Felix Young, Author at Bike the UK for MS

Bike the UK for MS Heads Off-Road

Gravel riding has become increasingly popular across the cycling world and I must admit that personally, I hadn’t quite got what all the fuss was about. Things changed after testing out both the Coast to Coast route as well as our new King Alfred’s Way ride. Two very different rides – but enough to give this roadie an appetite for more!

Away from it all

The traditional Coast to Coast route is already well crafted to ensure that traffic-free paths and quiet country lanes dominate; the off-road sections act to add a little spice and adventure to the ride with another layer of escapism from the rest of the busy world on top. Day 2 is dominated by some exquisite “top of the world” tracks across the open moorland of the Pennines. There is some serious elevation change to get high up on top of the hills but the expansive views and isolated feel take you to what could be another world from the hustle and bustle of England’s cities (and roads, for that matter!). It is amazing how all of a sudden you realise that on a doubletrack gravel road you feel freer to ride side by side, gaze around to take it all in and ride with verve that sticking to the left hand side of even the more idyllic country lane can’t quite replicate. And the King Alfred’s Way route has that in bucketloads. Without the height of the Pennine moors but with plenty of ripples in the south of England countryside to rack up the elevation change, it was genuinely astounding that I was riding so close to major population centres whilst in my own little world following byway and bridleway. Want to have a bike ride where you get to explore somewhere you would never have gone otherwise? Want to have a bike ride where you have hours of time riding without the buzz of traffic? Want to experience a completely different type of cycling? Then come and dip your tyres off-road with us this summer!

Time flies when you are having fun

I bit off more than I could chew when I went to check out the first part of the King Alfred’s Way route. With an ambitious plan to cover possibly even up to 2/3 of the total route in a single day and no real option shorter than 100 miles it was going to be a long day on my mountain bike. In the end, 100 miles was still enough that it got dark (I was riding in October…!) before I reached the train station but it was a 12 hour bike ride and then some. And yet, genuinely, it bore none of the drudgery of a long winter road ride (despite the fact over six hours of it was in the rain). A combination of factors meant that I had no time to be bored: the added concentration needed to pick the best line through the mildly technical off-road sections; the extra gazing around at the forests, moors, hillsides and open fields; the extra precision needed in spotting the hidden entrance to a byway diving off down some ancient sunken lane; deciding which spot needed a photo and which was best to stop for a snack – all these and more were just a little more dynamic than on a road ride and the time passed quicker for it. Can you have too much of a good thing? I am a roadie at heart after all. Well, both the King Alfred’s Way and our off-road route for C2C dip in and out off the rougher stuff – mixed in with sections of country road to click some speedier kilometres by. Mountain bikers might shudder at the thought but I found that after a while off-road I would feel like a bit of smoother riding would be just nice… and along came a section on the road. Then, after a while I would think “wouldn’t it be nice to change things up?” and then here comes a turn onto the dirty stuff. Everyone has their own blend of what they want from a bike ride – can we call this one an “all you can eat buffet”? Perhaps. And so, looking for challenge, adventure or training (or perhaps all of the above)? Then skipping off the asphalt and into the dirt might just be a better way of doing so that you have ever tried before.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail

I put my mountain bike cleats in my bag. I brought my bike with me. What I didn’t do was put my SPD pedals on my bike… So, with the first open bike shop on a Sunday morning 60km into the route it was a good job that the first part of the King Alfred’s Way route was easy going. Otherwise my inappropriate footwear perched precariously on the pedals would have been a nightmare to propel across the rougher sections. As it was, things just worked out fine and I was very glad that my compatibility issues were solved as the going got tougher after lunch. Personal gaffes aside – going on an off-road adventure might be an alluring prospect for you but the unknown that hides around the bend of the bridleway might be enough to put the brakes on any such exploring. That is why we run our trips like we do. It is your ride, to enjoy in the way that you want to. But our Route Leaders are never far away to provide assistance. That includes in the build up to the trip as you get everything in order. You can learn from my owns mistakes, plus those of the hundreds of riders who have donned the Bike the UK for MS journey and set out across the country before you. If you have wanted to take the leap and go on adventure then let us be there right behind you helping you go where you wouldn’t otherwise quite feel ready to. I will be putting together some more detailed notes about the off-road routes on offer in 2025 for those of you who wish to have a proper idea of what awaits around the corner on your adventures – stay tuned for those updates.

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Take a look on our Instagram and Facebook to see the full adventures video documented during my ride and more!

#MOVE4MS: three times around the Earth

We moved three times around the Earth in January for those living with MS

Bike the UK for MS’s January #move4ms challenge was to move 1 kilometre for each of the 130,000 people living with multiple sclerosis in the UK. After 31 days the final count was 125,323km, just a little short of our target but still enough to complete the equivalent of three laps around the world!

355 cyclists, runners, walkers and swimmers logged their movement throughout the month of January to raise awareness and funds to support those living with MS. We organised the challenge as we enters our tenth year of organising cycling challenges such as Land’s End to John O’Groats and Scotland’s North Coast 500 to raise money for (amongst others) the MS Society and its local support groups across the UK.

What is Multiple Sclerosis?

Multiple sclerosis is a condition that affects your brain and spinal cord and has a huge range of symptoms which can vary widely from individual to individual. Once diagnosed, MS stays with you for life but there are treatments that can manage the condition and its symptoms.

It goes to show; 130,000 people is a lot! It can be hard to visualise big numbers, but three times around the world and they still didn’t quite cover one kilometre for each person living with MS in the UK.

To put it another way, that’s one in every 500 people. Enough to fill Wembley Stadium one and a half times. That is why charities such as Bike the UK for MS need everyone’s help: to continue to raise funds and awareness to help those living with MS.

