Endurance in Action :

45 South-West

Welcome to our Endurance in Action page devoted to 45 South-West, a non-stop, 4400 kilometre bike-packing race that starts in Krakow in Poland and finishes in Tarifa at the southern tip of Spain.

On 20th June 2023, some 18 men and women riders set off on one of the year’s major bike-packing races, which ran from Krakow in eastern Poland all the way to the southern tip of Spain, at Tarifa, passing through Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, northern Italy, southern France and meandering down through eastern Spain. The race, which takes place every other year, is a non-stop, self-supported cycle race with a fixed course (designed by Andy Buchs) and in 2023 it was expected that the winner might take around 10 days (actually he took 13 days). At the other end of the field there is no time-limit.

For more details, read Anatomy of a Race in our Journal Not Fast but Far… You can see the route of the race here. The the race website at 45-SouthWest.

A Personal Pre-departure Note, from James Henderson –
I have no idea whether I will make the distance: 4400 kilometres is certainly further than I have ever ridden before and although I feel reasonably fit (proven during a training ride in late May), there’s no guarantee over this sort of distance, which reaches into a different domain of endurance. However those of you who know me will probably think I have a chance, even if you also think I really should know better and that I am far too old to contemplate such mucky endeavour (Hah! therein lies a human conundrum : endurance can last well into advanced age… more of which later…) But hey, I have certainly been talking about it enough… so I should blinking well step up.

You can read about the silly side of endurance at the Journal mentioned above, but during the event itself, most communication will be through our social media – INSTAGRAM Endurance in Theory and Action, Facebook @ALife of Adventure, and mayve even TWITTER… also @A Life of Adventure