Ride report

Following is a summary of the three stages I broke the ride into to finish the event within three days.

Stage 1 - Umeå to Mo i Rana

23:08 Sunday 15 June 2025, Brännlands Wärdshus, Sweden

The event started from Brännland Inn, on the outskirts of Umeå, with riders setting off at sunset (23:03) in groups of 15 at five-minute intervals. I was in the second group, i.e., 23:08, alongside Richard Sanderson (a.k.a. mealybar). Richard and I have now completed many long-distance events, tours and audaxes together, and it was Richard who first shared the idea of going to MSR the previous year. We would stay together for most of the next two days. From the start we quickly formed a small working group with Aleksei Koven from Randonneurs Finland, and a Dutchman Bart Zwart. Bart hadn't previously undertaken a multi-day cycling event, and would end up riding with Richard and me for almost all of the first 24 hours. It was after sunset, but twilight was sufficient to make lights an optional 'be seen' aid rather than a requirement to see.

The first checkpoint after the start was only 69 km into the course and involved a small stop across a wooden bridge near Granö. A mixing of riders from different groups occurred here. Setting off, a single large group began to accumulate more and more of the field ahead, until we were steaming towards the next checkpoint at Lycksele Hotel, 122 km, with over 12 riders in a paceline. There is a natural inertia in such a group in that, if you tried to escape ahead or leave early from a stop, it would inevitably catch you. Hence the break at Lycksele was longer, also because of the remarkable spread of food and drink available. When we did eventually get going again, the core group had changed to five: Richard, myself and Bart as well as another pair from the Netherlands, Jon and Martijn, who were also new to organised ultra-distance events but not to riding together. Jon and Martijn would later scratch at Mo i Rana, I think unaccustomed to the short sleep hours often necessary to complete long-distance brevets, but for the time being provided a significant boost to our speed as we now passed rather than accumulated other riders on a course that was gentling climbing. I was conscious the pace was personally unsustainable, but it was hard to argue with the huge energy saving from drafting. Besides, sometimes cycling is simply about riding a bike fast.

It was descending to the next checkpoint that the first of the rain hit us. And not pitter-patter drizzle but full, soaked before-you-know-it stuff. We arrived at Hotel Wilhelmina completely drenched to be allowed access to a breakfast (now 8am) buffet that I thought was perfectly serviceable, but Richard was keen to report was decidedly subpar. Jon and Martijn decided to stay to make use of the hotel's sauna facilities to warm up, and so five became three. We set back out in the rain.

The next hours were tough, because of the insistent rain, and are somewhat scrubbed from memory. A long section of road between Vilhelmina and Kittelfjäll was part-way through being resurfaced, leaving a narrow, pothole-ridden strip of asphalt for us to navigate on the one side, whilst trucks and other vehicles travelled in both directions. The mount on my front light snapped after I went through a rut, and Bart would later suffer a puncture. All the time become more jaded by the weather.

At one point we pulled over in a farm outhouse to get a moment's respite and check the forecast. A text from dad: 'it's going to be with you until the afternoon.' 'No wait, more like 10 or 11pm.' That felt a long way away given it had started before 8. None of us remembered such amounts of rain being forecast. But the reality is there is nothing to do in such cases except grit your teeth, grumble—or both—and get back on the bike. If you want to be a long-distance cyclist, you're going to have to learn to face, if not enjoy, extremes of heat, cold and wetness. Suffice it to say, by the time we reached the next checkpoint in Kittelfjäll a stop was very much needed. Fortunately there was a hot food, drink and a hearth to start drying out kit.

I set out from Kittelfjäll some minutes ahead of the other two. I had been struggling to match their pace and had earlier warned Richard I might have to split soon. Getting a small head start worked well: I was able to go at my own pace and recover slightly, and when Bart and Richard caught me on the road an hour or two later, I think we were all equally tired! As the route brought us into Norway, Richard and I discussed the feasibility of our—rather ambitious—plan of continuing on from the next checkpoint, Hattfjelldal Hotel, to Mo i Rana that same night. Bart, on the other hand, was set on making use of the room booking at Hattfjelldal he had exchanged with another rider who had gone to bed at the camp in Kittelfjäll instead. I had good feelings about getting to Mo i Rana, and Richard was motivated to stick to plan A, so after hot soup and a 30-minute nap we set out just before 11pm on the 112 km stretch to the city.

The next five or six hours to Mo i Rana were a highlight. 'Just like old times': me and Richard, navigating winding lanes as slow as we liked, nattering to pass the time. Normal in the most wonderfully abnormal way, you could say. We were two friends riding in the early hours of the morning, in a foreign country and with some 500 km already in the legs. That kind of normal. The rain mostly stayed away now, and approaching Mo i Rana I started to build quite an appetite, which is never really a bad sign in ultra cycling, provided you soon act upon it.