If you would like to take a look at Bike the UK for MS’s summer 2024 trips then you can find them here: https://www.biketheukforms.org/our-routes/

Stay tuned for Bike the UK for MS’s next challenge during MS Awareness Week from 22nd to 28th April!

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Cycling training for your first multi-day bike ride

Training to ride across the a country can seem like a daunting prospect. With the right preparation and cycling training, the excitement and sense of achievement that long cycling trips can provide are yours for the taking. Whilst cycling is as simple as putting one pedal stroke after the next, to ensure that you get the most out of your adventures it is important to prepare. Get ready to enjoy the experience, not suffer through it!

Getting out on the bike

The key to getting good at riding a bike? Riding a bike! It sounds simple, but getting regular rides in can prove more challenging than it would first seem when faced with the rigours of modern life. Be it work, family life or other commitments – carving out the hours (and it is hours…) needed to consistently train can often fall behind other parts of our lives. There is no single way to do things but here are some ideas to consider:

1 – The path of least resistance to cycling training.

Consider what is the easiest way to fit your cycling training in around the rest of your life. It may be a short time each morning that you can take to do some riding or it may be your commute to and from work. It may be that not riding every day allows you to get enough done that you can go for longer rides at the weekend.

Our cyclist have always loved cycling in the Highlands.

Perhaps jumping on an indoor trainer allows you to get a quick ride in where getting kitted up to head out of the door is going to use up all of the time you have available to ride. The question to ask yourself is – will this make it easier for me to ride? If the answer is “yes” then that is the path to follow!

2 – Consistency is the key.

It is certainly preferable to ride frequently than to stop and start. This gives your body the right prompts to adapt to the training and build fitness. If you only ride once a month, even if this is a monster ride, your body is not going to get used to what you are asking it to do. This is unlikely to mean riding every day (unless you are already riding lots or you are doing lots of shorter rides) as you must also be careful not to overload your body.

Progressing things little by little will ensure that you are training the right amount. For example, adding an extra day of riding after a few weeks of consistently riding a certain number of days or extending one of your rides by half an hour to build more endurance. You will be surprised how much total cycling training “volume” it is possible to build up by doing little and often as opposed to big surges and stops.

Cheddar Gorge delivery the breathtaking backdrop on the LEJOG route.

3 – Make yourself accountable.

The beauty of an individual sport like cycling is that you can train on your own agenda. However, being your own boss also means that you have to be able to motivate yourself and hold yourself to account.

Arranging to ride with friends or family can be a great way to drag your unwilling body out of bed on a weekend morning for a ride when the snooze button is calling (we have all been there!). Or knowing that you have a distance goal for the week that you are aiming to hit may help you take the bike to work on a rainy morning instead of grabbing the car keys.

It will depend on the kind of person you are and what motivates you, but make sure the planning-version of you helps the athlete-version to overcome the hardest bit of any ride – getting your kit on!

4 – Find what you enjoy.

In a similar vein to #1, if you are able to ride in a way that you love doing then it will be far easier to do it more often. If you love to be social then build a calendar of rides with others. If you love data then use any of the apps, such as Strava, to log all your rides. If you love to explore then plan rides that will take you to new places. If you love a routine then find a pattern that you will enjoy. If you love variety then mix it up!

Cycling training to get fitter isn’t 100% fun 100% of the time, but it is also supposed to be an enjoyable part of your life. You will be able to tackle the hard bits with full commitment if they are part of something you fundamentally enjoy 🙂

Cycling training is an eating contest on wheels

I enjoy cycling. I also enjoy eating. What a happy coincidence that those two things are such complementary activities. If you are going to travel a long way, then you need fuel. Fuel for a car or van is petrol, diesel or electricity. Fuel for a cyclist is food! There is a world of complexity that can sometimes make it seem impossible to know what to eat on a long distance cycling trip or whilst training for one but here are some of the broad places to start (that will probably be all you need to get there unless you are looking to break world records on the way…):

1 – Food is fuel for cycling training.

All food is fuel. There are some fuels that are better than others, but it is far more common to be eating not enough than too much. As a result, something is usually better than nothing* (*caveats apply, of course!). There are sport-specific products that offer convenience, typically at a cost premium, but in general terms the food you like to eat (or the food you can get your hands on if you are being particularly adventurous!) is a great place to start.

A group of cyclists smiling and holding ice creams

Riding for hour after hour leaves your muscles primed to gobble almost anything up ready for use to push the pedals around. Carbohydrate and fat are the primary fuels that the body uses with protein needed to repair the body from the battering that riding can cause (think: sore muscles). What a luxury – the more your ride the more you need to eat!

2 – Staying topped up during a ride is essential…

…particularly if you are riding for more than two hours. Your body can store up to around 2 hours of fuel and if you are exercising for longer than that without eating then it is going to have to start scrambling around for scraps which can start to have damaging consequences. You don’t have to be able to eat whilst still moving (although practicing this can help you stay on top of things) as planning a stop with a view (or coffee!) can help you top up the tank.

If you run out of energy on a ride it can be a really horrible experience (speaking from personal experience again here…). For cyclists, your blood glucose levels drop as your body searches around for a way to keep the muscles going. This can leave you feeling dizzy and make it very hard to go on. If you get to this point, you have already not eaten enough and by a long way!

The quiet towns of Wales on Lon Las Cymru, one of our 2024 Charity Bike Rides for MS

3 – Getting it in can be the hardest thing (and keeping it in!).

There are lots of foods that I love to eat but make a poor companion to a bike ride; a roast for example. Think about having food that will be comfortable and easy to consume (not to mention carry – jersey pockets were not made to carry gravy) as your body will be busy enough powering your muscles that adding other complicated things for it to deal with (such as digesting a heavy meal) may be too much.

