Liverpool to
Newtown

Context and Setup

A three-day unsupported solo route test of the Liverpool to Newtown, Powys leg of the planned RideTogether 200 — 221 miles, Liverpool to Cardiff Bay, September 2027. Bike: Giant Fastroad AR1, in a custom zebra, pink and blue finish, ridden in a matching custom jersey for EDS Awareness Month. The rear of the jersey tells the story in four steps: a walking figure, an arrow down, a wheelchair user, an arrow down, a cyclist — topped with the words Indomitable By Nature.

Fully loaded and self-sufficient throughout: tools, nutrition, electrolytes, water and medical supplies. Bike and kit weighed 20kg before water. With water for the day added, total system weight ranged from 23.6kg on Day 1 to 25.6kg on Day 2 — 24.6 to 26.6kg across the full trip.

The Route

101 miles over three days, on gravel, off-road, towpath and mixed surface. Just under half the distance — 48 miles, 48% — was off-road or gravel. Grade 4 gravel, the most technically demanding surface on the route, accounted for 22 miles on its own, the largest single gravel category. On a fully loaded system carrying 24.6 to 26.6kg, grade 4 gravel in 34°C heat represents the highest mechanical and physiological cost per mile anywhere on the route.

Intensity, Against the WHO Guideline

Garmin recorded 1,585 intensity minutes across the three days — 691 moderate, 447 vigorous, plus additional load beyond the standard split. Day 1 alone produced 518 intensity minutes, more than three times the WHO's weekly minimum of 150 moderate minutes, before Day 2 had even begun. Across three days, vigorous minutes alone came to 5.3 times the WHO's upper weekly recommendation of 300. Total load across 72 hours: 10.6 times the WHO's weekly minimum.

Body Battery — Progressive Non-Recovery

Body Battery is Garmin's integrated physiological load metric, combining HRV, stress, sleep and activity into a single 0–100 score. The ceiling declined across the three days: 61 on Day 1, 30 on Day 2, 22 on Day 3. The floor of 5/100 was reached on every single day. Day 3 never rose above 22 — the system started the day near-empty and stayed there. Overnight sleep never restored Body Battery above 30 at any point in the trip, and Garmin flagged the morning state each day as recommending rest. That guidance was overridden to continue riding.

Sleep

Both nights on the road scored "Poor" on Garmin's sleep algorithm. Night 1 produced zero minutes of REM sleep, with Garmin's own note reading "your strenuous activity yesterday may have compromised your sleep quality." Night 2 was flagged as "shorter than ideal, non-restorative." Total deep sleep across both nights: 2 hours 40 minutes — critically insufficient against 1,585 intensity minutes of physiological load.

Stress and Autonomic Load

May 26 was the most demanding day on the stress profile: an average of 66/100, 4 hours 23 minutes in high stress, and just 2 minutes of rest-state across the entire day. On-bike RMSSD (a measure of heart rate variability) tracked that load directly — 18ms, 20ms, then 14ms across the day's readings, with the 14ms figure near the dataset floor. Stress held at 98–99/100 for the full riding period.

All RMSSD readings in this dataset sit against a structurally impaired autonomic nervous system — severe Dysautonomia, POTS and baroreflex failure mean standard population thresholds don't directly apply. The correct lens is within-individual comparison, day to day and hour to hour, not comparison against general population norms.

Heart rate readings need the same caveat. Garmin's HR ceiling of ~175–180bpm underestimates a true max of ~188bpm, so the device understates true physiological intensity throughout — a recorded 170bpm corresponds to roughly 90% of true maximum, Zone 5 territory, not the Zone 4 the device shows. This is the "faulty speedo" effect: because HR regulation is structurally impaired, a heart rate of 170bpm can feel like Zone 2 effort. The signal is broken. The cardiovascular capacity behind it isn't.

Heat, Blood Pressure and the Cycling Mechanism

Temperatures reached 34°C ambient at peak. For a rider with severe Dysautonomia and POTS, heat carries a genuine paradox: it reduces the frequency of joint dislocation events characteristic of classical EDS, and prevents the severe vasoconstrictive blood pressure events that cold conditions can drive as high as 203/141. But heat accelerates fluid and electrolyte loss significantly, and during heat exposure blood pressure can otherwise drop to around 60/40 — hypotensive collapse territory.

Cycling itself acts as a mechanical venous return pump, stabilising blood pressure to around 110/70 — one of the only conditions under which BP holds a functional range. Stopping removes that mechanical pump and removes the primary mechanism keeping BP in range. In practical terms: on a day like this, continuing to pedal is itself part of the medical management.

Gastrointestinal Management

Two of the three riding days involved bowel incontinence events — a direct consequence of severe gastroparesis, chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction and dysautonomia-driven gut dysmotility. Not predictable, not controllable, and particularly difficult to manage solo and unsupported with no toilet facilities for six-plus hours in 34°C heat.

On Day 3, active gastroparesis precluded holding down any oral nutrition at all. The protocol was zero food intake with increased electrolyte volume throughout, riding fasted in Zone 2 — an established strategy within the Prosthetic Physiology framework for managing GI dysmotility during exercise, and on this day, the only option available. Priority throughout all three days: replace fluid losses from sweat and GI events, and maintain electrolyte balance to support dysautonomic cardiovascular function.

Recovery Protocol

The day after (28 May) followed a documented active-recovery protocol rather than complete rest: light cycling to maintain venous return and prevent BP instability, stacked steam room and sauna (20 minutes each) worn in compression tee and cycling jersey, and high-volume water and electrolyte intake to stabilise GI motility and autonomic function. Solid nutrition was deliberately deferred until the system could absorb it — anything taken before the gut stabilises simply transits straight through.

Three days on, the data confirmed the system had not returned to pre-ride baseline: sleeping HRV at the floor of its personal range, Body Battery reaching only 15/100 and charging by just +10 overnight.

Getting Home

After completing the ride into Newtown on 27 May, a four-hour wait for a Transport for Wales connection at Newtown station ended with an overnight stay in a camping pod. The following day's attempt fared worse: a train 2.5 hours late caused missed connections, and the service terminated at Shrewsbury rather than Birmingham New Street. Arrived home past midnight — roughly 18 hours of transport disruption stacked on top of a physiologically depleted system.

Three-Day Summary

Context: RideTogether 200

This route test covered the Liverpool to Newtown leg of the planned RideTogether 200 — 221 miles, Liverpool to Cardiff Bay, September 2027. The Newtown to Cardiff Bay leg remains to be tested. The physiological data from these three days will inform pacing strategy, fluid and electrolyte protocols, and GI management planning for the full event.