They’ve seen it all.

From alpine passes in the dead of night to sun-baked roads that seemed to melt beneath the tyres. From cafés in sleepy villages to an epic effort to the final checkpoint. From the sheer joy of flying downhill at 90kph to the slow grind of an endless headwind.

One pair of Dossard 13 socks, clinging to the pedals of The Handmade Cyclist’s own Harry, just completed a 4,000 km odyssey across Europe in the VIA Race; an ultra-distance bike race that makes even the hardest weekend ride look like a gentle spin to the shops.

Harry finished 15th out of 148 riders. Almost twelve days of riding, barely any sleep, thousands of metres of climbing, and a continent’s worth of weather. Along the way, the socks were there for every push on the pedals, every midnight snack, and every “what am I doing here?” moment.

To celebrate his ride - and our big restock of our super-popular Dossard 13 socks - we caught up with Harry (and his socks) to get the inside story on one of cycling’s toughest tests.

Let’s start with the obvious: 4,000 km in 12 days. What possessed you?

I like riding my bike, exploring new places and being competitive. Ultra racing is the perfect combo of those three things. I also strongly believe that cycling is the best way to immerse yourself while traveling. Walking/backpacking is great but slow, road trips are also good fun but I feel a bit disconnected from a place inside a metal box speeding around at 100kmh. The bike is the ideal middle ground of being fast enough to traverse countries, but slow enough to really feel like I’m in a new place.

Talk us through your preparation. How do you train for something this big without breaking yourself before the start?

This is the first event I have actually tried to physically prepare myself for, rather than the usual ‘wing it and hope for the best’ strategy. I did a 1000km sprint event last month to test the body and equipment and tried to do some heat adaptation in the weeks leading up to VIA. Southern Italy gets quite hot apparently. This ended up being less useful than I was expecting as we had endless thunderstorms until escaping into Germany. The warmup event did help though, I had a few niggles with the body and bike that I was able to fix before the main event and sailed through incident free.

The VIA Race route crosses some incredible landscapes, what’s the single most unforgettable moment from the road?

Undoubtedly, getting to my favourite place on Earth, the Alps. I made it through Verona and up to Trento after three days and 1500km of riding ticked off. I was greeted with a beautiful sunrise, clear skies and a lovely bike path that was a welcome change from the barrage of Italian drivers. It was paired with my body starting to feel better than the previous days and a realisation that the injury that took me out of the race last year, wasn’t coming back. 

You must have hit some low points. How did you pull yourself through when it got dark — literally or figuratively?

Patience. You can’t have the good moments without the equal low moments, I try to tell myself that it’s just a matter of time before a storm passes, the sun comes up or I see an oasis (a Lidl) appear on the horizon. Every single sh*t moment I have ever had on the bike has a common theme, it ends eventually. I can probably draw some lessons from that into my real life too.

How much did you actually sleep, and what did “bedtime” look like on a race like this?

My sleep strategy evolves as my mind and body changes with every race. I have pushed sleep deprivation pretty far previously with varying degrees of success so I wanted to be a bit more conservative at VIA. Conservative for this looks like a consistent 2-4 hour sleeps in a bivvy at a bus stop or similar roadside shelter and the odd hotel stay when I can afford it. I ended up averaging 3-4 hours a night overall, including an incredible 6 hour sleep in an amazing German hotel that I bagged for £45. An insane bargain for anywhere near the Alps.

What was the strangest or most unexpected thing that happened during the race?

At one of these previously mentioned roadside naps, I noticed a familiar looking bike also hidden in a very cosy bar garden I had snuck into at 4am. Turns out my friend, Krystian, had also picked this spot for a quick nap and we shared a couple benches for a much needed rest before heading into Slovenia. 

Let’s talk kit. Any pieces of gear that were absolute lifesavers — and yes, you can talk about the socks.

An extra pair of socks is one of the very few luxuries I allow myself on these races. Having dry and comfy feet is crucial for comfort and there is a genuine risk of trench foot if I left them wet for too long. It looks a bit odd, but my TT bars are the perfect drying rack for the wet pair out of rotation. With me taking the comfort of my feet so seriously, I would only ever take the comfiest socks I own: my Lucky 13 red pair. I really pushed them to their limit across Europe, through countless thunderstorms, dirty puddles and sweaty climbs, but they’ve come out the other side looking almost pack fresh and just as comfy as when I left. 

If your Dossard 13 socks could speak, what would they say about the trip?

Please wash me.

What did you eat to keep the legs turning? Any go-to snacks or guilty pleasures?

I made a conscious effort to stay away from the sugary sweets and target as much ‘normal’ food as possible. I’ve had mouth and stomach problems in the past that I think was down to too much straight sugar.

Nuts, bread, yogurt, pastries and pasta all got shovelled into the furnace regularly. Liquid calories are also a great option when the weather gets hotter so a few litres of random juices, energy drinks and milk all went in. Top food highlight has to be fresh arrosticini from a food van 2000m up a mountain. 

Now that you’ve finished, how do you even begin to process an adventure like that? And… what’s next?

Without filming and photographing it, I’d immediately forget massive chunks. There is only so much my brain can handle when operating on a couple hours sleep most nights. 

It took me three days of straight sleep to get the itch back and to start thinking about the next adventure. No idea what that is yet, maybe a more relaxed bike-packing trip in the UK. At the moment I’m just going to enjoy the form 4000km in the legs has given me and try to use it to win some local crits.

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