My Biggest Challenge Yet The Road To Leadville

Okay, 2026, new year, new me, and this year, I've set myself possibly my hardest challenge. No, it's not some crazy downhill track or mad gap. It is, in fact, a 105-mile cross country race. I've never even ridden 105 miles, let alone race it. Ready for Ferg. Do you need a cuddle? No. Like many of you guys, I like to set myself challenges in the new year. This year, I decided that I'm not just going to take part in my first distance event, but I want to be up there with some of the world's fastest. In just nine months' time, I'm going to be taking part in the infamous and grueling Leadville 100 race. With numbers like 105 miles and over 10,000 feet of elevation, I couldn't be more out of my comfort zone. The Leadville 100 mountain bike race is a legendary cross country mountain bike race held annually in Leadville, Colorado, high in the Rocky Mountains. With extreme altitudes such as 10,000 feet at the start gate and climbs over 12,600 feet, this race is a brutal endurance race. The big buckle is the goal. Riders must finish in under nine hours to earn the iconic large belt buckle, sub 12 hours for the smaller one. Originally created in 1994 as a way to boost the local economy, it is now one of the most iconic endurance mountain bike races in the world. Attracting elite pros and amateur riders alike, it's as much about surviving the altitude as it is about the speed. To do this, I'm going to be switching my baggies for Lycra, training harder than I ever have been and getting fitter than I ever have been, learning about tech, training, and nutrition to give myself the best possible chance of winning the infamous big buckle. Since hanging on my racing boots last year, I've done some incredible challenges and taken part in some amazing adventures, but I found it really hard to stay motivated to train and to stay fit. Adapting to working life and finding the time to train has been really difficult. That's why I needed a challenge like the Level 100 to really put me in my place and give me the motivation to train. Level 100 is unique in the fact that it's a mass start race, something I've never done before, which will allow me to get amongst other races on both the climbs and the descents. It has a unique altitude profile of over 10,000 feet from the start line, which will push me to train harder than I ever have before. This series is going to follow my journey over the next nine months, and I'm going to bring you guys with me as I learn from nutritionists, pros, mechanics, and get as much information as I possibly can to help me on race day. In today's episode, though, I need to find out exactly how unfit I am and do some really important baseline metrics to help inform my training over the next nine months. Once I've completed testing, I will also be putting myself to the test out on the bike with none other than GCN's Alex Patton. Having taken on such a monumental task as the Leadville 100, I thought where better to come than the University of Bath to set myself some baseline parameters, understand exactly where I'm at fitness-wise and also where I can improve, but also set some really good baseline heart rate data with which I can work on for the next nine months. Into the testing. We have arrived in the lab and I'm here with Jonathan Robinson, the exercise physiologist here at the University of Bath. Jonathan, what exactly are we going to be doing today to test my fitness? Jonathan Robinson, Exercise Physiologist, University of Bath. Yes, so we're going to do a VO2 max and lactate transition test, which is what we call a step test. It starts easy and goes up in 25-watt increments every three minutes. We go from easy up to the point of failure and no return as far as you can go. Truly the devil's tricycle, and I have no doubt that I'm probably going to end up on the floor in a pool of my own sweat somewhere around here. Well, on that note, it's time to get suited and booted and into the test. Time to see just how much damage those Christmas dinners have done and get on the weighing scales. 80.5, ouch. Oh, no. Time for it. A bit of a warm-up. Yes, I'll have a bit of a warm-up, go on. Time to put some nice gentle music on for the test. Previously, you've got to about 325, but we'll see. It's nothing like a good old go to go off. Good, good, good. Run. Very well. Good, good, good. Okay, that is testing done and dusted. That was as uncomfortable as it always is. Jonathan, I know you've got some thoughts initially on how I did. My lactate profile was all right. It was pretty similar to what we've done previously back in July. Yes, it's fairly similar. Just eyeballing it, the break points are pretty much where they were before. Your weight might be slightly different. Relative to body weight, it'd be fractionally different, but absolute power terms, it's in the same rate. We'll have a look at what the heart rates look like because that might have changed. Having concluded what can only be described as a complete sufferfest at the University of Bath, it was time for me to head up to Birmingham to see just how much damage all those cookies and Christmas dinners had done to my body. I've come here to Birmingham to visit the guys at BodyView. They have a dexter scanning machine, which is going to help me measure my body composition, my bone density, and crucially, my body fat percentage to let me know exactly where I could drop some fat and also let me know exactly how deep the hole is that I've got myself into. In all my years racing enduro, my body composition wasn't really something I concerned myself with. Yes, I ate clean and I trained hard, but being as lean as possible wasn't something that ever worried me because I wasn't having to go up