208.76 Miles
15:09:39 Moving Time
16:36:24 Elapsed Time
12,402ft Elevation
13.8mph Average
10 Litres of water (a guess, but probably pretty close)
I arrived in Burgas by plane a couple days before the start so was well rested and starting to adjust to the heat. The race began on Saturday 27th July at 6am. The night before I ate a lot of pasta! I also set about 4 alarms to wake me up, but in the morning it turns out I didn’t need any of them.
Rolling to the start line at the Pantheon of the Fallen Antifascists, nerves still hadn’t really set in, I was surprisingly calm and got there with 30 minutes to take some photos, chat to some other riders and triple check the bike and route for the day. All of the racers (around 300) lined up in front of the start line and began to ring their bells. The sound was mesmerising and then all of a sudden one rider blew a bike horn and this sent everyone off into a fit of laughter. The sun was just rising and as it hit 6am, the air horn blew and off we rolled to France!
The first 10km or so were neutralised to get us out of the city centre and we had a police escort which was fun along the motorway. All of a sudden, even in the neutralised section, the race seemed to be on. People were fighting for wheels and it was beginning to get strung out like a crit. I was half paying attention to this and half attempting to watch the sunrise. Anyway, neutralised section out of the way, we took a right and onto smaller roads, where we waved bye to the police car and the race started. I was floating backwards as really didn’t want to tire myself out on day 1. I knew my limits and rode to my own feelings.
The first 100km or so were on the set parcours that all of the riders had to follow, so this saw lots of chatting to other riders and passing some, being passed by others. There were a few off road sections, over fields and gravel tracks, which kept things interesting. From the cool morning, it started to heat up and I think it got to around 36/37 degrees C. Loads of people were suffering, but luckily there were plenty of water fountains by the side of the road which were great for dunking your head under and re-filling water bottles.
After the parcours, the only road to take was a busy A road, which headed directly West. This was flat and monotonous, but the quickest option. The traffic was not too heavy, but the cars that were on the roads didn’t seem to know how to drive around cyclists. It didn’t feel as though they were angry at seeing cyclists on the road, but didn’t have much experience of how to pass cyclists. By that I mean there was no shortage of close calls.
Getting into the afternoon, I was caught by Pete. I had ridden with Pete in Ireland last year and we always seemed to be passing each other during that race so it was no surprise to see him. We had a catch up at a little shop, escaping the heat by downing cold drinks and gorging on ice creams. I am not great in the heat, but was strict with keeping on top on water intake. Pete was struggling a bit with the heat, but still riding at a much quicker pace than me, and it wasn’t long before he shot off ahead of me. I hoped to see him again in the race, but unfortunately he had to pull out a few days later due to a knee injury. Rest up!
Around 4/5pm I reached the start of the CP1 parcours, that led to CP1, The Monument House of the Bulgarian Communist Party or the Buzludzha Monument. It was a climb of around 20km, but luckily not too steep and it wasn’t too hard finding a rhythm. Starting the climb Jenny caught up with me and we rode to the top together. I had met Jenny in Ireland last year too and found we kept passing each other, riding at a similar pace. It was good to have a catch up and exchange stories from the year and expectations for the race. The monument was intimidating when we finally reached the top, ran down and graffiti ridden, but still held a dominating presence on the skyline. There were also some other racers there getting snaps of their bikes and funnily a couple of Smart cars with GB plates. They were in a race from London to Mongolia. I think sitting on a bike seat for 2 weeks would be more comfortable than sitting in a Smart car to Mongolia. Each to their own.
After the monument was a freewheel to the checkpoint, where the TCR team and volunteers were to stamp our cards from the back of a van. I had problems with my tracker, so chatted with Anna the race director, and we soon got the thing working again which was a relief for family and friends at home, who thought I was still in Burgas having a lie in. My plan was to ride into the night and just find a place to sleep whenever I felt tired. The sun set and I got ready for my first night riding of the race.
Going through a pretty big town at 9pm, I stopped at a set of traffic lights and a taxi pulled up next to me. The driver wound the window down, looked me up and down, and said, ‘nice bike.’ I smiled and said ‘nice taxi.’ The light turned green and we both went our separate ways into the night. I really needed a pee on the outskirts of the town, so I stopped and began to pee, but ‘mid-flow’ some car lights turned the corner so I quickly pulled my shorts up and started to look at my bike. The car slowed and I started to wonder why. No need to worry, it wasn’t a killer looking for a lanky ginger cyclist to butcher, but an old couple asking if I was okay and what I was doing. I explained I was just sorting my lights out. They wished me good luck and carried on. I love how in the middle of the night people stopped just to check I was okay. Thoughts go through your head and bad things can happen, but 99% of the time people are just nice and want to know you are okay. After this, I started to think less of the worse possible outcomes.
I hit a rough off road section at around 10.30pm and decided to call it a day. I had covered 210 miles, not as much as I would have liked, but I still felt fresh and wanted to keep this feeling for as long into the race as possible. Pushing myself too far on the first day would not do me any favours in the latter stages of the race. Unclipping on the off road section and stopping saw my dynamo light fade. It was so dark. Trees lined both sides of the path, but I got my backup light out and scrambled through some leaves, through a muddy patch and found a piece of ground not too root infested and not too muddy, albeit a bit on the steep side.
I got my sleeping kit out, got changed and climbing into the bivvy bag in less than 10 minutes. After struggling to keep my eyes open while sending some messages home, I dosed off to the noise of other TCR riders battling the hard gravel section I had ended day 1 on.
Jordan Matthews 