Practice makes perfect in this regard and this is a key reason why eating during your cycling training will help ensure that you are ready for your main ride. Not only will you start to get an idea of what works for you, but your body will also start to get used to the demands of dealing with exercise and digestion at the same time.

Learning from mistakes while cycling training

I said at the start that cycling can be as simple as one pedal stroke after another. However, there are lots of small things that can add up to a successful cycling trip or remove the fun from one. Even people who have been riding for decades still do things that make them think “I’ll never do that again.” To give a personal example, on my first long-distance bike ride I took a heavy bike lock with me. I never locked my bike to anything and there was never really the prospect that I would. I essentially took several kilograms of metal for a trip around the countryside (and up all of the hills). Now, I think ahead about whether I might need a lock before starting out on the ride.

Where you are matters!

These little mistakes are unavoidable – they are part of the experience. Nevertheless, it is a lot better to learn that your jacket isn’t actually waterproof when you are 15 minutes from your house instead of on the North Coast of Scotland with several hours more riding to go. It is useful to know you need some lower gears whilst riding on your local hill instead of facing up to a steep Welsh mountain. It is useful to know in advance that your bottle rattles out of your bottle cage whilst heading down the street outside your house instead of crossing a cattle grid on Dartmoor.

The list goes on and on, but the crucial point is: the more rides you do in preparation for your multi-day cycling trip, the more of these snags you will catch and turn your ride into an enjoyable experience packed with new and exciting memories instead of answering the question of “how was your ride from Land’s End to John O’ Groats?” with “my pedal creaked a million times: once for every pedal stroke I took!”

Looking for your next cycling trip?

Join Bike the UK for MS this summer with rides ranging from 3 day Coast to Coast cycles to 2 week Land’s End to John O’Groats adventures. Visit Scotland for the North Coast 500 cycle, Wales for Lon Las Cymru or even mainland Europe with our London to Paris trip.

Meeting up with MS Society local support groups

UK Programme Manager, Felix Young, shares a report from his visits to two of the MS Society support groups that our riders’ fundraising goes towards.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet two of the MS Society support groups close to where I live last week at their monthly social events. These events are an integral part of what these volunteer-led groups do to ensure that their members can access social occasions that are appropriate to their needs.

First up was the Cheltenham, Gloucester & Forest of Dean group in Yorkley. This is one of the groups that the riders on our Land’s End to John O’ Groats trip meet each year as they ride across the UK. In the spirit of our January #move4ms challenge, I decided to travel by train and bike meaning that I could use the ride up from the train station to add some kilometres to the team total. This meant I arrived a little flustered – forgetting that the ride up to Yorkley is all uphill and perhaps over-estimating my climbing abilities with the time allowed!

It is always a treat to see some familiar faces as well as having the opportunity to meet new members of the group. After sharing some of Bike the UK for MS’s story so far it was exciting to introduce some of our 2024 projects to the group including #move4ms, our MS Awareness Week Challenge and the summer trips that riders will be taking on all across the UK plus the personal challenge that I am planning to undertake in the Spring (watch this space!).

This led to tales of midges and ticks (I am not sure why my stories kept on coming back to bugs just before the cake was served up?!) as well as some of the stories from my summer at the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships – taking place not long after I had last met the group in July. It wasn’t just me talking though (as can sometimes happen…), chatting with the members of the MS Society groups has been the main place where I have learned more about what it means to live with MS. As someone who did not have a personal connection to MS before I rode with Bike the UK for MS, it can be hard to truly understand:

“There are things I would like to join in with but MS stops me. I love gardening for example and my partner helps me and there is a local gardening group; they organise things like a walk in the woods to see the daffodils emerge. I won’t be able to join in with things like that and so I miss out.”

“I would love to join an art club. We were making wreaths and everyone was picking out what they wanted to put in theirs – I can’t hold things because of my MS though and so I didn’t know what to do. You don’t want to keep asking people to do things for you.”

A reminder that Bike the UK for MS is all about using the power of the bike to make a difference to those living with MS.

The following day I was able to take the short bike ride over the hill to Cumberwell Park Golf Club to meet up with the Bath & District group of the MS Society to join them for their Christmas celebration meal. This group was the first one that Bike the UK for MS supported back in 2014 and on a personal level was my first time meeting a local support group of the MS Society.

Members such as David and Julie have been members of the group since back then 10 years ago and it is always such a pleasure to re-acquaint myself and hear the stories that they have ready to tell. Despite all the challenges that living with MS had created for them it is so humbling to feel their determination and desire to overcome the day-to-day effects of the condition.

It is also particularly pertinent to spend time with the family who provide the support that they need every day of their lives. These social events are just as important for them as for the members who are living with MS. There are 130,000 people living with MS in the UK but the affect it has on people’s lives reaches much further to those around them and it can be easy to underestimate this impact until you get to know people such as the wonderful members of the local support groups.

The Bath & District group has a minibus that can carry up to three people using wheelchairs and the group are now fortunate to have a number of volunteer drivers who are able to help ensure that the group’s events are truly inclusive:

“It is so important. It can carry up to three people who otherwise would not be able to join in with what we do. It ensures that what we do is inclusive to everyone.”

The minibus does not come without its costs of course and there are a number of MS Society groups that I have met through my time with Bike the UK for MS that are not in a position where they can offer transport support in such a way. This can be particularly felt in rural locations such as north Wales or the Highlands of Scotland (places that Bike the UK for MS trips go to and so groups that our riders meet each year) where a single group may cover a vast area with limited transport options available.

The work that groups such as these would be utterly transformed if they had the financial support to be able to offer what the Bath & District group are able to do so with their minibus. We hope that with more fundraising and more awareness of the vital role that these volunteer groups carry out it will soon be possible for more people to access social events like to ones that I was lucky enough to be able to join – making a real difference to their quality of life whilst living with MS.

