Get your 2024 off to an exciting start by planning to cycle 100 miles this summer in Scotland’s friendliest, free century ride.
Ride to the Sun is a (semi)-organised, summer solstice 100 mile ride through the night, from the English border city of Carlisle to the village of Cramond just north of Edinburgh in Scotland, aiming to arrive for sunrise around 4:20am.
We’ll hear from organisers Gary Cameron and Fraser Maxwell, plus learn how to organise the logistics of this point-to-point ride. I’ll also try to understand why it appeals to a range of cyclists, whether they’re tackling their first century or riding it as part of a 300 mile Audax.
I’ve been at this event three times and it gets better each year.
https://www.ridetothesun.co.uk/
My event video https://youtu.be/kGv8-m9EEfY
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As you listen to this summer is probably coming to an end or it might be well over in the northern hemisphere but as I recalled this it’s the weekend that is closest to the summer solstice and I am in a park in the Border City of Carlisle just over the Border in England
And there’s quite a lot of cyclists around me and they’re gathering for an event that is called ride to the Sun I’ve filmed it once I’ve ridden it once and I have to say it is one of the most unusual and very special events I have
Ever come across the idea is to ride 100 miles from Carlisle to a place just north of Edinburgh called cramund and the ride is through the night arriving there for Sunrise which tomorrow morning will be at 04 27 4 30 in the morning it’ll start let getting
Light at about half past three and the route will take us out of this busy City it’ll take us up into the borders to the town of Moffat where a chip shop will be staying open late for us then there’s a big climb up something called The
Devil’s beef tub and then a long descent in the dark in the night full lights needed we then get to a cycle Rave because what was an abandoned Public House Pub or hotel called the crook in it’s now become a community in uh is is the scene
Of the most amazing light laser and disco show in the middle of the night that is verging on The Surreal then it’s a strange cold period before you get into Edinburgh in the early hours just as the pubs and clubs are throwing out you’ve got to negotiate the
City try not get your wheels caught in tram lines and reach as I say the beach at crammond just to see the sun rising over kraman Island which is just out to sea so that’s what lies ahead of me people are gathering now in the park and you’ve
Got to really pick your time as to when to leave if you leave too early it’s going to be a lot of hanging around in the end before the sun rises if you leave too late you might miss it some people the really Keen ones have ridden here
Starting in all sorts of different places others well others just this could be their very first 100 mile ride and if it’s something you fancy doing as in a 100 mile ride this is a superb one to start with foreign most cyclists get here by coach their
Bikes carried in a separate van all laid on by cram and Scout Troop I’d booked a place but one of the organizers Gary Cameron offered me a seat in his car and one of the other occupants asked Gary how the whole ride to the sun thing
Started so I turned on my recorder for the reply um so I think it was 2015 and Fraser was training to do an Iron Man and he was obviously both of us to that time busier the kids were much younger so struggling to get in enough time at
The weekend to do a lot of cycling so he said to me how do you fancy getting the train down to Carlisle one night and we’ll cycle back from Carlisle and you know well he asked a few people actually and I was one of the people stupid enough to
Think well that sounds like a good idea to cycle back overnight so we did it and obviously you’re on the bike together for a long time and we just got chatting and then there’s a there’s an overnight event down in London way called the Dunwich Dynamo and I couldn’t have heard
Of it but none of us have done it and then we kind of thought how about if we did this route and could have did it as a similar thing you could have overnight and see if many people would be queue for doing it and then before you know it we’ve put a
Website up we’ve put out there and what we thought would be in the first year would maybe get 50 people because it’s a bit of an oddball thing to do I think the first year we had about 300 people doing it and then it just grew
From there next year it was 500 the year after that was about seven eight hundred people so yeah I just kind of Grew From there really I suppose this is one of these things when you start doing them you can never know where that’ll end up you know we had no
Huge design to grow into a big events we just kind of thought you know what we’ll put the idea out there and see if people like it and I think because it’s free and I think because it’s done in a bit of just a spirit of Adventure more than kind of our
