'I was out there for bloody ages' – Crossing the line on a cargo bike 30 hours after The Traka Adventure winners

The first riders over the line in The Traka Adventure blasted through the race in less than 24 hours but the next day, some riders were still working their way to the line after having persevered through two nights. 

Scotland’s Allan Shaw was one such rider, tackling the 560km on a cargo bike.

It’s not the first time the former bike messenger turned ultra-racer has taken on a long challenge on a cargo bike instead. He first rode the 2000km long Silk Road Mountain Race on a gravel bike in 2021, then in 2023 decided to return to Kyrgyzstan on a cargo bike. 

That meant he had few fears about doing the same at The Traka Adventure.

“Ultimately it had a generous enough time cut off … I knew for sure I was gonna make it and, on a bike like this, nobody was having these grand expectations of me coming in like 24 hours or whatever,” Shaw told Cyclingnews after crossing the line.

“I got in around midday, which means I was out there for bloody ages,” he laughed. 

“I think that comes in at like 54 hours, which is about 30 hours more than the winner.”

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The time of 54 hours and 14 minutes meant Shaw crossed the line in 110th place, though there were still many more riders behind him at the Trakka 560, which had a time limit of three days. 

“Realism isn't always super helpful, right? Like you want to maybe be unrealistically ambitious and then you need to be ready to just constantly be adjusting your expectations” said Shaw, although he quickly added that this could at times be a tough process. 

“But then you go through the process and you remember that nobody cares. Only you care, and it's cool if you care, but here we are and you can only go from where you are in a race. In ultra racing, there are 1000 different variables that you're working with, so just go with it and adapt.”

The riders at the front had a race, albeit a brutally long and challenging one, while Shaw definitely had an adventure. 

One that included finding comfortable patches of long grass on the side of the road to sleep in, so blissfully comfortable in fact that the short nap may have lasted a lot longer than anticipated. He enjoyed countless conversations with locals, with him recounting that there was plenty of amusement coming at the heavy Mexican accent that came out when this Scottish rider conversed in Spanish.

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There were lows, of course, starting on day one, when the enormity of the task ahead weighed on the mind and the legs and one of those expectations adjustments was in play.

“It was coming up for 5 p.m. and hadn't covered that much ground and I was bloody gassed, my legs were gassed and that was a low moment just because the reality versus your expectations comes as a big clash,” said Shaw.

“I just sat at the side of the road and smoked a few ciggies and left a few voice messages at home just kind of ranting about not being really sure what I was doing, but knowing that I had to keep going and that it was so far – that was a kind of harsh reality check. But you kind of have to just put those thoughts away because you do want to finish, and it is kind of a crazy sort of mental game that you play.

“You have a thought that's at the front of your mind and a discomfort in your body and your mind that's very present, but you have to put it away not just for a little bit but for like another 36 hours!"

Though dawn bought relief, in the form of some mood lifting interactions with other riders after a period riding alone, followed by terrain and music that made the soul soar. 

“I did the whole next section of like really nice tasty single track, listening to Adele at full volume and I just like sang really loud into the forest and that was a real highlight of my race,” said Shaw.

Shaw may have been embracing the enjoyable moments of the journey, but with more than 10,000m of climbing, 56% unpaved terrain and a nice sturdy cargo bike to add to the weight he had to propel up all those tough climbs, there was never any question that it would be a substantial challenge.

“It wasn't so much that I'd underestimated it, I just kind of looked at numbers and kind of ignored them a little bit,” said Shaw. 

“I just assumed that we would see how it goes, which is kind of what happened … and how it goes with cargo bike is quite hard.”