There’s a fine line between bravery and insanity as the saying goes. We suspect that Valerio Stuart is now pretty adept at finding this line (and then going well beyond it too). After a hideous experience at the 2023 Bearbones200, you would have thought he would have learnt his lesson, but no, he headed back for more punishment this year. Fortunately for us, he survived to tell the tale and what a great tale it is.

Image courtesy of Matthew Scholes

“I’ll never do that *&%Y”$* again!!!” I mumbled while dragging myself and a stinking bike and pile of clothes through the door of our flat, back from a brutal 20-hour ride in mid Wales. “If I ever mention signing up for BearBones again” I told my wife “Make me watch the videos from this year, that’ll change my mind!!!”

Fast-forward to August 2024, the invitation for BearBones200 2025 lands in my inbox:

 “C’mon, it’ll never be as bad as last year!”  (Alex)

“We should do the 300 km version next!” (George)

“You’re not seriously doing it again?! How stupid are you?!” (my wife)

As it turns out, pretty stupid: somehow, I find myself entering BearBones200 again. 

Despite finishing the route in “good” time last year, I felt that the route had definitely won over me and I had truly met my mind’s limit during the ride. With that in mind, I was keen to approach the event again with a better and more positive mindset: yes, there were going to be challenges, but it’ll all be over at some point.

The BearBones event is a self-supported bikepacking event running every Autumn in Wales. The challenge is to complete the route with no outside assistance, support or back-up. Pre-arranged assistance of any sort will result in a DNF (Did Not Finish) and there is no assistance, feed-stops or checkpoints provided by the organiser along the route. The route changes every year but it’s typically 200 km long with 5,000m of ascent. Most of the route can be expected to be ‘off-road’ and with Wales being Wales, trails are typically very rocky/muddy/steep or all those things.

Those who complete the 200 km route, have the ‘privilege’ to be offered a 300 km route to complete in under 36 hours if they feel particularly adventurous.

The organiser makes it very clear that the BB200 is designed to be a true test, it’s not a social ride or a ‘tour’ and believe me when I say that is absolutely the case. Riders that complete the route within 24 hours are awarded a coveted “black badge”, with those arriving back within 28 hours and 36 hours taking home a blue and green badge respectively.

Regardless of the year, all routes share the same recipe - remote tracks, hike-a-bike sections and steep valleys. Add to the mix the Welsh weather and the organiser’s reputation for spicing things up with some “challenging” trails and one might be surprised to hear that this event sells out every year, with many veterans going back again and again.  And so, when I received the event invite – the 2024 edition was running on an “invitation-only” basis and on a single weekend – I couldn’t resist and I signed up although with some trepidation.

My bike has changed from last year – it’s now sporting a front suspension - and I have changed too as my threshold for what’s a fun route to ride is getting worryingly low. Deep bogs? Not optimal, but hey it’s Autumn after all... Steep rocky climbs and hike-a-bike? Good training. River crossings? Got to wash off the mud somehow…

In classic fashion, I tried to rest the week ahead of the event and ended up picking up some sort of bug instead. I wasn’t feeling at my best in the lead up to the event nor when I travelled to Llanbrynmair on Friday night with George, but I didn’t want to let that affect me and tried to stay positive. Once in Llanbrynmair we joined Karl, Russell and Alex in a cozy B&B, which looked like a bikepackers convention with bikes and gear scattered all over the place. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood, but a shade of nervousness and trepidation was definitely in the air as our minds kept going to the day ahead wondering what Stuart had in store for us.  

George and I had a loose plan which was to set off as early as possible (around 7am) trying to make the most of the light and dry weather, with heavy rain expected throughout the night. I had not factored in my innate ability to faff around, but I eventually managed to stumble out of the B&B – having eaten a light breakfast including porridge, a peanut butter bagel and 3 bananas – and drag myself to the start in a cold and misty morning. We were greeted by Stuart, his wife Dee, and a few familiar faces. The event has some hardcore longstanding veterans and it’s a great opportunity to catch up with people, learn about their recent adventures and the latest news from the bikepacking community. It was great to bump into Matthew and Tim, who I had met at Tor Divide, as well as Roland who I had ridden with during last year’s BB200.

After a short stretch on tarmac, we were soon climbing on a grassy trail and not long after, we started pushing our bikes due to the steepness of the climb. The views were incredible, as the sunrise started hitting the morning mist and the dark sky turning red and yellow. 

On one of the descents through a forest, riding a steep singletrack section, I ended up losing my front wheel and landed in some brambles at the side of the trail. No serious damage done fortunately, although I later realised that I had lost a water bottle in the crash!