I mean it’s organized but it’s semi-organized if you know what I mean and I think there’s just so much Goodwill towards the event itself you know people just buy it in the spirit of it and you know it’s not about racing it’s just about doing something a bit different
We drive into Carlisle at about 4pm and already some people are leaving I get my bike set up for the ride I start doing some filming oh oh yes I did make a video of the ride and there’s a link to that in the show notes Gary and his
Co-organizer Fraser Maxwell are greeting people and I have to Spirit them away to a quiet if windy park bench to continue our conversation is free to do and I think people like that and I think people give us a lot of um good grace because of that I would
Say and I think you know the certain unique elements like Linda in the Chip Shop a Piper at the top of the beef tub and a rave and free beer at the finish and I think all of those things combined to create something very unique and different and it it captures people’s
Imagination one of our friends decided to described right to the Sun as like a cycling flash mob and I think there’s a bit of an element of that they can have Homespun nature of it it’s not corporate it’s people turning up for the same reasons just to ride their bike have a
Little bit of that sense of adventure because it’s overnight and it’s a little bit different we’ve asked people to help or to do things and they’ve always just been so accommodating so willing to pitch in and I think just I think all of that is just a little bit infectious do
You not get fed up with having to do this every year now though uh so so was that hesitation so so I think in in the two weeks beforehand it feels like a bit of a ball Lake and then we will literally be buzzing at five o’clock tomorrow morning and the
Excitement and the adrenaline will be going and then you see the comments on Facebook or social media and you see the money that it raises for Fresh Start the whole thing wouldn’t have happened without Linda in the muffet chippy we rely on somebody piping at midnight getting eaten alive by midges for three
Hours Ian and Neil who do the crook in Rave we rely on them there’s a band of people a group of people at the Kirk Hall to do um the food and the hot drinks and then Stewart Brewing you know give us all the beers cycle or Scotland give them out
It’s actually a massive team effort and we don’t do that much he he does he does more than me but it kind of grew I’m getting a bit a bit closer here it kind of grew organically didn’t it it was not you set out like what are the
Ingredients I need to bake this particular event 100 it grew organically because you know we didn’t from year one we didn’t think you know we’re gonna we didn’t think it was going to be a multi-year event we didn’t think you know that it was going to grow to the
Size that it did but like I said before that those kind of happy circumstances and people buying into it give us the drive I was going to say drive to keep it doing but drive would kind of unfair that it’s a it is a bind
For us or a lot of work and it never really feels like that and a member of Fraser said one year that we might be the faces of this but we’re not even the Barney spaces or faces but you know it is that band of people behind it that
When we ask or you know we say them could you help us with this could you get up and cook bacon rolls at two in the morning for 600 cyclists people are willing to put their hand up and say yes and I do think we do get a lot of
Goodwill because people know that we genuinely Do It For the Love of the event and the love of cycling and getting people on their bikes the right to the sun will never be a cost to enter event it will always be you know the way it is that’s great
Audio as them going downstairs I’d rather kill it than charge anybody a fiver right even even just about because you could charge a lot for this couldn’t you yeah but but I think that’s when Goodwill goes out the window in the blink of an eye actually I think as soon
As money’s involved people’s perceptions are different and they’ve all just arrived there and team strip haven’t they yeah it’s yes I’ve watch this and maybe participated is that it’s a different challenge depending on where you are with your cycling so so for some people well you
Talk to me about the real range of challenge because I know some people this will be their first hundred Miler and they’ll be beside themselves I was chatting about that on the uh to Henry in the car on the way down and actually it surprises me that so many people do
This as their first century right um because you would think you’d do your first century ride in the daylight not throwing in an overnight and all that that brings but people there’s something there’s something unique about it that sucks people in to do it and I think if
You look at the feedback it mentions camaraderie and friendly nature inclusivity and I think that resonates with people and I think that draws in the first timers and then there’s the people that are doing this as part just 100 miles as part of a 300 mile odax