as many climbs as fast as possible. However, with Leadville being a race of both ascent and descent, I need to be as efficient as I possibly can be. As much information as possible is essential. I know I could lose a few pounds and I don't need a dexter scan to tell me that, but I thought in the pursuit of motivation and to give myself some figures to aim for, the guys at BodyView can give me a scan and tell me exactly how much weight I need to lose. Okay, James, thank you for having me. What are we doing today then? So, Fergus, today we've got you in for a body composition scan today. I'll briefly explain kind of what the dexter actually does. Dexter standing for Dual Energy X-ray Absorbed Geometry. The way it works, two X-rays are coming out of the bottom, both low in energy, meaning low radiation. One's higher compared to the other, made relative to the other. Due to that, it can differentiate between three types of tissue. So, you're fat, you're lean and you're bone. Lean being your muscle, organs, skin and water content. So, we'll get a percentage for each and then a number, so an absolute measure being the weighting of it, okay? What we do with that number is we make it relative to your height, okay? It standardises the measure, allows us to compare to others in your population, okay? It'll make more sense when I get you on the report. Cool. Sound good? Let's go for it. Cool. I think that's the longest I've ever sat still for. It might be a new record, but time for the results. It's time to find out exactly how much weight and where I need to lose some timber. So, here we are. Start off with your BMI first, so your body mass index. This is simply your height divided by your weight, okay? It's quite restrictive in my opinion. It doesn't tell us a lot. I'm sure a lot of doctors and medical professionals would say the same. We just use it as a starting point because then the dexter tells what this weight is composed of. Okay. You've got classification there if you're interested. I am overweight. This probably sounds about right. You get a body fat percentage here. Wow, okay. 20.6%. See, it's got you in the average. It's got me in the bang average section. So, I'd rather you look at this number here. This is an absolute measure. It is an isolated measure, okay? So, it doesn't pay respect to any of our other tissues. What we do with this number is we make it relative to your height. That's what the fat mass index is. 5.36 is what we've got. You can see here, this is how you compare to others in your population, same age as you. So, 63%. So, I am above average though in my fat index. That's going to have to change. It's all going to change. So, next we have your visceral fat. Now, I do like to take a moment, just to look at your scan here. It's a bit nicer than the one that was on my screen earlier, this one here, okay? It's color-coordinated, meaning yellow is fat, red is muscle, purple organs and more dense muscle, and then blue is bone, okay? I'll just show you briefly again. So, I'll look on this diagram here. You can see these inner blue bars, yeah? So, these are the markers which I've placed determining where the abdominal wall ends. Any kind of then visceral fat within this region, imagine I took that box from that diagram and I've plopped it on this diagram here. Any kind of then yellow within this region is what's been measured as being visceral fat, okay? So, with that said, the number that it's measured is this one here, 69.6 centimeters squared. It's an area. You're below 100, which is deemed as healthy. You're also below 80, which is most optimal for, again, longevity, longer-term health. So, next we have your lean mass. This is a measure of your muscle, organs, skin, water content. We get a lean mass percentage here, 76%. Okay, so we've established that I am quite a long way off. I've got a lot of extra fat. I need to lose 1.1 kilos of fat, but this is only the start of my journey and I have eight and a half months, which is scary. That number is going down super fast, but I have eight and a half months to get myself into shape. As you've said there, a bit of a calorie deficit, so I need to look at my nutrition along with doing some Zone 2, which is your recommendation, combined with some interval training to try and build that muscle and also drop off some of the love handles right here. Thank you so much, James, for all your help. I'll be back in a couple of months. It'll be really nice if we can compare the results from today and then see if I've made any progress and if I've been doing the training right, but thank you very much. I'll look forward to it. Let's try and get that score up to 100, shall we? Try to get it to 100. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Yes, we'll improve the bone mineral density as well, so I'll be sure to eat my crunchy kale. Thanks, mate. Okay, so we are back from testing. I've been to BodyView and I've also been to Bath to do my ramp test. I thought, what better way to conclude than here in the dirt shed? First up, let's take the ramp test with Jonathan. Now, I've done these before. They are nothing but suffering, but they are really, really good for me to establish my heart rate zones, where I'm at in terms of the wattage I'm putting out and also learn a bit more about the kind of training I need to be doing for the next nine months. In the testing, I put out 325 watts, which is the same as I did before, but I didn't manage to hold it for as long. I only managed to hold it for a minute, whereas before I managed to hold it for the full three minutes. Not as good there, and it was made a little bit worse when Jonathan reminded me that I have put on six kilos. That has massively affected my watts per kilo, and that is the name