When we reached the gravel trail near Llyn Glaslyn, Wales was really pulling out all the stops and it was working: we were in mountain-biking heaven.

Image courtesy of Matthew Scholes

We reached a rolling plateau with wide gravel tracks and beautiful views. 

Our small group was made of a couple of BB300 riders - Matthew and Nick – and a few BB200 riders: George, Tim, Roland and myself. We were all complementing the beauty of the landscape near Nant Y Moch reservoir, well, that was until the GPX route left the lovely doubletrack and took us over some big rocks and through a bog. Some complaints may have been voiced, mostly by myself, in the direction of the organiser. 

It was on one of the many rocky climbs that the trails claimed their first victim - a rock got wedged into Tim’s rear mech and his hanger snapped. In keeping with the self-supported and brutal nature of the event, not without feeling guilty, we abandoned Tim and his bike to their fate and pushed on.

Image courtesy of Matthew Scholes

We reached the Bwlch Nant-yr-Arian forest, high in the mountains just inland from Aberystwyth. The Cambrian Mountains felt so remote and even though the weather was incredibly good, we did not encounter any hikers, walkers or other bikers on our path. 

Possibly the highlight of the entire route, we rode down the “Chute”, a steep downhill track with gorgeous views of the surrounding countryside. The trail was so beautiful, and I was having so much fun trying to keep up with George that regrettably I didn’t stop to take any photos! 

Image courtesy of Matthew Scholes

We hit several river crossings and technical descents and it was on a rocky climb that Roland’s rear tyre picked up a severe side-wall cut courtesy of a sharp rock. I was incredibly gutted for him, as we rode together on the 2023 event until his rear thru axle snapped ending his ride and this looked like another ride-ending mechanical as the tubeless sealant was leaking through the sidewall. Neither George nor myself had a sewing kit with us (which I’ll make sure to take with me going forward!) and so we left Roland trailside hoping he could botch a repair to get him to the village of Machynlleth where there would be a bike shop.

I had not planned to stop in Machynlleth, which was “just” 60km into the ride and I had set off with approximately 6000kcal worth of food and 3l of water, but by the time we got there it was already 1pm and I had run out of water also being one bottle down in capacity. The local Spar and a wide pavement provided the perfect pit-stop, George and I basked in the sunshine for a moment, briefly joined by Tom who was riding the 300k m route.

There was no time to mess around though and we set off with the town of Dolgellau on our radar. Being just 25km from Machynlleth, we expected to get there relatively quickly but we had not factored in 700m of climbing and a steep road climb with grades over 15% between us and the town. We were joined along the route by another BB200 rider, Garry, and after a lot of huffing and puffing (and plenty of swearing to go with it) we conquered the top of the hill. The way down to Dolgellau wasn’t a walk in the park though, with plenty of gates to open, grassy and greasy trails, plenty of leaves and sticks to keep things interesting and test the grip of our tyres. I actually ended up crashing into a gate after a really long and unintentional skid on a mossy tarmac road. 

In preparation for last year’s event, I had studied the route in detail (or so I thought), trying to predict my average speed over multiple sections and at what time of the day I would hit the very few resupply points along the route. It all went out of the window after some endless hike-a-bike and a completely flooded section of the route. With that experience in mind, this year it felt futile to spend much time researching and planning the ride, so I put all my map nerdiness into a single objective - finding out the best places to stop for coffee en-route! Dolgellau seemed to have several good options for coffee stops and DD’s Bakery looked like a solid choice right on the route. To my disappointment, their coffee turned out to be from an automatic machine. Fortunately, the delicious pies and pastries made up for it! 

At just 85km into the route and barely managing to keep our average speed above 10kph, it was tough to accept that Dolgellau would be our last resupply point. The route now ventured further north into the Eryri National Park, through a couple of villages and we were not expecting to find any open shop during the night.

Once again, Wales hit us with some steep climbs that saw us ascending 700m within 20 km from Dolgellau, but also repaid us with dramatic views as the sun started setting behind the Rhinogydd. The route took us through the Coed-y-Brenin Forest, Wales’ mountain bike mecca which is now facing closure as Natural Resources Wales looks to reduce its budget, and along technical sections of the Traws Eryri CyclingUK bikepacking route.

Our efforts were repaid by beautiful riding and finally made it to the northernmost point of the route, over 110km into the ride. The wind had started to pick up and we were starting to feel cold as the night settled in. A scaffolded-up church provided a temporary shelter from the wind, and we cracked on now cycling south-bound and wrapped in a few extra layers. The feeling of joy for finally riding towards the finish, albeit being still far away, was quickly replaced by the realisation we had been riding with a tailwind that had now turned into a brutal headwind/sidewind. I had to prop myself off the embankment on the side of the trail a few times to stop the wind from blowing me off the bike.

