CHAPTER 1

The final day before the race wasn’t calm. The forecast was coming in. People were apprehensive. The start time moved later, which basically guaranteed more time riding in rain at the beginning — never ideal. But Seun’s take was very “ultra brain”: You don’t negotiate with the weather. You just start, adapt, and see where it goes.

A night start, no food, and making do. Night starts sound romantic until you’re four hours deep into loitering around with hundreds of other cyclists and the one restaurant at the start line is cooked. Food sold out. The option he ended up with wasn’t what he needed.

CHAPTER 2

Wind that makes you question your life choices If day one was uncomfortable, the wind was something else. Seun described it as the grimmest part — the moment where you genuinely start thinking about safety rather than speed.
Sometimes the smartest move in the mountains is turning around. Ultra racing still requires judgement.

The plan (and what happens when the route ignores it). Seun’s early target was roughly 190 km per day, and it worked for the first couple of days.

Then the conditions punched a hole in the plan:

  • Diversions
  • Massive headwinds
  • Big power output for tiny speed gains (hours of it)

That’s the ultra truth: you can write a plan in a spreadsheet, but the route will edit it. If you’re building your own fuelling strategy for a multi-day ride, the best reference point is the [How to fuel for ultra-cycling] guide — because the key is never “one perfect plan”, it’s having options.

CHAPTER 3

The turning point: reaching CP2, then the iPhone cable breaks Seun pushed through to CP2, including a brutal long stint (he’s done 24-hour rides before, so he knew the territory).But minutes before arriving, his iPhone cable broke.

In an unsupported race, that’s not a minor inconvenience. That’s navigation, safety, and logistics. Yes, you can accept help — but it changes your status in the event. And Seun made a clear decision: If he wasn’t chasing a result anymore, he wasn’t willing to risk health just to finish “outside the GC”.

So instead of forcing a broken situation, he reframed the experience — and bikepacked onwards with new mates, actually taking in the country rather than riding with his head down. That’s a level of maturity a lot of people only learn after they’ve paid for it.

CONCLUSION:

Then the race got remote. He described small wafer biscuits with unknown carb quantities — which turns fuelling into guesswork, and guesswork into risk when you’re also managing insulin.


This is exactly why many ultra riders lean on known-carb options early on — gels, drink mixes, rice bars — not because they’re “fancy”, but because they reduce thinking when your brain is already fried.