Today and that’s but I think that’s amazing that it brings in the super serious cyclists to people on hybrids doing a century for the first time and I I love that aspect of it there was a chap one there was a chap one year who came down and he’s pretty old looking
Mountain bike with normally tires a pair of cards and he’s brogues on and he’s Barry and literally took off his battery put on his cycling hat and that was him a way to do right to the sun you know and then you you’ve got the other side
Of the spectrum like Phil says people who are pretty serious and want to just get up the road as quickly as possible but I remember last year we got an email from our girl who said that she turned up to our local Cycling Club they were all a little bit snippy with
Her because she had you know a flat bar bike and not clip-on shoes and stuff like that and it put her off cycling and then she came up came to ride to the Sun and said you know what that’s given me the confidence because I did my 100
Miles it was tough it was a challenge but it’s given me the confidence to go and find another Cycling group which is subsequently found and has fallen love recycling so I think not speaking for both of us but I think right to the sun has that unique ability
To create so many genuine moments for people and there might be a moment in the dark when you’re on your own and you think that you’re struggling or it might be that moment last year with the girl playing the accordion on the beach you know tell me a bit more about that
I can Fraser can tell you because you know a bit more about it I might get emotional because I’m still emotional um I saw I saw the video yeah so um I was it was just after Sunrise last year and um there was these two ladies just got
Together at an accordion and something else and they sat on the wall of cram and seafront and they started to play and then I just turned and the gentleman said oh that’s my wife and I was like oh that’s amazing what a thing to do to
Bring an accordion to the finish of the event and it was magical and then there’s this sort of pause and he said uh she’s got terminal cancer and she’s not going to be here next year and um he just with swap messages today and just I’d posted something about last
Year’s event just on social media the last couple of days but he just said she didn’t even make it to the end of last year she passed away um but he just said that it was a magical moment that was it was on her bucket list to do and the playing the
Accordion and uh with a friend just as the sun came up was just a special moment because it was it was a perfect it was a perfect Sunrise as well yeah and the sun was Rising right behind them when they were playing their instruments
Um but you do go not this not in this case but you do go out of your way to create moments you did you arranged that chippy okay there was a functional point to it but you didn’t have to and yet everybody’s together there and and the
Piper and the the Rave which initially you didn’t used to tell people about did you so my sorry Gary but it was a little border terrier oh so it’s slight Sidetrack we’ve both got borders sorry there you go so in my youth I spent a lot of time at raves in
The middle of fields not knowing where I was going to be going and getting bust there so when I saw the crookin and I think it was year one I thought you know what that is the perfect place where we could potentially have a rave because it
Wasn’t like abandoned Pub yeah up a Long Valley yeah in the borders somewhere yeah it’s completely deserted there’s no light if you turn around and look 360 Degrees you cannot see a light and I didn’t know there wasn’t really that many houses near it which is a good
Um because the amount of noise that we now create at it but I knew there was a power supply because I knew that so I can’t remember how it gotten so there was there was a heritable to us that we’re trying to buy it and I said look
Is there any chance and again I write to the sun happy circumstance it feels like because we had no vision of making it what it is now we’re just not you know we’ll get our friend along who knew was the DJ and he can come along and you
Know play some tunes we’ll maybe get some lights and kneel and shap have almost taken that element of right to the sun on as their own and it feels like they own it and every year the valid lasers divided smoke machine a bigger sound system the people from the
Crookin now are going to open and sell coffees because now I’ve got their Wii shop going because it’s been bought and turned into a community party yeah it’s been it’s been turned since since we started doing it the community bought it and are in the process of randoming it
To make it into like a community Hub resource that they can then use so that’s great so they’re they’re now raising a few quid but the people from the community now come and spend the evening there uh oh but the campervanas weren’t very impressed
So I think that was 2018 and there was a couple of just parked at the far end of the the crook end car park and have already sort of settle down for the night and then Neil and Chef turned up and got the DJ set lined up and then all
