Can I ride a 200km 12 months in a row? #2: Barry's Bristol Butt Buster

After a pretty severe inauguration last month over most of the notable hills of South Wales, April was always going to be an easier ride. Barry’s Bristol Butt Buster is a ride I’ve done six or seven times now – It was my first 200km in 2010 –  so it doesn’t hold any surprises, and although there are some hills to get your teeth into, there’s also a lot of flat through the Severn Estuary and across the Somerset levels. Add to that the most extraordinary early April weather – I’m writing this with tan lines – and a pretty benign wind, and… well, riding 200km is never easy. But to be honest, this was about as easy as it gets.

Barrys bristol butt buster 2025 - 4 (credit: road.cc)

The Butt Buster also includes what in the absence of any evidence to the contrary – and do let me know if you’ve experienced better – I’ll confidently claim is the finest cake stop on any ride ever, organised by the indomitable ladies of the Hill Women’s Institute. It’s worth going on the ride one year just to experience it: a trestle table the length of a village hall loaded to breaking point with homemade cakes and savouries. At 45km in it’s really too early both in the ride and in the day to be necking a giant slab of cheesecake. But neck it I did, along with a chunk of bakewell brownie and a big mug of tea. For four pounds. 

Barrys bristol butt buster 2025 - 3 (credit: road.cc)

The next bit can be a slog but this year it wasn’t, a chatty pace and a group of six pals regrouped at the top of the climb to the Somerset Monument, and in no time at all we were scoffing cakes and sandwiches and soup at the second excellent food stop of the day, at Doynton. Some years we enter the 100km ride (which just does the northern loop), ride to the start, eat an obscene amount of stuff and just wobble home and sack off the last bit. But the 200km skirts Bath with a gentle ascent out of Keynsham and then a not-gentle-at-all grind up on to the Mendips. After a chilly start in gloves and long sleeves, it was officially summer kit weather, and the vista from Deerleap out over the levels to Glastonbury and the Quantocks was stunning as the west country gently baked in the unseasonal heat. It’s an odd time of year for weather. In 2013 we did it in temperatures that never got above freezing. 

There was a lot of will-it-won’t-it-be-a-headwind-home chat down to Glastonbury. It wasn't, not really at least. The levels can be a pretty brutal place if the wind’s doing the wrong thing, and your legs are tired. But an east-northeasterly when you’re heading predominantly north-west isn’t the worst thing in the world. And, 150km in, my legs weren’t tired: in fact I was feeling great. I’m laying plenty of the credit for that at the feet of Joe Beer who’s helped me be less crap at cycling on and off since the nineties, and gave me a carb-loading regime for the ride that worked a treat. We’ve all panic-crammed a bunch of pasta the night before, eh. But this was a structured day of six carb-heavy meals two days out, on the Friday. It doesn’t really matter what the carbs are, says Joe. So at least one ‘meal’ was a bag of Haribo, I’ll admit that. You’d have to say it worked: this was the fastest I’ve ever completed the ride, and you might expect that given the conditions, but the legs kept on giving, right until the top of the final climb when the hubris of sitting on the front for most of the last 40km came back to bite me on the arse a bit. But we were basically home by then.

Barrys bristol butt buster 2025 - 5 (credit: road.cc)

That’s one-sixth of the challenge done, which sounds like a lot until you consider the November/December/January/February rides which will undoubtedly be a lot less pleasant than Sunday; it’s probably not one-sixth of the mental load, nor even close. Next month might be a DIY ride; there’s nothing really in the audax calendar that suits so I might have to go it alone, or with a suggestible friend. Despite saying last time I really need to lose weight, I haven’t done anything about that, so I’m as fat as ever. Maybe this month will be the one where I find my mojo there.

212km / 2,300m / 10h47m / 103kg

https://www.strava.com/activities/14100294378