How did Oscar fare in the 850km Seven Serpents?
This spring, I completed my first ultra-endurance race – the Seven Serpents, an 850km off-road route with a mammoth 16,000m of climbing.
I can confidently say it’s the hardest ride I have ever embarked on by some distance – it was sadistically tough.
After donning my cap, I enjoyed almost two complete days of riding, but things got even tougher when a knee injury reared its ugly head towards the end of the second day… and that was before I slept next to a rubbish-filled hut and began hallucinating.
From learning the (damp) pitfalls of bivvying to gladiatorial hike-a-bikes, here are the lessons I’ll remember for my next race.
What is the Seven Serpents?
The Seven Serpents starts in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and squiggles its way into Croatia before crossing the islands of Krk and Cres. The route then zig-zags through Istria before returning via Slovenia and finishing in Trieste, Italy.
The route is the brainchild of Bruno Ferraro, a seasoned ultra-racer/sadist with multiple Transcontinental, Badlands and TransIberica finishes.
If the 850km route sounds torturous (and believe me, it was), a shorter ‘Quick Bite’ version is held a week before the Seven Serpents. This steps down to 500km with a not-insubstantial 10,000m elevation, bypassing lots of the more technical sections of the main race.
I finished the Seven Serpents in 137 hours and 1 minute (plus a three-hour time penalty for skipping a checkpoint).
I placed 62nd out of 95 solo riders. In addition, 24 riders competed as pairs in a separate category. While my result is nothing to write home about, I was simply glad to finish this epic adventure.
This year’s race was won by ex-pro Rob Britton, who finished in a barnstorming 53 hours and 4 minutes (a course FKT), all on only 50 minutes of sleep.
Antonio Dell’Ava finished in second place at 66 hours and 30 minutes, with Maya Christofori this year’s women’s winner.
Stick with familiar equipment
I rode my own Niner RLT 9 RDO – a familiar bike and my main testbed for anything gravel-related I review.
Excluding some boring replacement consumables, the only change I made to the bike for this race was to stick on some 40mm Pirelli Cinturato Gravel RC X tyres, ignoring the 45mm minimum width recommendation for the route.
I ran Apidura Expedition and Backcountry bags and a frame-specific Niner frame bag.
I also wore an Apidura Backcountry Hydration Backpack with a two-litre bladder, in addition to two 750ml bottles.
With the exception of the top tube bag sitting lopsided for part of the first day after it interfered with the frame bag bolt (bodged later with a cable tie), most of the equipment worked perfectly.
I strongly suspect the action of my right leg temporarily pedalling lopsided to avoid the bag is what caused my knee injury.
The Garmin Edge 1040 Solar I used was a real highlight. Its battery life was vastly superior to my Edge 830 and its solar charging meant it only needed infrequent juice – ideal when my salty sweat rendered my USB-C charging cable useless on the third day, meaning I had to rely on a power bank for the rest of the route.
Sticking with familiar equipment reduces the risk of injury or unexpected mechanical issues – given my experience, I would never advise attempting an ultra-race with equipment that hasn’t been tested thoroughly.
Learn when to bivvy and when you need a warm bed
After much deliberation, I chose to carry sleeping equipment with me, with the aim of bivvying one night and sleeping in a warm bed the next.
Not only would this save cash but it would mean I wouldn’t have to rush to a hotel every night. This was one of the lessons I learnt from a training ride leading up to the Seven Serpents, where I had to shortcut a route before the hotel check-in closed.
With dawn just before 5am, bivvying would mean I’d be up early, resulting in more mileage.
My sleeping equipment consisted of an Alpkit Hunka XL bivvy bag, a Sea to Summit Spark Ultralight sleeping bag and a Big Agnes Rapide SL Insulated Sleeping Mat.
While confident in my setup, before the race, we were warned against sleeping on the grass on Slovenian soil due to ticks. We were also told to avoid resting on the 130km remote section after Cerknica and into the Risniak National Park in Croatia because of brown bears (apparently if it’s brown, lie down)
On the first night, I bivvied by the side of a gravel road and had a somewhat peaceful three hours’ sleep. My bivvying experience on the second night wasn’t as luxurious, as you’re about to discover…
Always take a waterproof and a down jacket with you
Before settling down for my second night out, I’d had a bad evening with my knee beginning to play up, arriving at Kraljevica late into the night. I struggled to find food but after some desperate persevering, I tracked down a place 2km off the route.
I was tired, in a foul mood and turned in to the first spot after leaving town, knowing I wouldn’t have a warm bed. The place I picked looked like a nuclear wasteland, with an abandoned storage cabin full of rubbish next to the road, preventing me from sleeping inside.
With a clear forecast, I got into my bivvy bag, but 40 minutes later, it bucketed it down. I tried to get back to sleep, clutching the bivvy shut, but everything was quickly flooded.
In a delirious state, I hallucinated there was a garage on the road next to the layby. Once back in reality, I mustered the courage to quickly pack everything away, clear a space inside the squatter’s hellhole and wait for the rain to pass.
If the storage cabin wasn’t there and I didn’t have my down jacket to keep me warm, I’d have been a goner with hypothermia.
After this horrific experience, I made sure I didn’t finish at silly hours and booked hotels from then on – lesson learnt.
Embrace ‘doping’
As on every bikepacking trip, I carried a first aid kit, but the 200mg ibuprofen was useless when my knee started to inflame.
Two painful days later, I almost scratched on the ferry between Krk and Cres, but a call with my dad convinced me to continue.
Unlike the UK, where pain relief can be bought in a supermarket, you have to visit a dedicated pharmacy in most of mainland Europe. I was enraged when the sign on the pharmacy door in Cres read it opened at 6pm – what kind of pharmacy opens only at night?!