Provisions at the checkpoint turned out to be underwhelming: a single cold wrap and can of coke, so I doubled back a few hundred metres to a 24-hour service station with a deli to order a cheese and tomato calzone, quickly followed by a second. Richard had booked us a twin room at a hotel in the city, including breakfast, which were were keen to make use of. So despite it now being after 5am, we headed to Scandic Meyergården Hotel to wash and rest before the next stage.

Stage 1 - 30 hours elapsed (23 moving), 584 km travelled and 6,421 m climbed.

Stage 2 - Mo i Rana to Arjeplog

09:26 Tuesday 17 June 2025, Mo i Rana, Norway

We'd decided three hours of sleep was a good target, to give us the best chance of making it through the next two checkpoints and onto to Arjeplog by Tuesday night. Somehow, however, we both woke up only two hours later and, with unspoken communication, got up and began getting ready. In fact, I only learned later from Richard that we had gone short an hour—when I woke up and saw my alarm was still an hour away, I assumed I had made a mistake when setting it.

Perhaps we were motivated by being first on the road; no one else, it appeared, had attempted to get to Rana that 'evening', although many were now well on their way after resting at Hattfjelldal. Regardless, the wet socks were on and after scoring two hot chocolates at breakfast, I set off with Richard towards the Arctic Circle.

I found myself settling in nicely to the steady climb up to the next checkpoint at the Arctic Circle Centre. Richard was finding it more difficult, but I knew if we reached the centre he would find resource, in this case in the form of two large bowls of chips and coffee. More concerning for me was the temperatures, 5-6℃, which made the renewed rain chilling. Descending the other side of the centre, I found my body temperature dropping. Richard was there keeping an eye on me, and later lent a spare base layer in case the temperatures and rain remained. Objectively, I think the stretch around the Arctic Circle Centre was the worst part of the route. Not only was there a lot of tourist traffic, but also heavy goods vehicles that would charge past us, throwing up water and debris from the road. Things improved once we turned onto a quieter road at Junkerdal, and we were able to enjoy views of the snowy hillsides as we travelled back into Sweden.

The rest of the day passed quickly. It was 7pm by the time we reached the checkpoint at camp Vuoggatjålme, and Arjeplog came just after midnight. The last sections had dragged on somewhat as tiredness set it. We both needed a break, and more sleep than the night before. We had seen Bart arriving at Vuoggatjålme as we were leaving, clearly having ridden strongly all day to cover the distance we had that day, plus the part from Hattfjelldal to Mo i Rana. We expected him and others to catch us at the checkpoint in Arjeplog, where we bedded down in a conference room in a hotel had been set up with air mattresses.

Stage 2 - 15 hours elapsed (12 moving), 281 km travelled and 2,940 m climbed.

Stage 3 - Arjeplog to Umeå

06:06 Wednesday 22 June 2025, Arjeplog, Sweden

Four hours later it was time to start moving again, although the first issue of the day was finding food. There hadn't been a chance to resupply since Mo i Rana: the Arctic Circle Centre and Camp Vuoggatjålme didn't sell any portable food, and Vuoggatjålme only had a small pasta box available per rider. I was disappointed to find a similar situation at Hornavan Hotel—only a single wrap set aside per rider, as opposed to the round-the-clock buffets at earlier checkpoints. The man working the hotel front desk night shift was friendly and helpful, however, and offered an additional wrap for breakfast in light of the number of riders who had already DNF'd. He explained there was a small unmanned 24-hour shop in town we could try. On the way out we stopped by this for supplies. The choice was essentially biscuits or sweets. A bit grim to eat all day, but it would have to do.

On the way to the first checkpoint on day three, a new plan formed: Richard to nap at the checkpoint, Piper to push on to try to finish that evening. Richard was clearly still tired, whilst I was motivated by being first on the road again. I knew what needed to be done: head down, steady pace, reduced stops. Play to my strengths of being not a fast rider, but an efficient one, and capable of eating continuously on the bike. No thrills or photos, just a steady effort home.

The organisers had somehow arranged for the final part of the course to be mostly downhill with a tailwind, so I was able to stay in my comfort zone throughout, although it became more difficult to focus on maintaining a constant pace near the end. A volunteer at one of the final checkpoints, presumably expecting exhausted riders, remarked that I was looking in quite good shape. That was amusing. I only really needed one quick stop at a corner shop for some caffeine to take me through to the end, at Scandic Plaza Hotel in Umeå, which I reached at around 8:30pm.

Stage 3 - 14 hours elapsed (13 moving), 357 km travelled and 2,278 m climbed.

Total - 70 hours elapsed (48 moving), 1,223 km travelled and 11,600 m climbed.