Route Leading: “It’s almost better than doing it yourself”

All you need to know about volunteering as a Route Leader with Bike the UK for MS

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Cycling in Cornwall & Devon – the “Big Bosses” of LEJOG

Bowser in Mario, the Elite Four in Pokemon and all other video game big bosses elicit the same thrill, excitement, frustration and dread in gamers. They push your skill, persistence, ingenuity and willpower to levels that the rest of the game does not reach and reward you with the standout moments of satisfaction and accomplishment when you finally overcome their steep challenges.

“But that does that have to do with cycling the length of the UK?” I hear you ask. Well, riding from Land’s End to John O’Groats carries its own pair of big bosses to bring all of those same emotions to pass for the cycle tourer. They call them… “Devon” and “Cornwall”. These two counties are etched in the minds of many a rider from professional to first-timer and I am fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to carve a few pieces of my cycling memory whilst riding in these special places.

The ”Crying Bench”

The aforementioned professional cyclists may not have been brought to tears, merely exclaiming that Tour of Britain stages in Devon were some of their highest ever recorded power numbers; but there is a particular spot that has remained a focal point of riding in the extreme South West of the UK for me and those who have passed through Cornwall in my company. The Crying Bench.

Over a decade ago, as a 19 year old student at the University of Bath, I set off towards St Austell in Cornwall for a Sunday lunch with a friend (a student will go a long way on the promise of food!). Doing the 150 miles by bike and armed with no GPS but merely a list of road numbers (A39, B3181, etc…) taped to my top tube now seems ambitious in time for lunch but confident in my ability I set off South West.

It was not the mist on the Mendip hills, the headwinds on the Somerset levels or the hail on Dartmoor that finally brought the tears welling up but a nondescript hill, part of a seemingly never-ending chain of the things, in Cornwall that broke the camel’s back of my self-assuredness. Fortunately, there was a bright blue bench right there at the side of the road waiting for me to slump on to and have a sob.

It has since become a reference point for Bike the UK for MS riders on our trips. “Look out for the Crying Bench,” a point of common reference and empathy for those having a hard day, or week, as they tackle one of LEJOG’s bosses. A physical tribute that no matter what level you ride at or speed you go, we are all feeling the same sensations and emotions, just like those video games. Not the pros, though. They just push more power numbers!

I can see the sea!

As any local cyclist will tell you, there is no flat road in Devon. Nowhere is more un-flat than Dartmoor. This has its drawbacks. When you are on a long hard day’s ride, that rollercoaster of up and down can make the kilometres stretch out interminably. It is not all bad though. When you are racing your mates and have the upper hand each upward kick feels like you are working together with the double-digit gradients as dastardly collaborators.

One other positive of all of that up-ness is that when you crest the final rise and see what remains of the UK spilling out before you towards the coast then you can know that you are not far from your goal. All the more so if you have seen the north coast of Scotland in the rear-view mirror of your mind since departing John O’ Groats. It’s not all plain sailing from there though, despite the lack of altitude, Cornwall has plenty of big-boss energy left to test you with (see references to crying and benches above!).

“Welcome to Cornwall” …You must be kidding?!

As you cross the mighty Tamar River which divides Devon and Cornwall you can immediately sense that something is a little bit different. Not cream on top of jam on scones, not even the fact that finding a train station halfway up a hill is a bit odd (trains like flat and halfway up this particular hill is almost the exact opposite) but that the maths and logic of the route laid out ahead of you doesn’t make sense.

Flash floods? Yes, but at the top of hills, not the bottom.

My record number of layers worn whilst cycling? Eleven. In June. In Cornwall, of course. When not a few moments earlier a single jersey was more than enough.

A bombastic, barmy, bonkers bundle of bicycling brilliance. The only way to describe a bike ride of any distance in Cornwall. And the final big boss of John O’ Groats to Land’s End can always say “well, I did warn you…” Crossing the bridge over the Tamar, where the sense of something odd emerged just as you passed the “Welcome to Cornwall” sign… and immediately turn the corner onto the daftest hill of them all!

Heading North

But what about if you are heading from Land’s End to John O’ Groats instead, for example, on our trip this July to raise money for MS? Well, as you emerge onto the city streets of Exeter you will have quite the realisation. All of that is behind you. You have unpicked that lock, solved that puzzle and persisted through that head-to-head. You get to enjoy that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction for that whole rest of the trip. And you never know, you might find yourself going back for more… Just one more level?

“I feel very fortunate that I’m able to do what I can do” – Rosie Pickering

This is Part 3 of our interview with Rosie Pickering – a member of the Bike the UK for MS alumni family who has ridden on all four of the Bike the UK for MS routes (Land’s End to John O’ Groats, North Coast 500, Sea to Sea and Lon Las Cymru) in the last few years. All this, despite having relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis herself and having (by her own admission!) come into the first of her rides with minimal cycling experience. UK Programme Manager Felix Young sat down to talk to Rosie and her husband Rich (also a two-times alumni of Bike the UK for MS) about her story with Bike the UK for MS. In this part of the interview we discuss Multiple Sclerosis and the affect on Rosie and Rich’s cycling and wider lives. You can listen to the interview on our podcast or watch it on YouTube. To read Parts 1 & 2 you can follow the links here:

Part 1 – Adventures on the bike

Part 2 – Riding with Bike the UK for MS

Interview conducted in May 2023

It’s fatigue.

FY: And so, to shift gear a little bit Rosie, we’ve spoken a lot about some of the things you’ve undertaken on the bike; some of the challenges and some of the successes. I was someone that came into Bike UK for MS without a direct link to the condition myself, but obviously it was your MS that brought you to Bike UK for MS. Can you give us an insight into how multiple sclerosis affects you and your riding. Of course, it’s so different for different people, but for you as an individual, what impact does it have?