of the game for distance racing. What I really need to do is drop my body weight, but maintain or improve that top-end wattage. The other thing that was really noticeable about the testing was my blood lactate levels and how that was on the curve. As per normal, it's been the story of my life. I'm fine, fine, fine. I hit about 225 to 250 watts, and all of a sudden, it starts to go wrong. Now, the way to train that, as Jonathan said, is plenty of zone two, and I've been told that all through my career. I try my hardest, but I really, really hate doing that style of training. With nine months to go, I don't think I have much choice. On to body view. Now, these guys were amazing. It's my first time doing this. James there was super helpful, got me on the table, and we got some really good results. Nothing more humbling than doing a DEXA scan, by the way. I thought I was fit. Turns out I am pretty mediocre. Crucially, I don't want to lose any muscle mass, but what I do want to do is drop off that body fat. My goal from James is to lose 1.1 kilos of body fat. That's quite a lot, but he's given me a really, really good way to do that from a nutrition perspective. I need to lose, if I just go to here. For the 24 weeks, I've got a lot of time, so for 24 weeks, I only need to put myself in a 51-calorie deficit. What's quite nice about that, that's a flat white coffee, so I just need to decrease the number of flat whites I'm having each week. What's quite nice about that is I'm not having to change my diet massively. I just need to be consistent with it and also increase my training. Again, he suggested more Zone 2 training. It looks like from the studies, Zone 2 is the answer. On that note, it's all data. It's really, really good, but nothing beats getting out there on the real world and on the bicycle. I thought, who better to ask than the guys over at GCN on long-distance riding. I went to go and meet up with Alex Patton. He was going to take me on one of his training rides that he did when he was training for Unbound 200. Alex, what is the plan for today? We are going on an adventure slash race. You've got Leadville coming up. I've done Unbound a year ago. I feel like I'm going to try to impart some of my bit of wisdom onto you, so hopefully, prepare you a little bit better for when you come to race at Leadville. This is a point-to-point route that I used for loads of my training for Unbound. It's not replicating the same terrain or the climate or the conditions of Leadville, but it's putting your body under that bit of stress. For me, when I was training, it gave me something that I could go and recreate and redo over and over again to hopefully see if my training and hard work was paying off. I need every bit of help I can get and I will gladly take it. I am sure that you're going to be going way faster than I am, so this is going to be a self-invest on my part. Well, it's a combination of things. One, I want to help you learn and understand a bit more, but two, also, because I may be just a tiny little bit fitter and faster than you, I want to dish out a bit of hurt because that's what you've got to get used to. Our goal today, let's not worry about specific power or speed targets. Let's get from here to the unofficial finish line as fast as possible as a pair. One important lesson that I think you should have learned early on, wear the right kit for the conditions. Yes, it's sunny, but it's bloody freezing. Why have you got shorts on? This is just what I wore. I'm not used to all this Lycra rubber. Also, where's your camelback, right? Gravel riders need a camelback. Again, I've not done long-distance rides ever, so it's not something that I'm used to. I just brought a water bottle. Right, two lessons learned. We haven't even turned the pedals yet. Let's crack on, do this ride, put the hammer down. First things first, the route starts that way. Oh, spin round. All right, you good? Onward. All right, let's do it. All right, then. How's things? Oh, I'm shattered. We are what? Hour and 20 into our mini race. Are you enjoying it? Type 2 fun for sure. You're doing an amazing job of keeping me motivated. The fact that you can talk through the whole ride, whereas I'm breathing pretty hard and my legs are definitely feeling it. Obviously, we did a ride to the race. We are three hours deep into this ride in general, hour and a half of that race pace. Which is good. It added a bit of load. It's more of a close race simulation to what I'm going to do. My legs are definitely feeling pretty heavy right now. I think just finding it really hard to hold that pace. Eat and drink and the body will keep working and finish us that way, I guess. Yes. Should we keep going? Yes. Can we fist bump? Of course, you can. It's a mountain bike channel. We're cool. That's cool. See you guys in a bit. Pray for Ferg. What would your powers of wisdom be in terms of my nutrition and things like that? How I go about that? You've just got to constantly feed your body with food and water, non-stop. Your body's going to absolutely rip through energy so much faster than you'd ever imagine. To train your body to be able to process this food as quick as possible. Yes. I think the other thing I've learned from today's ride is, obviously, whilst you're constantly moving, it's really, really hard to drink water. I'm definitely going to use a camelback for the race. I told you at the start. It's just so much easier. I said at the start, where's your camelback? You haven't got one. You're ill-prepared. Poor preparation leads to poor race performance. That's what I'm doing right now. If I averaged out everything that I ate over the, what was it, 10 hours or so, it was about 90 to 100 grams of carbohydrates an hour for 10 hours