The past

Where have I been, what have I done, what’s my experience?

Where do you start with that one? Well I’ve been cycling for over 20 years, I started off just mucking about in the woods on my Professional Trakatak (cantilever brakes, thumb shifters) with mates and quickly rode into a tree and broke my collar bone when I was about 12.

From there I got my first proper bike with an alloy frame, V Brakes, rapid fire shifters and RST 381 forks! Unbelievable! Braking was so much better I threw myself over the bars on the first ride… The order of the next bit gets blurry – there was a yellow Mongoose bmx that I was terrible at riding, a rigid Muddy Fox that was used as a trials bike, a 24/7 Dark Angel V03 with a Hope disc brake on the front, a couple of Kinesis Maxlights (one got stolen), an old beige Peugeot road bike that I had to ask a neighbour how to change gear on and then a Carrera hybrid I used for commuting round London. Then I hit 18 and started spending some money on bikes!

There was a lot of custom after that – Tomac Snyper, Ibis Mojo (both carbon and steel one), Retro Orange clockwork, Qoroz Ti hardtail, Qoroz Ti Road, Kona King Kahuna, KTM, Bottechia, another Ti hardtail, Kuota, Saracen, BMC…

We rode the local BHF London to Southend charity event when we were pretty young, have ridden the South Downs way over two days and attempted it in one but I blew at about 75 miles. I took part in the first Great Tour navigating the UK coastline over 64 days (I missed 4 of them and still haven’t returned). Used to hit the trail centres at the weekends and had holidays in the Lakes and Dales so we could ride MTB.

I was a bikeability instructor and have my Cytech level 2. I worked on the 2010 Tour of Britain race as part of the finish crew and have worked in bike shops.

I raced XC very very averagely at a regional level and rode a few enduros when an enduro was a marathon – Dusk til Dawn at Thetford was and always will be the single best event ever put on. I grew up in Hadleigh where they built the London 2012 Olympic mtb course, and destroyed one of the best bits of singletrack in the area. I started riding road to build fitness for the XC and then found I was doing more and more of that and entered a few sportives etc.

I had a brief break from cycling around 2015 when I slipped a disc and had to choose between working or cycling for a bit, which is also when I moved to Yorkshire. I’ve ridden a few local sportives including both the Struggle events rides, which are savage but you want to go back for more?

2019 I had my first experience of cycling abroad (apart from a couple of wine tours on holidays) and entered the Paris-Nice challenge in the March. Flights and accommodation were so cheap! We spent an absolute fortune on food and drink though! The weather was unbelievable and the route was fantastic so I’d definitely recommend that to anyone.

Not content with the one trip September ’19 we went to Italy to ride the Stelvio for the old man’s 60th. What a road that is! We did the climb up to Cancano they used for the finish of THAT stage of the Giro too and, well, I was supposed to be there last year but…

Apart from my rides from home around the Peak District and Dales that’s pretty much it so far but plans are afoot!