Last May I , like many others, was glued to Dotwatcher for 5 days as a truly remarkable record was being set. From memory on the first day she covered over 600km. A rider I hadn’t heard of, quickly became an inspiration as I couldn’t believe what I was watching. This was Dr Sarah Ruggins. She set the record for the fastest John o’Groats to Lands End AND BACK in 5 days, 11 hours and 14 minutes. Most people take at least double that to ride just one way.

What’s next? Well she’s got her target set on the entire length of Europe. A record current held by Ian Walker. 16 days, 20 hours and 59 minutes. Which by my rough maths is around 370km per day. If you’ve even ridden a 200km audax you’ll appreciate that the idea of doing double that each day for over two weeks straight is a heroic effort.

Never meet your heroes

When I got a call from Ed Bartlett (founder of sustainable clothing brand Kostume) asking if I could help with her bike fit for a project she had planned I couldn’t say yes fast enough. He explained to me that she’d ended up with saddle sores after the Lejogle record so severe she had to go to hospital and they were trying to do everything they could to make sure that wouldn’t be the reason she didn’t complete this next challenge. Pressure very much on.

So at the beginning of 2026 I had the honour of welcoming Sarah to Pedalling Perfection. Meeting Sarah is an inspiring experience. Incredibly humble , focussed and friendly. Being in her presence makes you feel like perhaps riding 6000km is a good idea. We spent the day checking everything related to bike fit and clothing with photographer Fergus Coyle filming and photographing the whole thing. Having Ed there too meant the environment felt like a real team effort.

What was our goal?

We had three goals,

screen Sarah’s position to ensure biomechanically optimal - she had never had a bike fit.
test different saddles to see if we can find some good options
test the chamois pad placement and differences between sizes and new vs old shorts for Kostume.

Bib Shorts

We tested bib short in three sizes and found their to be differences in pressure distribution depending on the size. Ed from Kostume was very keen to customise the shorts for Sarah however we found that the XS ticked all the boxes we needed to, so that was a bit of an anti-climax as we made the decision to not change anything with the shorts! However a separate discussion confirmed that a custom jersey was going to be made ( when you have an team in an RV following you - pockets are much less important).

Ed really wanted to test if there was any difference we could measure between new and old pads and to our surprise they were very much the same. I have a pair of Kostume shorts and have been impressed at how durable the pad is. Brands I have worn previously are noticeably less comfortable after a year. I will be researching why this is.

Saddle pressure mapping and bike fit

For the best insight , you should watch the film on youtube linked below. 20 minutes of us discussing everything we noticed.

However there’s one key moment which is really interesting to see the details on and it’s the pressure mapping graph of Sarah’s LEJOGLE position. As you can see , there’s some very large spikes of pressure. A biomechanical compensation that was very apparent and causing Sarah to interact with the saddle asymmetrically. This was a lightbulb moment and a point of real optimism as we were able to tie together issues Sarah has experienced with quantifiable metrics which we could work to improve. We were able to take Sarah from unstable and asymmetrical to symmetrical and stable. However there was still some homework as this record goes far beyond normal expectations.

Working with her team to reduce muscular asymmetries as much as possible.
Testing various saddles during training to create an inventory of possible options