Page 40 - MERCIAN Eagle 2021

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Cycling
LCpl Harris-Antonsen
It had been a month in lockdown when
I, like many others in the UK, decided I wanted to try cycling. I went into work on the Monday morning and headed straight for the QM’s Department to chance my arm and try and sign out one of those Battalion bikes that I’d heard so much about. Luckily enough the Quarter Master wasn’t about, and I found a nice storeman who was able to sign a road bike out. Cpl Masters and
I went out on a few 20-mile rides, and
on the fourth one, decided a 100-mile ride would be easy enough. Masters was an experienced mountain bike rider, had recently bought a very nice road bike and had done quite a lot of cycling. I had done four rides and thought I was mega; I was very wrong.
With little to no training, a ride to Bournemouth and back from Bulford was too much too soon; however, through Masters laughing at me, I got through it. While in Castlemartin a couple of weeks later I found Cpl Devlin, Sgt Henstock
and Maj Ryan also cycled and had their bikes with them. Sgt Henstock was an experienced cyclist and coach from the Royal Signals assigned to the CIS platoon. When we got back to Bulford, more and more people came out the woodwork. More bikes were signed out of the store,
‘Sir’ Fitzy Wiggins warming up before a training ride
and more rides started to happen. There were also people who were already keen and experienced cyclists who spread and shared their knowledge with the rest of the group.
By October 2020, most of the Battalion were out in Germany preparing to deploy to Estonia. During this time, 1 MERCIAN entered a team of four, WO2 Slucock, Cpl Salt, Cpl Devlin and me, in to the ‘Red bull Time lapse’, a competition run virtually due to COVID. We set up two turbo trainers and Zwift (a virtual
Taking the new MERCIAN cycling kit out for a test ride
Harris-Antonsen, Capt Eve Newton and CSgt Lord. On the first day of the VELO, we were split down into ability groups which unfortunately meant our group being split up. However, we would meet up as a team at the end of each day to speak about how we were getting on. ‘Sir’ Fitzy ’Wiggins’ was our morale and our most improved rider.
He went from a complete novice to riding in one of the higher ability groups. The last day saw us cycle into the capital Tallinn, which coincided with Estonia’s national Victory
riding platform) and
completed a 25-hour
time trial with each
member of the team
riding for an hour at a
time. We were all in the
hurt locker, especially in
the early morning hours.
‘One hour on and three
off’ started to take its
toll. Banana peels and
energy gel wrappers
were everywhere, but through the team’s resilience, we finished a strong and credible 34th out of 196 teams, with a combined distance of over 600 miles.
When we got to Estonia and established the Battlegroup rhythm, we quickly got
the cycling under way in prep for ‘NATO VELO’, a 1000km ride over seven days, averaging 160km a day. In April, when we started training, the ‘Baltics’ lived up to their name, but the weather through May warmed up considerably! By June and July, when the event took place, it was one of Estonia’s hottest summers. Those that competed included: Maj Roberts (OC Headquarter Company) Cpl ’Sir’ Fitzy Wiggins, Sgt ’Matty’ Norton (RAPTC),
Sgt ‘Stu’ Atkinson, SSgt Thomas (Royal Engineers), Lt (Dory) Vincent, LCpl (Anton)
Day celebrations, where we were greeted by the Red Arrows conducting an air display. The following morning, the other NATO nations packed their bikes away and started to get on the transport, but oh no, not us! Major Roberts thought it would be a great idea to cycle back from Tallinn to Tapa,
100km, after just riding 1000km anyway. We began our return journey to Tapa,
with saddle sores and sore legs, but an unexpected amount of morale. This brilliant event wouldn’t have been possible without the support team of Cpl (Mango) Kaucha, Pte Dutton, Sgt Henstock, Pte Pemberton, LCpl Nisbit (LAD) and Cpl Zander (medic). The NATO VELO is hands down one of the best things I have done in my Army career, and I would highly recommend to anybody going out to the Baltics during the summer to give this a go.
The plan is now to build on what we’ve completed over the last year, enter a team into the Army Road Race Championships and demonstrate the cycling ability within 1 MERCIAN next season.
The last day saw us cycle into the capital Tallinn, which coincided with Estonia’s national Victory Day celebrations
LCpl Harris-Antonsen and Sgt Atkinson testing out the NATO VELO kit
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