Rosie: Well, I’ve been diagnosed now for around 15 years, I think it is. And out of all the sports I’ve found since I’ve had my condition, cycling’s the one that benefits me the most. I suffer with mass fatigue on the bike, but I train like Billy-o, like I haven’t got it. I get really quite acute pins and needles in my hands and my feet. After LEL last year, I didn’t have a sensation in my feet for about 14 weeks. That was a combination of doing, what was it? 650, 700 miles, I think, in a short period of time, along with having MS and having a heat wave which just accelerated all of my symptoms. I can get weird sensory problems. My balance goes, sometimes my speech goes. That’s not always a bad thing because I ramble on! But yeah, it’s fatigue, it’s fatigue. And weird sensory problems, unfortunately, on the bike. But it’s manageable for me. I feel very fortunate that I’m able to do what I can do. And yeah, just keep ploughing on, really.

Rich: You do Ocrevus infusions every six months. And she gets quite regular MRIs as well. But the last MRI showed no changes, despite the fact that Rosie’s done the LEL challenge and all the other stuff. The MRI was non… What was it called?

Rosie: So it didn’t show any more lesions on my brain scan, which was really good, which I was absolutely amazed at, to be quite honest, because I really thought I’d damaged myself after doing LEL last year.

Rich: Physiologically, there was no difference.

Rosie: Physiologically, yeah, it wasn’t any more.

Rich: Yeah, which is really, really positive.

Rosie: Yeah, so I mean, I’ve had a neuro appointment recently and he said, “just keep doing what you’re doing”. It’s really beneficial. So it’s all good, it’s all good.

FY: That’s all the encouragement you need, right? Having listened to the stories you have told, like it sounds like you weren’t gonna let them stop you anyway, right?

Rosie: Well, yeah.

I’m just going to do as much as I possibly can whilst I can.

FY: If you were gonna summarise your mentality… You’ve kind of given us a bit of an insight there already but in terms of your mentality towards the disease and how it interacts with you in your life, have you got any core mantras or an can you give us a window into what your mentality towards it all is?

Rosie: I’m very much a massive believer in “face your fear and do it anyway”. When you’re living with a chronic illness, anybody living with a chronic illness, but MS in particular, sometimes it can feel a bit like a ticking time bomb, which is quite horrific when you think of it. It can be quite depressing. And I just think, for me personally, I’m just going to do as much as I possibly can whilst I can because none of us know how long we’ve got. But especially with MS, things can just turn on a sixpence overnight. So, yeah, I just think, yeah, crack on.

Rich: We have our own little phrases that we bounce back and forth between each other. Do your best. Just try your best. Have a go.

Rosie: Yeah, have a go. I mean, I just think, well, if I can do this, anybody can. And there’s so many different people that you meet on the Bike UK for MS trips as well. You don’t have to have an immediate association with MS to do it. But there’s a lot of people who don’t… I personally didn’t have, at the time I was doing JOGLE, a huge relationship with my local MS Society because I spent many, many years in denial that I was even managing to cope with a problem like this. Meeting all the groups along the way was really therapeutic for me in also coming to terms with my condition. I talk about it quite openly now, but it’s always been very uncomfortable for me to speak about. But yeah, it’s been a hard learning curve, hasn’t it?

Rich: Yeah.

I don’t give it that time because if you let it, it can take over your life.

FY: We spoke earlier about your role Rich, filling the dress as a cheerleader and getting the pom-poms out. And that was in the context of cycling. As someone that’s part of a family with Rosie and multiple sclerosis, how does it affect what you do and how the rest of the family has to interact? Is it something that is only present sometimes or is it something that’s an ever-present that you have to change a lot around?

Rich: Yeah, it’s always there at the back of my mind. I never think about it. I also don’t give it enough oxygen to breathe. In my mind you’ve got two balloons; you’ve got a blue balloon that you can fill with the stuff that might affect you or you can have a red balloon that’s full of energy and life and everything going on around you. We always know it’s there but I don’t give it that air. I don’t give it that time because if you let it, it can take over your life.

Rosie: Yeah

Rich: …but there’s also the other bit of life that you’ve got to go on with anyway. We’ve got three kids, two dogs, we seem to have several cats even though we only bought one. Rosie keeps wanting to buy guinea pigs and goats. I said no to them! We’ve got caravan, we go on holidays, we’ve got a house that we’re doing up. We’ve got a lot of things going on in our lives. Rosie runs her own business. I work two jobs, one of one of them is my own business and I think I’m speaking on both of our behalfs but if we let it take over it could quite easily squash everything else. Rosie does all of these fabulous adventures and she’s got a long-term health condition or she could do the fabulous adventures and not have a long-term health condition. It’s just that she’s got that part of her. It doesn’t change who she is. It certainly doesn’t change my feelings and thoughts towards her but it is always there. The boys are quite young and they don’t fully understand it yet.

Rosie: When I ran the Great North Run, remember what I had on my back it said “I have MS but MS does not have me.” I’m not defined by it. Yes, as you know, it’s a pig of an illness but most of the time I just pretend I haven’t got it. I get really moaned at by my MS nurse. She tells me off all the time but you know we’re only here once and…

Rich: You don’t know what tomorrow is bringing.

Rosie: Yeah, we really don’t, we really…

Rich: Day by day for everything.

You can listen to the interview on our podcast or watch it on YouTube. To read Parts 1 & 2 you can follow the links here:

Part 1 – Adventures on the bike
Part 2 – Riding with Bike the UK for MS

“There was a real breadth of people but we all had one thing in common and that was a love, a passion for cycling.”

