Mike Cotty is an elite, endurance cyclist who has excelled in a vast number of different cycling disciplines. He is renowned for his epic endurance challenges; taking on everything from some of the world’s toughest sportives, like the Etape and the Marmotte (where Mike has clocked some impressive finishing times often as the fastest British rider) to those far less main stream challenges like the South Downs Way Double.
In preparation for an epic trans alpine ride he had planned for this summer, Mike came to us at TORQ HQ for one of our comprehensive performance packages; a full day spent fitness testing and systematically covering key areas of performance training and nutrition. The video below takes us through the day Mike spent with us.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zl7xBF02t0[/embedyt]
As part of his training for this event, Mike completed a number of significant training rides include one 300 mile, nonstop, solo ride with over 6500 metres of climbing. This started in Herne Bay in Kent and finished in Southampton. The video below, which is well worth a watch, ‘Long Daze, Summer Nights and 300 Miles by Bike’, documents this quite extraordinary interpretation of a ‘training ride’.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZPf2EmOyCQ[/embedyt]
The ride Mike had conjured up took the term ‘endurance’ to an astonishing level. The route, to be ridden nonstop, covered a staggering 666 km with over 16,000 metres of climbing, which is equivalent to 4 back to back mountain stages of the Tour De France! It started in Evian Les Bains, crossing some of the most famous Cols of the Tour De France and finishing in Nice. Watch the trailer for the ride below.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp3WIBx43d0[/embedyt]
Fuelling and bike setup was obviously going to play a significant part in an endurance event of this length, and was naturally something that we were able to help Mike with. Utilisation of our TORQ fuelling System, (in combination with a few lean comfort foods) something Mike had experimented with in training, including his 300 mile Dover to Southampton epic, meant that Mike was well setup for fuelling the ride. Road.cc covered Mike’s bike setup and nutrition in an article here.
Having now completed the ride in a staggering 34 hours, Mavic who followed Mike through the entirety of the ride is producing a two part documentary, of which the first part of which has just been released.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYjoCzZnQr8[/embedyt]
A huge congratulation to Mike on completing the epic ride, it was hard for us here at TORQ to fully comprehend how someone could ride that far, in those mountains, nonstop for 34hours! We look forward to seeing the 2nd and final part of the final documentary.
