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Dawn to Dusk to Dawn Again

This March, nosotros followed four Rapha riders to the lunar landscape of Lanzarote equally they rode from dawn to dusk to dawn again, on a long-distance journey through the senses.

It's not about the destination, it'southward about the journeying. We're all familiar with the saying, but it is never truer than on a long-distance ride. Covering vast distances and travelling through the night is non for everyone merely for as long as in that location have been bicycles, there take been people prepared to push the limits of endurance.

For what lies beyond the realms of a regular ride is an altogether different kind of journey – one on which the normal rules exercise not employ. Where fatigue and discomfort are overcome, distance is just a number and the senses are strangely heightened. In search of this ultra-endurance state of being, 4 Rapha riders set out for the lava fields of Lanzarote.

Cast off to the northwest of Africa, this Spanish isle is a place apart. Perfect for escaping everyday life and embracing the experience of a ride through the nighttime. Of our quartet, author and veteran of the Transcontinental Race Emily Chappell is the most experienced endurance rider.

"During the daylight hours I'm always reading all of the landscape around me," she says, reflecting on the beginning of the ride out of the southern town of Puerto del Carmen towards the angular igneous stone formations of the lava fields in the isle's interior.

Simply a ride takes on a different dimension as dusk descends. "With the sun setting, you lot become to meet the best of both worlds – it'southward similar riding through a undercover that nobody else knows," Emily tells us. "Every bit darkness falls yet, all you've got is the light ahead of you lot and a small surface area of road to focus on. The residual is a mystery."

As the world you can see shrinks, other senses take over. Sharpened by nighttime silence and honed by hindered vision, sound in particular becomes more than important for many. A Rapha product engineer by solar day, Scarlet Beardsall races cyclocross and trains on the track equally well as riding longer distances. Wherever she's riding, she always keeps an ear out for what'southward effectually her.

Aaron wears the Men's Brevet Jersey in Mango Mojito.

"Lots of people plug into music or podcasts these days but I adopt not to. Without the distractions of the day everything is louder at dark – the whirring of wheels and sound of your ain animate. I notice it strangely exciting.

"You don't really know what'south coming upward or how your body is going to react to the road just I always discover that I'm able to listen far more intently. When you lot're riding at night, you're more probable to hear a car or anything else coming long before you see it."

Despite riding side past side as they entered Timanfaya National Park in the darkness, each rider was living a different experience. And for bike mechanic Ed Scoble, it isn't all peace and tranquillity.

"Riding is the just thing that gives me full independence, the sort that I don't make it the real world," he says. "Just night riding is my kryptonite. As a deafened passenger, I do enjoy going through the night as it forces you to only relax and go comfy. When at that place's nothing much to see, and sounds are next to useless to me, it can be the purest form of cycling.

"I don't enjoy lacking sight every bit well as sound just it does mean I'thousand a lot more observant of my surroundings. On Lanzarote, the landscape looks barren but it's actually full of life. By focusing on what's right in front of me, I'm able to find things that other people tend not to notice.

"Smell is important likewise as information technology invokes the most singled-out response in our memories. I form emotional reactions to what I run across through what I smell. Every landscape has its own scent, and in this volcanic landscape it was sulphur mixed with ocean air, an earthy scent of rocks and roads baked in the sunday day after mean solar day."

Dawnbreak is something many of united states of america seldom meet. Simply for a cyclist emerging out of the dark, information technology'south a beautiful sight. And for our quartet, it was a take a chance to take stock. As the second day of the ride began, the group's 4th fellow member Aaron Lee, a regular on long-altitude audax rides, remembers checking his body to see but how he felt.

Emily wears the Women's Brevet Jersey in Dark Navy and the Women's Brevet Insulated Gilet in Iced Aqua.

"There was a real mix of surfaces on the island," he tells us. "Though nosotros were riding silky shine tarmac roads, either side of us were rugged rockscapes and reddy-black volcanic hillsides. It was a tough surround that took its cost.

"Salt stains on your jersey, a current of air burnt confront and fatigue from road vibrations through the confined into your hands and arms – all of these are indicators of just how far yous've been. And all of them set to the constant side-to-side swaying of the bike itself - keeping time like a metronome."

Cherry wears the Women'due south Brevet Jersey in Contemplative Mauve and the Women'south Classic Bib Shorts in Dark Gray.

Sometimes long-distance rides are all most time – passing through checkpoints or making it to the stop in time. But at their simplest, they're completely removed from fourth dimension and its constraints. Equally we found out on our island apart, going long is a chance to check out of the normal and tune into something else.

And whether you're fresh as annihilation or running on empty, riding in the twenty-four hours or navigating by nighttime, accept one heightened sense or one impaired, it's a world you tin access but through effort and endurance.

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Source: https://www.rapha.cc/us/en_US/stories/dawn-to-dusk-to-dawn-again

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