Rosie and Rich Pickering’s stand-out moments from their rides with Bike the UK for MS

This is Part 2 of our interview with Rosie Pickering – a member of the Bike the UK for MS alumni family who has ridden on all four of the Bike the UK for MS routes (Land’s End to John O’ Groats, North Coast 500, Sea to Sea and Lon Las Cymru) in the last few years. All this, despite having relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis herself and having (by her own admission!) come into the first of her rides with minimal cycling experience. UK Programme Manager Felix Young sat down to talk to Rosie and her husband Rich (also a two-times alumni of Bike the UK for MS) about her story with Bike the UK for MS. In this part of the interview we discuss Rosie and Rich’s stand-out memories from the Bike the UK for MS trips. You can listen to the interview on our podcast or watch it on YouTube. To read Parts 1 & 3 you can follow the links here:

Part 1 – Adventures on the bike
Part 3 – Living with Multiple Sclerosis

Interview conducted May 2023

That sense of feeling really small in a massive environment

FY: We’ve spoken a lot about endurance and sticking the course. I’m intrigued about what some of your stand-out memories are. Individual moments that really stick in the mind from the Bike the UK for MS trips.

Rich: For the actual route itself, it was the Kylesku bridge for me. It’s a bridge that connects two little peninsulas in Scotland that are probably the furthest northwest from where we started in Inverness. I quite like a bridge as well. I quite like riding over bridges and I find them quite fun, I don’t know what all that’s about but I do.

Rosie: You’re the same with tunnels, aren’t you?

Rich: I quite like tunnels.

FY: Do you still go choo-choo when you go through a tunnel?

Rich: No, I make loud noises. It’s just fun. When you’re going on the bike it’s fun. It’s that sense of feeling really small in a massive environment. That’s what the Kylesku Bridge was for me and it was just that wildness. Scotland is a bit like Mother Nature, she is letting you in but if she fancies it, she’ll kill you. That’s what Scotland is but it’s just awesome.

The other bit for me about the North Coast 500 was riding with the people that I rode with. I rode with quite a few different types of people. There were the young ones, I wasn’t one of them, and people that were a bit older than me. There was a real breadth of people but we all had one thing in common and that was that love, that passion for cycling. The younger ones were quite fast and they all seemed to hide behind me when it was windy as well but I don’t know why.

FY: I couldn’t possibly imagine what reasons that could be. It must just be because you’re a very reliable wheel to follow. They must have trusted you infinitely.

Rich: Must have been, Felix!

Rich: I could either go off on my own if I wanted a bit of solitude and solace or I could come back to the pack and they were all fun. They were all just really nice people that I always had to speak behind me to throw my voice to the back of me for.

Rosie: I think you had to take that as a compliment somewhere along the line to it.

Rich: I felt like I was spearheading the NC500.

FY: Trailblazers, you can both consider yourself trailblazers.

Rosie: Yeah, trailblazers.

Rich: It’s just a lot of fun.

A group of people sitting around a table

I just need this for myself to fully embrace it

FY: And Rosie, you’ve mentioned Glencoe already as one of the things you were really keen to see on John O’ Groats to Land’s End but did it live up to expectations?

Rosie: Oh god yeah, absolutely. It absolutely blew me away. On John O’ Groats to Land’s End, the great thing about riding with you guys is the fact that you can do your own thing or you can constantly be riding with other people. You do tend to find your own little tribes as well. I tried to ride with most people on John O’ Groats to Land’s End but I can remember saying to the guys I was with I’m going to do Glencoe on my own because I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do it in one. I’m not going to talk to anybody, I just need this for myself to fully embrace it.

There was Todd at the bottom, who’s this amazing American dude and he gave me a Tunnock’s at the bottom and said, Rosie, that’s for you, that’s going to get you through Glencoe, and it did. So, yeah, they are staple ever since.

Rich: Yeah, she didn’t drop that one.

FY: I’ll leave it as unsaid for another time, but I have my own Glencoe memories from when I wrote John O’ Groats to Land’s End with Bike the UK for MS, and I rode Glencoe on my own as well. For reasons that I will explain some other time, I was in a massive strop. Let’s just put it that way. So I was riding on my own because I was really grumpy, but we were there on a beautiful sunny day, and it was a truly spectacular place to ride, even through the mist of the proper early-20s sulk that I was going through at the time.

And that’s part of the challenge, even on a trip which is not maybe as severe as Dale’s Divide or London-Edinburgh-London, we all have our highs and lows, right? And there is no avoiding it. No matter how experienced or strong you are as a rider, were there any particular moments on the trips for you, Rosie, that were the biggest challenges?

It was biblical. But it was good for the soul, you know.

Rosie: Yeah, so on John O’ Groats to Land’s End, I think it was day three, I think it’s the Loch Ness day. We set up camp in the rain and we woke up underwater and it was a severe Scottish weather warning. And even the guys who ran the campsite were saying, “you can’t ride in this, it’s a Scottish weather warning, take it seriously”. And I can remember the route leaders saying, if you really, really don’t want to, then we’re just going to have to think of a way around. I was like, “you can’t put everybody on the bus, you know, we’re going to have to ride”. And it was really severe. It was like riding through river rapids with shingle going down.

In fact, I had friends who were driving the North Coast 500 that year. They were driving it and they went home early because the weather was that rubbish – They were in a motor home! They were just like, “no, going home, going back to England, not driving in this”. We were riding in it! It was unbelievable. I’m never going to see rain again like that. It was biblical. But it was good for the soul, you know.

FY: It makes you feel quite hardcore, right, when you’re toughing it out.

Rosie: Absolutely. And when we got to the camp that night, we were, again, setting up a wet tent. But, you know, you just go and have a hot shower and it’s great. And you’ve earned it. You’ve earned it. It was amazing. Doing the North Coast 500 last year as well… We had one day, I think it was day two, where again it rained all day. Was it day two?

Rich: I think it was day two, day three, day four, day five, day seven.

