Celebrating a new Tandem Female National 12 hour record, riders Hannah Fawcett and Brigid Night discuss their achievement.

When we rode our first 12 hour TT  in August 2023,  it was only the third time we’d been on a Tandem together, and we really had no idea how far we could go.  We managed 245.38 miles, only a little less than the National Record of 249.8 miles, set by Sue Gray (API Resprays) and Julie Baker (Colchester Rovers) in 1999.

This year we hadn’t ridden together at all before we met up to ride the Yorkshire DC 12 Hour TT, which was brilliantly organised by “Vive le Velo”.   Although we hadn’t trained together we had both trained consistently, covering many miles, with different tandem partners throughout the year. 

12 hours is a long time but the first four hours flew by, everything going well and we settled into a great routine with our support team, who were amazing throughout.   The course was flat but very windy, we clocked 100 miles in 4 hours and 25 minutes and were up on our schedule.  Then we went through a bad patch and we lost the time we’d gained.  The weather was harsh, it was like winter with the strong winds and a lot of rain.  For several hours we thought we’d not be able to make it, but we pulled together and just thought we had to keep pushing as hard as possible for as long as we could, there was no other option.  With 180 miles on the clock we were just about back on target and were able to see that maybe the record could still be broken. 

We got onto the finishing circuit, and it was amazing the lift this gave us.  The support and encouragement was fantastic.  It was tough, we dug so deep just to keep going.  We worked harder for longer than we ever have before, but there really is nothing quite like having a record to beat to push yourself beyond what you ever thought was possible. 

After 12 hours we were absolutely and completely exhausted, we gave everything we had and covered 252.8 miles, securing a new National Tandem female record.