With all hope seemingly lost, I crossed paths with Alex Aloha and Michi Pirker (caps 122a and 122b) – Michi a physiotherapist and Alex a nurse.
They very kindly donated their punchy 600mg ibuflam and diclofenac, a muscle relaxant for arthritis, supply to my sorry self.
I cannot thank them enough – I’d have been toast otherwise.
I wasn’t the only person to be riding on an injury. Regan Wilkes (cap 81), Tatiana Myk (cap 8) and Dennis Stern (cap 71) all scratched on account of their injuries and poor Keith Wallace’s (cap 80) tongue and lips inflamed after drinking contaminated water.
Humorous in retrospect, Keith told me he couldn’t buy mouthwash at a store so (intelligently) bought vodka to treat the infection. All of this on top of being flooded in his sleeping gear at the Cres ferry port, where he missed the final boat that night by minutes. Perhaps my knee wasn’t so bad after all…
What have I learnt for my next race? I need to convince my doctor to sign off a potent pill prescription before I leave.
Although, in all seriousness, while it’s important to be prepared for niggles and injuries, it’s also key to listen to your body – and to strike a balance that works for you between fighting on and avoiding long-term damage.
Always overstock on food and water
Many riders joke that an ultra-endurance race is essentially an eating competition.
The raised eyebrows on the staff’s faces in every shop, cafe or restaurant whenever I ordered double portions of food or drink never failed to amuse me. I had quite an audience watching over me as I chowed down a sizeable double portion of calamari and chips in a roadside restaurant on my last day of the event.
The route, however, threw a spanner in the works with the aforementioned 130km bear-infested section. I strategised by finishing my first day close to Cerknica, the last town before this section, so I could stock up on supplies and get it out of the way within daylight hours.
Despite stocking up on food and drink at an excellent bakery (the pistachio croissants were a real highlight), 4.5 litres of water over 130km still wasn’t enough and I felt I was playing catch-up throughout the rest of the race.
Be ready for the climbs
I felt every single one of the 16,000 metres of climbing, especially once my knee injury flared up.
The route handbook says you’ll walk at least four times – I walked more than that on the first day.
Four of the seven checkpoints are at the tops of mountains, with three effectively an out-and-back from the route.
Checkpoint 2 was particularly memorable. This 4.5km diversion included 300m of climbing… and 2km was unrideable.
I was rewarded with views of the Slovenian forest I had spent that day traversing, with Krk and Cres islands visible in the distance at the summit… but I could also see the foreboding mountain I had to climb waiting for me on the mainland.
By far the worst climb of the ultra-race was the Krk hike-a-bike. Just after the town of Baška, this 4km mountain hike with 400m of elevation gain, over steps, meant there was no option but to carry your bike.
I’d be reticent to walk up the punishingly steep inclines for leisure, let alone with a loaded bike. My heart was racing in the blazing heat as I struggled to find the energy and willpower to crest this godforsaken thing.
Like a Saw trap victim who survived their game with a newfound appreciation of life, it was at this point I became determined to finish. The hike was just comically daft and I wasn’t going to let Bruno’s foul route defeat me.
Stick with the same bib shorts (or buy two pairs)
You’re going to want your best bib shorts on an ultra-race and my trusty Assos Mille GTC Kiespanzer C2 bib shorts were once again called into action. I carried a pair of Velocio Luxe shorts as a backup.
I wore the Kiespanzers for three days in a row and washed them in the first accommodation I stayed in (top bikepacking tip – carry a Travel Wash).
I washed them again at the end of day four, but they hadn’t dried by the morning.
I then switched to the Velocios, which also rank among my favourites.
While I loved the fresh-feeling and luxuriously smooth fabric, my behind became pretty uncomfortable as the day progressed. I think this is because I had become accustomed to – perhaps even symbiotically connected to – the Kiespanzers throughout the race.
I switched back to the Kiespanzers on the final day once they had dried, but the damage had been done – I suffered with a saddle sore.
Next time, I’ll carry two pairs of the same shorts – I guess that means the credit card’s reluctantly coming out for a second pair of Kiespanzers…
When you’re feeling low, try to find comfort in anything
The route’s sheer difficulty and my painful knee meant I rarely appreciated its beauty – I’ll readily admit I had more low than high moments.
It’s in these low moments that you contemplate scratching, looking for any excuse you can not to carry on.
On advice from the chairman of my first cycling club (a seasoned ultra-racer himself), I learned to try to find comfort in anything.
That could be anything from a stunning view to spotting an animal or thinking about an achievement.
I also really appreciated the encouraging messages I received from my dot-watching friends.
In the back of my mind, I kept thinking about the sheer remoteness of the loop and how if I scratched, it wouldn’t be straightforward to get back to Ljubljana. Whether I liked it or not, I had to keep on keeping on – and I’m glad I did!
Beware your own naivety
When I was planning my cycling calendar for 2024, I naively thought I’d enjoy the Seven Serpents and proceeded to secure a place for Badlands in Spain at the end of August.
Although the route changes each year, Badlands is typically around the 800km mark with 16,000m of climbing – worryingly similar stats to the Seven Serpents.
The problem with Badlands for my UK-weather-accustomed body will be the heat, given it heads through the Gorafe desert.
As soon as I finished the Seven Serpents, I looked up Badlands’ refund policy and discovered I would only get half my entry fee back – and I’d already booked the flights.
I suppose once I’ve fully recovered, I best start looking forward to it if I’m going to have any hope of success. At least I now have a flavour of the torture that’s in store and a bank of hard-earned experience to draw from.