 70oz camelbak on the back were just about enough to get me through between the stops, each 50-60km for water.