During the event, one essential question - ‘Why am I doing this?’ - often becomes very unclear. Physical exhaustion, compounded by hills and headwinds, can demoralize a rider to the point of despondency, and extreme weather can exponentially multiply a rider’s discomfort. Virtually every rider, at some point, will entertain thoughts of quitting the race. Some riders are able to persuade themselves to continue through moments of hardship, and some crews are able to

persuade their rider to carry on. But in some cases, fatigue wins. Dismounting their bike for the final time, riders have identified the culprit as nutrition problems, swollen knees, pulled muscles, loss of vision, viral illnesses, heat exhaustion, fluid retention and what was described by one rider as ‘leg mutiny’. “The race,” 2005 competitor Kevin Wallace says plainly, “exposes all of a rider’s weaknesses.” At least a third of the riders who begin the race will not complete it.