Do you ever stop for a minute,  look at your life and realise things have to change?

If you’re anything like me, you actually do that quite a lot.  It stems from having lived my life never completely under my own control. And this has meant that there always seems to be something missing.

A wanderlust supressed

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a pretty good life all things considered.  But soon after leaving home I got a job, and found myself with a family.  The husband, 2 kids and pets happened quickly, and for the next 20 years every personal decision I made involved being mindful to all the others in that mix.  That’s ok though, as a parent (of children, husband and animals) it’s what you sign up for.  But, and this is a big but, the underlying yearning in me is to explore. The world around me excites me, but it’s not really somewhere that I understood well. Somehow, earning a living, and everything that went with family life supressed this wanderlust, and family holidays were as far as I got.  But this feeling never went away.  My bike became the way that I satisfied the itch, as I could disappear for the odd day into the hills on my own, and just enjoy the freedom I felt for a while. With the sun on my back, and the wind in my hair, it was…

Bikepacking and self supported ultra’s have become all the rage since the early days of the Pandemic. They’ve always existed, but seemed to be the domain of long international affairs, with a handful of hard core riders – think Tour Divide. There were always road ultra’s such as RAAM, Tour de France or Paris-Brest-Paris. But off road ultras that are accessible to more riders appear to be a fairly recent phenomenon.

In 2020, when we were confined to riding alone, no hotels were open, and the only way of getting out was to pack up a tent & a stove, and head for the hills, suddenly everyone became interested in bikepacking. Smaller, more accessible ultra events and races started to pop up. There are now hundreds of self sufficient ultra events to chose from, with widely varying features. If you are new to this world, there is bound to be an event that ticks all of your boxes, whether you like the discipline of racing, or just want a challenging event against the clock. Just take a look at the huge range of events listed on Bikepacking.com or Dotwatcher.com

So what are my options?

The first thing you need to decide is whether you want a road based event, or an off road based event. Road based is self explanatory, however an off road ultra is unlikely…

I had been nervous about this ride from the moment I entered. It’s so far up north, has a reputation for bad weather, and is an environment that I have never ridden before. When I looked at the route, it was clear that during most of the ride I would be a long way from any escape routes, food stops, or 24 hour facilities…in fact ANY facilities for many hours at a time.

But, on the other hand, the scenery looked stunning, and it would be an adventure. So I overcame my fears, and set about preparing for the ride.

Preparation is king – unless you’re ill!

Let me be very clear before I start, regardless of any preparation, I knew that completing this ride was going to be a huge undertaking. You see, since the middle of December I started suffering from a significant IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) flare up. If you are not sure what this entails I’ll try to give you the basics without too much graphic detail. My particular variation of IBD is Ulcerative Colitis. I’m lucky in that I go for long periods of remission, many years in fact where I suffer zero symptoms. I can eat and behave exactly the same as everyone else. I have a few food intolerances, but they are not IBD related. But, when a flare comes on, and it comes on suddenly, I spend…

When I wrote my last blog post about potential impact on cycling goals as we age, I was quite unprepared for the amount of engagement on social media. It has certainly been one of my most discussed posts in recent years. It’s very clear that age is no barrier to adventure, and many older riders say that they are fitter later in life than they have ever been. Possibly having extra time in retirement helps with being able to consistently ride. We all know that we can continue well into our later years, and it’s been interesting to note that whilst for some, there are a few physical issues that have featured, none have alluded to lack of energy being a problem. The speed of a journey is not the main consideration for most. It’s the ability to be out and travel at their own pace and seeing the world that’s important. Maybe our later years really are the golden age of cycling. Would you agree?

I’ve decided to keep this post simple, and let the comments speak for themselves. And in case you wondered, every single one of these comments is from a woman. We are rocking life on two wheels!

Discovery

“I’m going to be 55 in April and I have no intention slowing down. I just bought a mountain bike! I rode a fantastic trail with a date yesterday on my…

Is there a time in our lives when we should start to adjust what we dream of doing? Or should we carry on planning big goals with the assumption that we will still be able? This is a question I’ve been asking myself recently, as I look at what big miles adventures I want to take on next.

Longevity?

l have reached that age when although I consider myself to be only half way through my life I am also starting to feel old! I’ve said for a long time that I hope to live until I’m 125, and in theory, thanks to advances in medical science, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. My grandmother lived until she was 103, and her parents were well into their 90’s before they passed. The rest of my immediate family have sadly not been so lucky, so I cling onto the hope of inheriting my Nan’s longevity gene.

Inside my head, I’m still hanging around in my early 40’s. It’s true that I no longer want to hang out with 20-30 somethings particularly, and I have little interest in noisy pubs and nightclubs any more, so I did mature a bit eventually. But my brain certainly doesn’t think it’s racing towards its 60’s (I’m 56 this year). Having discovered long distance cycling in my 40’s I was a late starter, and really I didn’t start properly…

If you were to pay heed to the comments below any news article about the Highway Code, the building of cycle lanes, clean air zones, or low traffic neighbourhoods you might think that everyone hates cyclists. In fact, unless you have your head in a bucket of sand, you’d be forgiven for thinking that everyone who isn’t on two wheels feels we are responsible for all the ills in the world and therefore all drivers were simply out to get back at us.