straight. That's incredible. It's hard to eat that much. It's like an eating race. Honestly, my advice would be you've really got to practice that. Yes. So many people underestimate the demands on your body in terms of nutrition and hydration. One thing I found that made a big difference for me, not having carbohydrates in my drink because if I have carbohydrates in the drink as well as eating, I just found it too much for my stomach. Yes. Okay. Practice like what? I think it's got a technical term. It's called carbohydrate decoupling or something. Wow. Okay. Where you split hydration and carbohydrates separate rather than having them as a mix. This feels like the time into Leadville where you're going to be like adrenaline's wearing off. Yes. It's time to settle into groups and it's like you've got to assess, are you in good shape and are you with the right kind of people for your race? Yes. It's like don't get too carried away and ride with people that are perhaps fitter and stronger than you, but also you've got to push yourself and find the right balance between it. Over the next couple of months, I'm going to very quickly establish what my watt outputs are and heart rates. Would you work on heart rate or just go off feel in the body? I think you've got to go off feel. You're going to have adrenaline but it's too easy to set off hard. You need to think, right, be a little bit reserved. There's a long way to go. Yes. You could lose a couple of minutes at the start from being reserved or you can go too hard and lose 30 minutes at the end. Ferg's starting to suffer a bit now. I feel bad smiling about it, but we've all been there. I got a lot of time for that because he's suffering but he's still at it. He's chipping away. Yes, a lot of respect for him. Go get a little update from Ferg and see how his motivation is. I'm dying after 84K. Alex did 200 miles and he did it in 10 hours. I'm only looking to do half that. Yes, admittedly, I was too, but half that in the same time. Boy, he's incredible. Come back here, Ferg. We want to get to film your bum. Look at that booty shot. Look at it. Booty goals. Damn. You look like you pooed yourself. I feel like I have. It's our last climb in this bit now. Ferg's absolutely ramped up the power. He sniffed the end out. Here we go. We're basically at the finish. Are you okay? No. Do you need a cuddle? No. We'll get there. We're nearly there. Mate, we're at the finish. What do you mean? This is it. I thought you said we were going to a cafe or is this the finish? This is the finish and then we cycle to the cafe. It feels like a bit of an anti-climax going over that. Is that actually the finish? Yes, this is the end. What an end then. I'm so tired. Yes, you look tired. That last 15K, everything just drained out of me. I had nothing left. I felt all right until then. I felt like we were pushing up the climbs and doing what you're saying and taking on all the stuff and then my body just went into limp mode. There's lots to learn and take away from this. While you feel like this, probably not the greatest time to do it. No, I think we'll go get some food. Food is like two kilometers that way. Okay, so let's go get to the food. I'll get some energy in me so I can actually think straight and then we can look back on the ride. Take some of my energy. Take it. Take it. There's my energy. Thank you. 2K to the finish. Let's do it. Now I've had a chance to get a coffee in me and more importantly, some food. I'm feeling a little bit more alive. Thank you so much, Alex, for taking me around on the ride. I feel like I was a little bit lacking in energy when we finished. Plus, I didn't actually believe you that we'd finished to be honest. No, I feel for you because this is, is it one of the longest rides you've ever done? Yes, for sure. I don't want to alarm you, but yes, when we finished, we're going to be on half Leadville distance. It's not an altitude. It's not been very hilly. At times, we've been able to just chill out. It's safe to say I've bitten off probably a lot more than I can chew. No, I think you're going to be okay, but you just got quite a bit of work to go. Okay, based on that ride alone, what would be some of your top three tips based on what I need to do over the next nine months? Consistent training, build up to it rather than trying to do everything at once, get nutrition dialed in, and optimize your bike and equipment setup relative to the demands of Leadville because you're going to want a different bike to that for Leadville. Yes, it definitely was. Obviously, that was only some gravel, but even on that, it felt quite rough. I think that just takes more energy out of you. Big tires, low tire pressures, you know all that stuff, and you'll be fine. Wicked. Well, thanks so much for taking me along. I will undoubtedly be tapping you up for some more knowledge along the way. I can help you out. Yes. I don't want to upset you too much, but it's a 45-minute bike ride to get home from here. I've got to do more riding. More riding. Wish us luck. Well, on that note, should we- Should we go? Yes, let's do it. All right. Nice one. Thanks, mate. Let's do it. So, what have I learned? Well, other than the fact that the next nine months are going to be super uncomfortable, I need to lose a lot of timber to improve my FTP, and I'm going to have to do plenty of zone two at the same time. The ride with Alex was super informative and let me know lots about how I'm going to improve my mental toughness. Five hours in the saddle is about half of what I'm going to have to do for Leadville, and I really, really struggled when we were out on that ride. There's more of that to come in episode two, and I hope you guys have enjoyed this, and I'll catch you in the next one.