That’s it, the date is set and there’s no going back now!
When your normal mode of transport is a mobility scooter, cycling up a local mountain has got to be the maddest idea out there, but that’s exactly what I am going to do on 15th August with the support of my amazing Outfit Moray colleagues and friends.
In my drive to challenge myself and step out of my comfort zone I have taken on many different personal challenges over the years, including a firewalk, learning to crochet, learning to fly a plane, writing magazine articles, abseiling from the Forth Rail Bridge, travelling abroad for first time in 28 years, co-hosting a radio show, trying indoor climbing and, of course, taking up cycling, but this year I really feel like I may be pushing my limits.
I am already covered in bruises and have a torn ligament in my knee, plus the physical and mental effort from the training rides is using up cognitive spoons that I probably need for work (or to remember where I live). My joints are hurting and my core muscles hate me, but I am buzzing for the adventure.
Every training ride makes me more anxious of what I am going to be facing on the day and I do wonder just how I am going to actually get up there, but I know I will have the best support on the day – plus I really want to see the view from the top of Ben Rinnes!
Flying and cycling, two things I would never have thought I would be doing in life, yet here I am, learning and re-learning once again!
Biking in the woods
For background, back in the summer of 2016, I was a P/ut (pilot under training) with Flying Scholarships for Disabled People at Gryphon Aeroclub and learning a lot about myself along the way. A big part of my learning was to stop my chronic and debilitating habit of overthinking and to help with this, my instructor, John Griffin told me, “You can’t think about your landing while you are focusing on taking off”. Over the years overthinking was a safety blanket that I thought was keeping me safe, but in reality it was one of my biggest hindrances and was causing extreme anxiety, crippling my ability to experience life, but John’s simple statement was a game changer and words I have lived by ever since – well, until today!
However, my first training lesson was that overthinking is a crucial part of mountain biking! Not only do you need to be thinking about your take off, but you also need to be making sure you know where you are landing too and you need to be doing this ALL the time! There’s no time to look out the window and enjoy the view; instead it’s an exhausting and continuous cycle (see what I did there) of take off-landing, take off-landing, take off-landing and, just like flying, if you are lucky, your take offs will equal your landings, although I think my landings definitely out numbered my take offs during this particular training.
Ok, that’s enough of the analogy, but that thought did make me smile and I wondered what John would have made of me trying to take off, land and sort the flaps whilst talking on the radio.
So, back to the training session. My current cycling experience is on my folding electric bike and is limited to roads, paths and nice easy tracks and, as Ben Rinnes is none of those things, some training is definitely required if I am going to get to the top (did I mention it’s 841m), so I got some biking friends together and headed into the local woods for my first ‘mountain biking’ experience. One of the benefits of working for an outdoor learning and adventure charity, is that your work colleagues are pretty good at this sort of thing, so I know I am in safe hands, plus they are all first aid trained!
My electric mountain bike definitely made easier work of the tracks but I was soon faced with obstacles I had previously avoided. Tree roots were my first challenge and where I would normally scream and get off, I screamed and carried on over them. Sand was next, and where I would normally scream and get off, I screamed and carried on (are you seeing a theme here yet). I have to say, I was feeling very pleased that I had managed to stay on my bike and was determined to have done enough to pass GoMTB1, so we headed deeper into the woods and onto some proper dirt tracks, which took me onto my second lesson … gears!
As it turns out, gears are fairly important in cycling, particularly for getting up hills (something fairly crucial to my challenge) and knowing when to change them is crucial in keeping your forward and upward momentum and this is something I definitely need to practise more, especially if I don’t want to keep coming to a grinding halt half way up a hill.
Unfortunately, my reduced cognitive capacity doesn’t currently allow me to think quickly and far enough ahead to know when to change gears (and remember which gear lever is up and down) and to know what gear is the right gear. Still, there was only one spill and landing on comfy moss and pine needles was definitely preferable to the concrete path and fence post of my last hill fail.
The Wobbly Cyclist 