We were rolling on another plateau and starting to feel the fatigue from the ride at every little climb. On top of that, we were also low on water supply but stayed positive knowing that we were “just” 20km away from the village of Dinas Mawddwy where we planned to use the tap from the public toilets. “Are we there yet?” “how far are we?” might have been said a few times, as we appeared to make no progress and the wind was now so strong that we weren’t able to ride in places. To make our progress even slower, we found ourselves having to climb up and down a few ladder stiles while shouldering our bikes. To make it even more fun, the stiles were surrounded by rolls of steel mesh, the kind that likes to grab the rear mech or handlebar of a fatigued rider climbing over it.

We had a few close calls with sheep and cows during the day, all fortunately inconsequential, but it was during the night and on a fast descent that a sheep jumped in front of me from behind a wall. I couldn’t stop in time and crashed into it. It was a surprisingly soft impact and somehow I managed to stay on the bike. Both the animal and the front wheel seemed to have survived the crash, thanks to a thick coat of fur and 32 strong spokes.

Not long after my encounter with one of Wales most dangerous animals, Garry ran out of water and was now falling behind on the climbs. Standing still while getting battered by the wind was really unpleasant and with a drizzle also falling from the sky we pushed on leaving another rider behind. We hoped to see him again in Dinas Mawddwy, but later found out that that he had fallen sick and had decided to re-route himself to the finish via a main road shortcut.

We finally made it to Dinas Mawddwy around 10pm and to our surprise, found the local pub still open with plenty of customers around the bar. I really needed to hit the reset-button, get some sugar in and put some dry socks on. We got a pint of Pepsi and chatted to some of the locals, who were understandably surprised and intrigued at the same time by the muddy, stinking, lycra wearing duo who had just showed up on at their door on a Saturday night. We tried to explain which way we had come and they politely corrected us as we butchered every Welsh name of the places we had ridden through. It might have been the empty pint glasses on the tables, but I don’t think what we were doing (or why) made any sense to them. Especially the fact that we were going to ride another 50 km off-road when our destination “was just ten miles away” on the main road. Regardless, they wished us good luck and sent us off in the dark.

George had heard someone saying that the final stretch of the route was easier and I hold onto that, hoping it was true. I wouldn’t say it was easy, as we had another 650 m to climb in the next 20 km, but we were now riding mostly on tarmac or good gravel roads and the finish felt within our reach. The mood had slowly transitioned from “this is such a good route” to “let’s just get it over with” and we climbed in silence, accompanied by the sound of flowing water streams and night birds calls. Our feet had been wet for most of the day, our hands were cold and tired, our speech was getting slurred, but we were getting closer and closer and pushed on as we were about to reach the top of the last climb. At that point our legs were very much not keen on a sprint finish and we agreed to finish the same way we had ridden: together.

Our efforts were paid off by a beautiful descent on a forestry road. The last hurdle was not getting lost as the route crisscrossed on itself a couple of times. Not even a missing road bridge stopped us and we managed to reach Llanbrynmair! It was almost 2am when we crossed the event finish line - the colourful fence of the school playground. A few riders had already been back and DNF’d themselves on the board, so I was glad to not see Tim’s name on the list of scratches!

Now the glamorous ending. Cleaning myself as best as I could in the local public toilets, setting up mattress and bivvy under a canopy and trying to get some sleep until 7am the next day when the doors of the school would open and Stuart and Dee would feed the horde of survivors with a hearty breakfast. 

I remember my mood being completely different after last year’s ride. Hopefully a sign that I’ve improved both mentally and physically, rather than just become numb to silly long rides. I remember there were some low moments last year where all I wanted was to stop and scratch. The only reason I didn’t is because there was no easy way out, the only way to escape from the Desert of Wales was to ride out of it. After the 2023 ride all I could do was staring off into space and only express myself by shaking my head. This time the thought of pulling out never even remotely crossed my mind and I felt tired but in a good place after the ride. I had thoroughly enjoyed the route and not felt defeated by it. 

It was great to chat with other riders over breakfast and to hear their stories. Everyone rides the same route but experiences it in a very personal and different way. These events are always an emotional rollercoaster and if you are keen to find a challenge, I recommend giving something like this a go at least once. What’s the worst that can happen?

PS

I tackled the BB200 in 2023 to raise money for a friend and MTB rider and his family as they were trying to fund his cancer treatments abroad. Unfortunately Piotr is no longer with us. It just felt right to come back to Wales and dedicate this ride to him.

If you can, please consider donating to Cancer Research UK so that in the future families and friends don’t have to go through the same as Piotr’s did. You can find a link to a JustGiving page that I've set up here.