Sorts of paraphernalia was between the road and the camp fans so they couldn’t escape and um then the music starts for about four hours and I I it was one of those Facebook messages that I actually missed and I saw it about 10 months later and the guide messaged
Us and just said I was an old raver back in the day I absolutely love it loved it my wife not quite so much the funniest thing for me is you knew it wouldn’t be like a house party where the music starts at two and then slowly gets
Put up to 10. DJ Neil had decks up Maxwell Volume needle on right boom and this boom in the Buster sat bolt right up in her bed and going what is this what is this so so one of the magical moments that I remember is that Gary had the idea for
The crook in and we told people you’re gonna get a surprise this year but we didn’t tell them what or where or when and I was cycling down off the beef tub with these two guys and just chatting away and I knew what was coming up
And we got about a mile away and I could just see the sort of glimmer of Lights and you could just start to hear it and this guy turned me and said it’s the middle of the night and I’m tired but I’m Delirious I can hear music and I was just like no
You can’t and he’s like you can I can and then just as we got closer you said bloody hell does it rain and just just the the sort of Joy on his face the surprise and then there was the what the hell have you guys done to make this happen in that location
It was so magical and then I think we we always thought that the devil’s beef tub is 50 miles so it’s halfway and it’s the highest point of the route so it’s an inverted commas downhill all the way from there we always felt as if we
Needed to do something at the at the top of the beef tub and again it was just a happy accident just to think do we do fireworks or do we do something and just the pipe is again Linda in Moffett sorted out the Pipers oh incidentally
You might have a paper for next year might you we might do Ian who would give a lift down it’s on you and as a piper so if we’re short a piper we can volunteered he doesn’t know about the midges we that don’t exist um do you think you’ve got it right now
Or could you see a tweak happening sometime in the future what would you say so I think so we’ve talked about doing different things and it’s like you know do we you know add a bit more of Akana Cafe Del Mar Vibe down at the front when the
Sun’s coming up and you know have the kind of mellow Tunes playing if you do that then you miss the opportunities for the boom to come along with the accordion and that’s then us controlling the end and I think at the end and you’ve got a lot going on at the
End already with the yeah yeah because we haven’t actually spoken about the Scouts have we no because the way they’ve got involved sorry yeah so so um never say never will we tune our fine tune or do different things but I think as things stand at the moment it’s it’s
It’s it’s in our eyes pretty perfect I think the only feedback we’ve had is actually about the start and actually could we have something that create a bit more of a focal point here yeah um does it because you don’t actually want a start time do you because the whole
Idea is if you are riding to the sunny for me I think the challenge is leaving at the right time so you’re not hanging around at the end too much but you don’t miss it yeah but but for me the main things Linda’s Chippy the paper at the
Beef tub the cooking and then the seafront and the Kirk Hall yeah personally I wouldn’t change it it just feels right let’s just talk about the scouts because this has ended up generating quite a lot of cash for various charities in particular cram and Scout who do work for it just explain to
Me how they got involved and well not how but what is their involvement now because someone listening to this by now is thinking right this is on my list I’m going to be doing it but how on Earth do I work the logistics of it and this is
Where the scouts come in yeah so I think we always were a bit aware of it because it’s a point to point event there’s only so many spaces on trains and how many bikes you can go on as always a bit of a chance just though there was that
And then um David Newton who stays locally to us you know we know when we know the family he’s he’s heavily involved in the scouts and he had said his daughter was fundraising for the scouts I think she was going to the world Jamboree and he said look is there
Anything that she can do and I had mentioned to him about the um getting people to the to the start and then he they absolutely took it and ran with it and now I think they have four coaches going down to the start they can take obviously cyclist plus a bike there’s
Lorries that go down that you know they pack the bikes expertly the feedback and the comments that we get which we have no deserving to get for the service that they provide it’s kind of reflected Glory honest which we shouldn’t be but the scouts do an amazing job uh planning