Rosie: There was a lot of rain. Rich did the August North Coast 500. I did the September one and he got much better weather than me.

Rich: I think so, yeah.

A group of people in front of the sunset

White beaches, it’s beautiful.

FY: So, it doesn’t always rain in Scotland, you can confirm?

Rosie: When the sun comes out, you could be in the Caribbean. It’s absolutely phenomenal. White beaches, it’s beautiful. Absolutely. It’s amazing up there. But yeah… I can remember going to John O’ Groats on North Coast 500. And when we got there, it was so unbelievably windy. So, we were frozen through and we were sodden through as well. Soaked to the bone. And all I could think was, “doesn’t matter, the showers here are great”. It was a power cut. So, we couldn’t.

The route leader team were amazing. They put our tents up for us because they knew that we had a really hard ride there. We couldn’t have a shower, but we went to the pub and they had hot food because they had a generator. And then later on, the campsite managed to get a generator. So, we managed to get a hot shower in the end.

FY: A roller coaster of emotions in a single evening. There’s nothing worse than having something that you are looking forward to taken away from you. But also then, when you’ve got something that you don’t think is going to happen, when you get it, it’s a pleasant surprise, right?

You can listen to the interview on our podcast or watch it on YouTube. To read Parts 1 & 3 you can follow the links here:

Part 1 – Adventures on the bike
Part 3 – Living with Multiple Sclerosis

“It took me places that I didn’t know I was capable of” – Rosie Pickering

Multiple sclerosis is what brought Rosie to the bike, but it has taken her a long way since then!

Rosie Pickering is a member of the Bike the UK for MS alumni family who has ridden on all four of the Bike the UK for MS routes (Land’s End to John O’ Groats, North Coast 500, Sea to Sea and Lon Las Cymru) in the last few years. All this, despite having relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis herself and having (by her own admission!) come into the first of her rides with minimal cycling experience. UK Programme Manager Felix Young sat down to talk to Rosie and her husband Rich (also a two-times alumni of Bike the UK for MS) about her story with Bike the UK for MS. This is Part 1 of the interview where we discuss Rosie’s introduction to cycling and her more extreme adventures on the bike. You can listen to the interview on our podcast or watch it on YouTube. To read Parts 2 & 3 you can follow the links here:

Part 2 – Riding with Bike the UK for MS
Part 3 – Living with Multiple Sclerosis

Interview conducted May 2023

Do you think that I could do that?

Felix Young (FY): I’d like to introduce Rosie and Rich Pickering. Rosie, do you want to go first? Give me a brief introduction about yourself and what your history with Bike the UK for MS is.

Rosie: Hi, Felix. Yeah, I’m Rosie. So I’ve done a couple of rides now with Bike the UK for MS. I did JOGLE (John O’ Groats to Land’s End) in 2021. And I also rode with you guys last year, [on the] North Coast 500. So yeah, that’s me up to date and in a couple of weeks [Ed.: Interview date: May 2023] in fact, I’m doing the ride in Wales, Lon Las Cymru. I think that’s how you say it.

FY: I was going to ask if you were going to attempt the pronunciation there. I’m sure we’ll all have it fully dialled by the time we reach the end of the trip. Lon Las Cymru, right?

Rosie: Yeah, there we go. Yeah, I’m doing that one in a couple of weeks. I’ve been thinking about maybe a few others as well. So yeah, that’s me up to date at the minute.

FY: And Rich, what’s your background with Bike the UK for MS?

Rich: I’m Rosie’s husband. I did North Coast 500 this year to support Rosie. Last year, sorry. Yes, not very well organised, I’m afraid. I wanted to do the North Coast 500 and I wanted to support Rosie and her quest for supporting Bike the UK for MS. So that’s basically what I’ve done so far. Planning more in the future, though. [Ed.: Rich and Rosie both subsequently rode the Coast to Coast ride in August 2023]

FY: Excellent. Both of you, once you’re hooked, we want to come back for more. And so how did you first find out about Bike the UK for MS? What was the initial introduction that you guys made to the organisation as a charity?

Rosie: Right, so I’ve got relapsing and remitting multiple sclerosis myself. I started by running the Great North Run a few years back. It popped up on my Facebook feed, actually: Bike the UK for MS. John O’ Groats to Land’s End, or Land’s End’s to John O’ Groats and I remember saying to Rich, oh yeah, I want to do a bit more cycling. Do you think that I could do that? You said yes, go for it.

I just um-ed and ah-ed for a couple of weeks and spoke to Nicole, one of the previous ride leaders, at great lengths many times, and then just signed up one night and just thought, right, just, you know, face your fear, do it anyway. I just had to jump straight in. The longest ride I think I’d done before I even signed up was less than 50 miles, wasn’t that? Yeah, so that was my sort of push to get on board with that.

You found your tribe a little bit, haven’t you?

FY: I was going to ask, and you kind of jumped in and semi-answered it already, but you weren’t really a cyclist before Bike the UK for MS. Would you have considered yourself a cyclist?

Rosie: Well, I sort of dabbled. Years ago, I got into mountain biking a little bit, but nothing compared to what I was doing.

Rich: I think I put you off.

Rosie: Yeah, Richard put me off very, very early on.

Rich: Quite strongly as well.

Rosie: You let me fall off quite a few times when I’d, you know, turned into, you know, SPD shoes [Ed: cycling shoes with cleats that attach your feet to the pedals].

Rich: I think I told you to ride into a log at one point, thinking the bike would ride over it.

Rosie: It was a really good, super woman impression.

Rich: Didn’t end well.

Rosie: Yeah, I don’t know how we ended up still being together after that, actually, to be quite frank. But yeah, so I dabbled in that a little bit. And then after our second child, I got into running and then thought, right, OK, let’s try duathlon. So, I did a couple of duathlons and then I thought, right, no, I really like the biking much more than running. So, that’s how I sort of got a little bit more into it and then treated myself to a new road bike for my 40th birthday present a few years back.

