Goals are good, goals are fun, goals give an added purpose to all the fun.

I’d normally try to sign up for a couple of events or sportives during the year so I had something to be fit for early in the year and then something to maintain it for later in the year. I used to find that I’d struggle June/July because I’d have a bad hayfever/asthma week in June and then lose all momentum, take ages to get back to it and then it’s October, so by trying to find an event in July/August it gave me an incentive not to slip into lazy mode.

Oh and holidays! What a way to break all momentum and good habits!

So obviously I’m looking at around 10 months off the bike realistically by the time I get back on and while there’s plenty of motivation having a fixed date/ target is really going to help keep me focused and recover in the right way. By the right way I mean in as much time as it takes under the guidance of my physio, surgeon and Spok’d.

2020 I got a place on the Fred Whitton, covid cancelled that so my place got deferred, obviously I don’t stand a chance of getting back for it this year so they’ve deferred my place to 2022 for me. Being one of the most popular events in the country, and one of the hardest, having got a place through the ballot there’s no chance I’m giving it up!

So first and foremost that’s my return from injury goal. If I get to the start line I’ll be happy. Plenty of time.

I was supposed to ride the Paris – Roubaix challenge last year too. I’ve still got my entry for that but I’m undecided as to whether that would be unrealistic to attempt that as well as the Fred. So I’ll keep that in my pocket as a bonus card.

One thing I have decided is that regardless of how I actually get an entry, either through the ballot or one of the tour providers – I’m going to enter the Maratona dles Dolomites. I tried to get in last year, it’s a proper bucket list event for me and I owe myself a treat! I know I could book it myself, go at any other time but it’s not the same and is too easy to back out of!

There’s other events I’ll try to do depending on dates and availability like the Struggle Dales and Moors but having ridden those I have to prioritise.

For this year I need to get back out on the road and regain some fitness. We used to do a lot of walking too so that’s a goal. I want to get back to exploring the Dales and not being out on my arse after climbing the stairs!

I want one of the three peaks this year, maybe do the Yorkshire three peaks next year but that’s a bit more flexible. I’ll aim for the one to start and see how things go!

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!

Broken leg – 12 weeks in a pot and back to it right?

The first four and a half months was basically spent with my arse in a chair and my leg in the air. I could go maybe 20 mins with my leg down without it blowing up like a balloon and getting uncomfortable, I was allowed to weight bear but it was basically only when I had to. I gradually started to build up and get more mobile but had a couple of set backs along the way.

I’d been home a week when I fainted in the kitchen in front of my son who had come to see me for the first time since the accident. I was a couple of months in when I put my foot down and displaced the break in my leg. Eventually I got the all clear for physio.

Due to covid NHS physio weren’t seeing people face to face so I had a video consultation with a physio and went to see a private physio. They both came to the same conclusion and because I’d benefit from the face to face I stuck with the private.

I’d been doing the exercises to keep ankle mobility and a bit of strength in my leg but a lot had been lost, I also found that there’s been a lot of muscle wastage in my shoulders so I was really struggling with some very simple things! I got set some basic exercises around strength and mobility that we gradually increase week by week and was told to get on the bike! Obviously only on the turbo and essentially to just go through the motions but I was told it would help my ankle and swelling.

Walking has obviously been hard, it’s uncomfortable putting weight through something that is bolted through your leg and quite heavy. I went from about 0.3 miles and built up, it took a long time to add to the distance and I often found I’d gone too far but wouldn’t know until I’d gone too far! Seven months on from the accident I managed 1.5miles on crutches. What I’ve found is that if I spend say half an hour exercising I’ll need to spend double that again sat with my leg elevated to recover.

On the bike the first spin was about 15 mins and that was me absolutely done. I can do around 45 mins – hour now but feedback is turned right down, I average around 80 watts and don’t really ever get my heart rate up but there has been progress. I can’t sit on the bike properly because of the cage but will be able to build from here.

All being well 4th Feb 2021 the cage comes off.

She gets a special mention.

When I came out of hospital I could barely dress myself, it took 20 minutes to get out of bed, I couldn’t get in the shower without help and the first couple of weeks I could barely make my own coffee and stood no chance of getting it around the house!