Reality

There are complex reasons why cyclists on the road are seen as the enemy, some of them justified, most of them not.

Now, just before you switch off thinking this is going to be one of those tirades about how road tax doesn’t exist, why we don’t need licence plates yah de yah de yah, this isn’t one of those kind of pieces. I’m so tired of these complaints, and all the other common ones about the rule breaking lycra-clad crowd – and I’m sure you are too.

But these arguments are so common place, it does make me wonder how people can live their lives so clueless about how the law in this country works, and ignore all science and evidence presented to them. You get the feeling that they feel it’s a personal conspiracy against them, or even worse, they’ll speak on behalf of the aged or…

Broke Student

I identify as a late-onset cyclist. While I pedalled around the neighbourhood growing up, it wasn’t until later—at twenty-three when I purchased a used department store bike for a cool fifty bucks—that I fell head over heels in love with the sport. I paid another $15 for fenders, and $20 for a lock. With tax, the entire purchase rang up at nearly $100. As a university student working ten hours a week at minimum wage, that felt like a lot of money, but I figured it was worth it because the bike was red, and even then, I knew that the colour red undoubtably signified speed. Plus, I was dying to do something to relieve the monotony of my two-hour commute in transit to campus. 

​So that spring I started to incorporate a short bike ride as part of my longer daily commute. I discovered right away that I preferred the wind in my hair to the stuffy bus and Skytrain. I also realized that I didn’t have the appropriate clothing for riding through the West Coast of Canada’s rainy season (you’re telling me I have to purchase more gear? No way.) and so I often showed up to class trailing pools of grime, grateful the fenders at least prevented a nasty streak up my bum. It wasn’t until the following Christmas, which happened to be a couple…

Cycling sucks. Well it used to for me – it was a self-destructive obsession.

I started cycling during a low point in my mental and physical health. I was underweight and had a hip stress fracture due to obsessive over training for an ultra-marathon. I couldn’t run, so I started cycling as an alternative way to beast myself to work off that imaginary fat that was piling on after every small meal – and to temporarily quieten the self-hatred dialogue that continuously looped in my brain. I didn’t enjoy cycling – it wasn’t for pleasure it was purely used as a tool.

I ended up racing in multi-sport events. Gradually my body got weaker and more injured as I tried harder and harder to push it as far as I could. I could feel myself heading for burnout but was too scared to stop the activity that I can come to rely on. I hated it and needed it in equal amounts.

Eventually it came to a head.

Racing across Scotland in sub-11 hours I was the 4^th fastest woman, but something happened along the way… I stopped for a moment and looked up.

I saw the most amazing views and something clicked. I literally crossed the finish line and told my husband that I was hanging up my racing shoes for good. I wanted to be out there but be still and truly see the…

It’s that time again. The end of the year, and that time when we naturally look back at the last 12 months and reflect on all we have, and haven’t, achieved. It depends on your perspective whether you see success or disappointment, and your mood at the time of reflection.

Social media can have a part to play in helping you to look back. Facebook loves to show your highlights, quite often with a yearbook of favourite posts. Strava creates a reel of your exercise stats for the year, which can be interesting for data nerds like me. In 2021 I cycled 2800 less miles than in 2020, but then 2020 was quite exceptional for me. And in 2021 I rediscovered the joy of off road riding, and that equates to many less miles travelled in the same time as a road ride. So, all about perspective.

Why do we reflect?

An optimist might argue that it’s pointless to look back, after all, the past is done and it can’t be changed, we should focus on the future. And to an extent I’m inclined to agree. If we look back at the past and only see the failures, disappointment and things that haven’t happened, it can be a recipe for very poor mental health outcomes, and depression. But if we look back at those things with an enquiring mind then we can learn from them. We can…

I don’t know what caused my latest flare up, but once it starts it’s a spiralling cycle of feeling dreadful, then feeling better, then a sudden urge to stay close to the bathroom, and then the inevitable hopelessness in knowing that you have little control over what happens when you’re away from your home unless you starve yourself.

This is what living with an IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) can be like during a flare up and it’s a depressing time. At the moment the only positives I can draw from my current flare up is that it’s the middle of winter anyway, so at least I’m not missing beautiful summer cycling days, and also that since 2020 I am now working from home. Not feeling compelled to leave the house is helpful at times like these.

My version of IBD is Ulcerative Colitis, which I’ve had on and off since my early twenties. This latest flare up started to become symptomatic a couple of months back. Possibly it was because I was becoming stressed about my pre-diabetic diagnosis, as well as a few things in life that weren’t going the way I would have hoped, and also I went and caught the mega cold that was going around which had wiped me out for about a month, adding to feeling quite down.

A routine hospital appointment in early October…