Bikes, breakfast beer, midnight chips and 'no dickheads'
The incredible 100-mile, all-night ride to watch the sunrise at Cramond
I hate to be the one that says it, I really do, but the days are getting shorter. It’s already a full fortnight since the summer solstice, the shortest night of the year where only 6 hours and 22 minutes separate sunset and sunrise. Anyone who has been out on a cloudless solstice night will know the sky never truly darkens at all.
The summer solstice has long been a sacred day in Scotland, and Edinburgh is no exception in modern days. From the Moonwalk overnight marathon, to all-night parties, to crowds gathering on Salisbury Crags and at Wardie Bay to see the sunset, there’s plenty to see and do on the summer solstice.
Last year, as the longest day was drawing to a close, I found myself on a train towards Carlisle. I had no return ticket, just a bicycle, a friend who’d meet me at the station, and the vague knowledge that over a thousand other people were taking their bikes on the same 100-mile route across the country to Cramond.
Thanks to some delayed trains, my friend and I set off towards the back of the pack, but we were far from lonely. There was from Linda who kept her Moffat chip shop open two hours late just for the cyclists. There was a bagpiper at the top of the steepest climb of the night and a community centre car park of bananas, teas and a disco dancefloor. The night was filled with the most eccentric kind of friendliness.
The final two hours were even more exciting, as we caught up with hundreds more cyclists, joining them in the strange adrenaline of chasing the first light of dawn. The goal was to enjoy a bizarrely satisfying breakfast beer on Cramond beach as the sun peaked over the horizon. The best part? Besides a few quid for chips and a cup of tea, the event was totally free.
As the Ride to the Sun entered its tenth year, I spoke with Gary Cameron, one of the event organisers, about why and how they pull off such a huge, cheap, and bizarre extravaganza.
From two cyclists to more than a thousand
As Gary explains, the Ride to the Sun began as a bike ride of only two Cramond locals. Fraser was trying to fit triathlon training around the commitments of a young family. Gary was the only friend who agreed to try an overnight bike ride as a time-saving training solution. “Nobody else said yes, apart from me, stupid enough to think that was a good idea,” Gary chuckles.
A whole night on a bike gives you plenty of time to talk, though, and so as the two cycled over the Borders hills towards the East Coast, the idea for a proper event took shape. Why not race the sunrise on the shortest night of the year? And Carlisle and Cramond are both former Roman forts, it would almost feel like marching in the footsteps of an ancient garrison, who would have seen the same sunrise thousands of years ago.
As they discussed the idea over a half-way pit stop, the people who could make it happen started to pop up, too. “One of the big catalysts was we stopped in Moffat and [met] Linda, who still does an amazing job feeding everyone,” says Gary. Despite having no interest at all in cycling, Linda at Best Pizza and Kebab House on Moffat High Street was immediately enthusiastic about Faser and Gary’s event idea. Ten years on she still rallies a crew to serve well-needed hot food to the hundreds of passing cyclists as late as 1am - not to mention the free tea, coffee and water fill-ups.
Buoyed by the enthusiasm of a total stranger, and backed by Gary’s handy career in marketing, Fraser and Gary quickly got a website together, and set the date for the next year. It was, inevitably, the Saturday closest to the solstice. 250 people came on year one, and each year the attendance has grown. “It’s mental,” says Gary, “we started this thinking we’ll get fifty of our stupid friends who will do it, who else is daft enough… now we get over one thousand each year.”
The event itself has grown arms and legs, too. In year two, Gary decided to surprise his co-organisers with a sound and light system just outside Tweedsmuir. This “Cyclorave” has become a lasting tradition. In year three, the team got in touch with a bagpiper who was happy to stand at the top of the 10km-long climb towards the gloriously-named Devil’s Beef Tub, near Moffat, which Gary says is particularly popular with those who travel to the event from outside the UK. People have come from as far afield as the US to take part.
‘No dickheads’
The idea of cycling along A roads overnight seems risky, especially as the Ride to the Sun organisers are very clear that each participant is responsible for their own safety. But, as Gary points out, the roads are at least empty at this time - is it more dangerous to cycle in busy fast traffic in daylight, or in little to no traffic in darkness?
The other key is messaging; if one word could describe the Ride for the Sun it would be “camaraderie” - and this is no coincidence. It’s also no coincidence the crowd of finishers at the end of the route contains people and bicycles of all shapes and sizes - from folding Bromptons and tandems, to multi-thousand pound bikes, to reclining bicycles and hand-pedaled bikes. The cyclists include club riders who casually add on another stretch of cycling back to Glasgow or Newcastle, as well as people setting out on the longest pedal of their lives.
So how can they possibly all arrive to celebrate together, and in such a friendly and supportive atmosphere? In a sport which can too often become exclusive and expensive, Fraser and Gary have perfected logistics and messaging to accommodate everyone who wants to join.
Rather than define a start time, organisers set up camp in a start point, and encourage riders to set off from there with as much time as they need to get to Cramond for sunrise - whether that’s 12 hours or 6.
Fraser and Gary are also very clear on rule number one of the event: “no dickheads.”
“We're all just here to have a bit of an adventure. If you want to race it fair enough, if you want to just toot along, fair enough. We're a broad church, so come along, have a bit of an adventure,” says Gary. He particularly remembers receiving an email from one woman who said she had tried to get into cycling but felt very unwelcome in a cycle club because she didn’t have clip-in shoes or an expensive bike. She wrote to the organisers to tell them that taking part in the Ride to the Sun had inspired her to give the sport another chance, and she had since found a great group of friendly people that she cycled with regularly.
“We both looked at each other and went, that’s why we do it,” remembers Gary.
Not a fundraiser, but raising thousands
The Ride to the Sun hasn’t only grown in attendance - there is an ever-growing group of individuals and organisations who make the event happen. Cramond Scouts organise bus transport for cyclists and their bags, FreshStart sell bacon rolls at the finish, Stewart Brewing and Cycle Law Scotland team up to get the free beers on the go, the community-owned Crook Inn at Tweedsmuir host the infamous Cyclorave.
For Fraser and Gary, the main goal has always been to get a fun adventure together; but they estimate that at least £100,000 has been raised for charity in the ten years of the event. This is partly the money raised by supporting charities like the Scouts and Fresh Start, but Gary also says that many people have independently completed the Ride to the Sun as a fundraising event. One woman cycled the route with her friends after her husband had passed away from MND, and raised £25,000 for MND research. “Because of what it is, people want to do it to help raise money… It's not that we can take any credit for that, but it’s great to see,” says Gary.
A cycling flash mob
Despite having 1700 sign-ups this year, Gary is adamant that he and Fraser will never monetize the Ride to the Sun. “I would rather stop it than charge people a quid… it'd be the easiest thing in the world to charge people 20 quid and we would probably get as many people doing it, but we’d lose so much by doing that,” he says.
It’s not only the accessibility that would suffer if the Ride to the Sun became ticketed; for Gary there’s something unique about the atmosphere, and the spontaneity, of a free, semi-organised group ride. “It's a bit of a cycling flash mob,” Gary says. “Not to get too smooshy, but this, to me, it's just a perfect thing that happens in a moment, and then it's gone for another year.”
All images courtesy of Ride to the Sun
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Lovely read Sarah and you cycled past the end of my road. Well done