Every Thursday my pin sites (where the wires go into my leg) need cleaning so Harriet had to take that on which took nearly an hour to do in the beginning. Early on she had to take me to hospital once a week and she had to fit that around working full time, doing a masters and EVERYTHING around the house because I could do nothing.

My son lives 200 miles away in Essex and before all this every other Friday I’d drive down for the weekend or to pick him up. Now obviously I can’t drive a car at the moment! I’m not even allowed to be in a car that long! Up steps Harriet 400mile round trip or some coordinating with my parents to meet her halfway.

She has been an absolute legend. Hardly moaned about it either.

21st June 2020, it was around 1pm, the weather was good.

I was just over 50 miles in to a pretty lumpy ride down to the peaks and only about 5 miles from home.

I was on the A61 near Newmillerdam coming down a slight descent travelling at about 30mph according to strava ( I say about because Strava and Wahoo disagree slightly here). Car coming from the other direction, so facing me decided he was turning right into a side road and drove straight into me. It was my right of way and he was facing me, I’m pretty cautious out on the road, I don’t fly about taking risks, I was nearly 2500 miles into the year and I had had one near miss where someone pulled out on me. I saw him, I’m pretty sure he saw me and at no point could I come to a scenario where he was going to do what he did!

So he pretty much drove straight into my leg, I watched it happen, I can look down and see it. There was a bit of somersaulting, minimal sliding but before I hit the ground I knew my leg was bad (I’d seen it). I managed to keep my head out of any contact and came to a stop in a pretty handy position on my side with my mangled leg resting on the good one.

The driver stopped, got out his car – that’s about the only useful thing he did. Luckily I had just got back to a popular spot at lunch time on Fathers day so there was loads of people about who were amazing. They kept me calm, still, phoned the wife, paused my Wahoo so my average speed didn’t drop too much, phoned the ambulance and police. I think personally I handled it pretty well and only panicked a little when I thought the ambulance was taking a while, but only handled it like that because the people around me held it together so well!

Paramedics arrived and were superb, didn’t panic, didn’t rush, were friendly and discussed everything with me and set to getting me in the ambulance. From where the accident happened and because I didn’t hit some specific trigger points they should have taken me to Pinderfields hospital in Wakefield however the paramedic looked at it and said if it was him he would want to be at the LGI as their trauma unit is much better so that’s where we went.

On arrival the A&E doctor very much agreed with the paramedic that he’d made the right decision to take me there and the next few hours became a bit of a blur of activity and drugs! There was lots of doctors and nurses buzzing around me, looking taking photos, doing tests. I went to XRAY and the technician stood there and said “I don’t even know how I’m going to XRAY that! Your knee is pointing north and your foot is pointing east”. They decided they needed to get the leg straight and put it in a cast until I could have surgery. This it was explained was to be done with the help of Ketamine which “won’t knock you out but… takes you off somewhere else. Some people do see things that aren’t there” which explains why the doctor who straightened the leg and put the cast on was a giraffe.

I got sent to the ward and then it was first surgery that night- around 2hrs to make the open wound safe, put a drain in and a temporary fixator on to hold my leg. So the extent of the injury never really came clear, it sort of dripped in. For instance I don’t remember knowing I needed a skin graft until the plastic surgeon came to see me to talk about where it was coming from.

Anyway I had broken the Tibia and Fibula and they had come out the side of my leg, apparently there was a couple of cracked ribs and there was quite a lot of swelling in my shoulder that led to a trapped nerve that basically meant I couldn’t move my arm at all for about a week. I also have what is essentially a hernia on my forearm from the impact.

On Wednesday 24th June I went in for the big op, 10hrs of it all told. They removed skin and a muscle from my left thigh to use as a patch for the hole in my broken leg and put on an ilizarov frame to hold all the bone in place. This I was told was the preferred method as it then means I don’t have to have a rod inside affecting blood flow or plates and bolts that could lead to further issues later on. Following the surgery there was a bit of time on a high dependency ward, then a temperature controlled room on plastics before I was allowed to do enough physio to be let home on 3rd July!