Logistics getting everyone and don’t get me wrong they work hard for it and they raise good funds and I think it’s one of those things I think David said if you look at the man arrows that go into it you can run it as a business but because
It’s all volunteers for a one-off thing to be able to them to raise a reasonably chunky amount of money it works and the cyclists love it because it takes away that logistic how do I get from Edinburgh to Carmen or sorry from kraman to Carlisle or vice versa because
They’re on a bus back in the morning to Carlisle as well so I’m gonna do a bike shift or a bike sorry a a bag drop as well which I’m gonna be taking so thank you for the ride today by the way that took away a place on the bus yeah okay
Uh and and there’s another charity involvement as well the Fresh Start thing yeah there so fresh start local Edinburgh homelessness charity um that I’ve supported for a number of years and they provide the coffee at the end providing coffees bacon rolls chilies what have you so when people get
In at the end of the rides tired probably hungry before the sunrise they can get some you know food and you know what amazing the volunteers they get up there give up their Saturday night uh uh Cameron and his family have done it now for a number of years our respective
Partners Petra and Allison did it initially cooking all these bacon rolls for the cyclists and again you know it just hats off to people who are willing to do these things when they aren’t invested in it themselves and it’s amazing to see how many people actually
Took part because here in bits Park you don’t necessarily see them all together because they’re leaving in ribs and drabs you don’t see them on the road and all of a sudden you go in there and it’s like my God all these people were on the road how any idea how many You’re
Expecting sorry I just want to add one thing um Gary won’t mention this uh but uh he puts a lot of time uh time and effort into fresh start himself yeah and um they won the community project of the Year award at the Scottish charity Awards last night so yeah
Yeah no they’re an amazing charity do amazing work in Edinburgh helping people move on from homelessness well done there’s a lot of people in one place yeah uh at cycle or Scotland are there handing out the beers which always strikes me as slightly ironic really isn’t it they’re the ones who help you
If you have an accident on your bike and there they are handing out beers I always think that’s quite funny yeah and big shout outs to Stewart’s brewing and Stewart’s brewing and lonehad who have been great supporters of us of the event from year one yeah yeah phenomenal and
Um the cycle lost Scotland crew they turn up on their office Tandem and do it as a bit of a relay um uh on the tandem so you know they active participants as well as sponsoring so look I know you’re going to have a load of people here to talk to
Now because folks are starting to arrive so thank you for taking the time out for now and uh I’ll hopefully see you sometime tomorrow morning absolutely we’ll see you at the Rave offer a beard at the end I can’t use the Rave copyright um yeah but we’ll we’ll give our normal
Spiel at Sunrise we normally say just a few thank you words it’s um at Sunrise we’ll do that we’ll raise a glass well I hope I see you there right thanks a lot cheers the question I didn’t get answered and forgot there to ask was how many
Cyclists the truth is no one counts them so we’re going to guess around a thousand some head off home before they reach the end some make it then turn around and ride back to Carlisle the challenge really is what you make it so does that Sunrise spear at the end
You have got to listen to far more right to the sunshine you can probably shoots you as you’d expect there’s a lot of thank yous to the supporters you’ve already heard mentioned and to those who’ve Taken part when we started this we didn’t start with a plan we just
Started with a stupid idea and somehow We’ve Ended up with the same plan even though we didn’t have one so thanks to Fraser for helping me write some of this [Applause] but it’s all about the sunrise and sharing it with you guys thank you so much for turning up I’ve had a brilliant
Night cycling with everybody chatting along just being a blast there’s no thunderstorms this year please June the 22nd next year we’re going to do it again same format you know what it’s like so please come back tell your pals bring more piles and let’s do it all again
If you think that sounds fun you could register your interest in future events at ridetothesun.co.uk my video of the event is on my YouTube channel also called always another adventure and it’s linked in the show notes where you will also find a link to buy me a virtual coffee
Just a small payment that goes towards keeping all these podcasts live on the server you’ll notice there are no adverts this actually costs me money to run but I think it’s good and I hope you do too and I hope you’ll also join me again next time I’m Simon Willis thank
You for listening goodbye