‘There’s only one rule,’ explains Chase the Sun’s founder Olly Moore. ‘It’s a ride not a race.’
Unlike many sportives, Chase the Sun is a coast-to-coast, cross-country challenge that isn’t about speed or being first across the line. Rather, it’s about how much of a land it’s possible to see, to feel, by bicycle in a single day. And it’s the star of BAFTA-winning director Michael B. Clifford’s new documentary film – only the ride is just the beginning.
Chasing The Sun follows riders as they take on the UK South event, a 328km journey from the Thames Estuary to Weston-super-Mare. But it soon segues into a wider discussion amongst riders, organisers, artists and industry stalwarts as to where we’re all going – both literally and metaphorically – by bike.
Over the years, Chase the Sun the ride has evolved into four events: UK South, UK North, Chase the Sun Ireland and Chase the Sun Italia. All slightly varying distances (anything from 282km to 335km), but all setting off at dawn on the closest Saturday to Summer Solstice, with the intent to finish before sunset.
Moore selected the date less for its spiritual associations – although those are surely a happy coincidence – than for offering the maximum daylight to ride. And although there are plenty of people who could comfortably complete the 328km route within the 17ish hours between sunrise and sunset – an average speed of 19.3kmh is all that’s required – Chase the Sun, and this documentary, is about so much more than cycling.
Clifford commits to celebrating such sensibilities with only his second shot: Accompanied by an ambling modern folk melody, we watch from the sky as a procession of riders make their way slowly from the eastern edge of our screen to the west. The track is by quintessentially British artist, This is the Kit. Its title? ‘Keep Going’.
The distance, while doable, is still difficult, especially for many of the ‘normal’ cyclists who line up at the start in Minster-on-Sea in Kent. We hear from Moore, who admits to failing his first attempt when he struck out west in the early hours of Summer Solstice 2008. ‘We did manage to get to the finish in Weston-super-Mare,’ he says, ‘but hours and hours after the sunset.’
For Amanda Shorey, who is attempting the 2023 UK South edition on a typical commuter bike, it will be the furthest she has ever ridden in one go. If she can make it. ‘I love the idea of following the sun,’ she says. Arriving at the start she admits to feeling ‘nervous, a little bit sick. But I’m excited’.
It doesn’t help that this edition has fallen on one of the hottest days of the year within, as Clifford is keen to highlight, one of the hottest years in Earth’s history.
Steve Green is the other character we accompany as he journeys west. White, male, middle-class and wearing shades, as the sun comes up behind him he jokes about his bottom. The initial impression is of the typical cycling club member, but there’s more to Steve’s story than meets the eye.
Cycling, he tells us, has helped him in the most profound of ways, through the hardest of times. ‘It’s like a reset button for me,’ he says. ‘I clear my head, I leave it all out on the road, I go back [to my family] a much better person.’ Though Chase the Sun represents less of a personal physical challenge for Steve as it does for Amanda, it is no less beneficial to his wellbeing.
Clifford’s film could easily be a straightforward story of this one event and its participants, but he is more adventurous, his concerns wider. As the riders make their way across southern England the director is not afraid to divert from the immediate narrative.
For many, pedal power is so embedded into our everyday lives that we can take its miracle for granted. But as Chasing The Sun marches on, the stories of characters such as Mavis Paterson, aka Granny Mave, and cancer-recovering Robert, who has fallen in love with e-biking, invite us to consider cycling’s importance for a wider spectrum of riders.
Car-centric tabloids and daytime TV pundits insist cycling is the preserve of the young, fit and able. This documentary helps put the lie to such claims.
Chasing The Sun adds further dimensions in the form of its discussions and stories, into which footage of the event is woven. Rebecca Long is campaigning for cycle safety in Yate, north-east of Bristol; we hear from Tour de France commentator Ned Boulting and Jools Walker, aka Lady Velo. Then a real esoteric highlight, as Moore visits Richard Long, the celebrated British artist best known to cyclists for painting the zigzags on Box Hill, which appeared when the London Olympics Road Race visited in 2012.
As we meet a roster of other riders and cycling lovers we soon realise there isn’t a single person in, or behind, this film who isn’t pushing for a better, kinder world. Their uniting factor? The bicycle.
At times it might seem we’re all battling uphill, whether through the Mendips with just a few kilometres to go, or politically, against more powerful, belligerent forces. But the overarching message from the voices in Chasing The Sun is as heartening as it is clear: Keep going.
And it’s a brilliant journey to watch.
Chasing The Sun is embarking on a UK Q&A cinema tour from 18th April, starting at the Ritzy in Brixton, London
For tickets to all Chasing The Sun screenings, click here
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