I joined a local cycle club because I just wasn’t very good at doing any distance on my own and then Covid hit. So I suppose I hadn’t really done stacks and stacks. I had done a couple of sportives before doing JOGLE, but nowhere near what I’ve done since. So, yeah, since I’ve done JOGLE, it’s taking off, isn’t it?

Rich: Yeah, you found your tribe a little bit, haven’t you?

Rosie: Yeah.

Rich: You found your rhythm really, really good.

Rosie: I think from having had such a confidence boost doing John O’ Groats to Land’s End to start off with, I really didn’t know anything. I learnt so much on that ride. I couldn’t even climb out of the saddle before I’d done John O’ Groats to Land’s End, I just didn’t have the confidence. It was just an amazing experience.

FY: And you said you asked a lot of questions. You spoke to Nicole and the rest of the Bike the UK for MS team a lot before the trip. It might be a silly question: Was it a daunting undertaking, were you intimidated by the ride?

Rosie: Yeah, I really was, because I’ve never done anything longer than 73 miles before. I mean, I think I literally did that about six weeks before we went to John O’ Groats. All the way up to John O’ Groats I was crying. It was just nerves coming out for me. I was just, I just, I had all this pent up emotion and I didn’t know how I was going to be like camping. I just didn’t know whether I was going to be able to do it but with having so much backing and sponsorship behind me it just pushed me to do it. Not that I’m the kind of person who would ever want to quit, unless I could really help it. But yeah, it just took me places that I didn’t know I was capable of basically.

FY: Nice, literally and figuratively I guess in some cases, right? Because it’s the adventurous part of what makes those trips so exciting, right?

Rosie: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it just, yeah, it was amazing. It was definitely a pivotal point.

Rich: I remember you ringing me at the top of Glencoe when you said to me, “guess where I am?” And I remember saying “you’re at the top of Glencoe” and you were, you were just at the top of Glencoe.

Rosie: Yeah, yeah.

FY: Amazing.

Rosie: Cried all my way up there. Not in pain, but it’s just, it’s just the most electric… I don’t know, it’s kind of very… it sounds really cheesy, but it was really spiritual in a way, climbing there. The reason I signed up to do John O’ Groats to Land’s End, one of the reasons, was because I wanted to ride Glencoe. So yeah, it was, yeah, emotional.

FY: And Rich, I’m going to put you on the spot with a bit of a tricky question here straight off the bat. Are you Rosie’s cheerleader? You sounded like you’ve said a couple of times how you think she has a natural aptitude to cycling and so on.

Rich: Yeah, try to be a cheerleader.

FY: With your background in cycling, what has your role being in Rosie’s riding through those first few years of fun on the bike?

Rich: I’ve been quite pivotal in trying to put her off biking in a way, coming from mountain biking, which was in the first early days. It was quite disastrous, I think, wasn’t it? It was fun for me.

FY: I need a specific example apart from just the log!

Rosie: There was two logs to be fair. I think I nearly broke parts of my anatomy that I don’t want to own up to.

Rich: There was the early days of Coed y Brenin, there was Dalby Forest that I took her to. I’ve always been a cyclist. I’ve always been into mountain biking and any form of cycling, but my primary[sic] is mountain biking. And I wanted to show her how much fun it was and how much adventure you can have with it. I did that many, many years ago, but then she’s taken on the bug herself and she’s developed her own way of riding and her own tenacity and her own confidence in her riding. So I was just there in the early days as a riding partner in a way.

This is all down to Rosie doing it and building her own foundation of what I personally see is a fabulous endeavour that she’s on. And the fact that she’s got so much grit and determination to do it, it makes me want to keep supporting her and we will do. The whole family, me and the three boys will support her all the way. As much as we can. Sometimes it might be a bit fraught. When we meet her in the middle of LEL [Ed.: London-Edinburgh-London, a long-distance cycling event] and the boys were a bit wired on ice cream and Rosie’s a bit tired, that didn’t really work very well.

Rosie: You bought me lots of sweets didn’t you and then realised that the boys had eaten them all on the way.

Rich: yeah so we actually just turned up and basically had a go at her.

Rosie: Too many boys, too much sugar!

FY: there’s a time and a place right? Sometimes you need your own space.

Rich: So I try to be a cheerleader but I don’t fit the dress very well!

My MS and the heat just don’t mix very well at all

FY: You reference London-Edinburgh-London. Your cycling journey is taking you a lot further than the Bike the UK for MS rides since that first John O’ Groats to Land’s End ride right, Rosie? Tell us about London-Edinburgh-London and where else your cycling escapades have reached over the last few years.

Rosie: right so, last year, was it August? I think. I thought: “I’ve done JOGLE, I’ll be fine. I’ll camp in London for a couple of days”. I didn’t take into consideration how noisy the foxes were and the fact that I didn’t get any sleep and my start time, I think, was quarter past six in the morning and so I started on the back foot unfortunately. London-Edinburgh-London, it’s 1500 KM, you’ve got to do it over five days, that’s your time limit, that’s what you’ve got: 125 hours. I got to sort of three and a half days in and I hit a wall. We were riding through a heat wave and so I got up to Edinburgh and then I ended up scratching at Eskdalemuir unfortunately, on the way back because I was just so hot and hadn’t slept for days and days.

Unfortunately my MS and the heat just don’t mix very well at all. I don’t know if you can imagine somebody tipping your battery out. That’s the first time on a ride actually I’ve ever experienced that feeling and it was quite depressing for me. I don’t do well at not finishing things but it was the most amazing experience ever. You meet so many people from all over the world that are doing this amazing audax [Ed.: Long-distance cycling events] ride. It was just very hard for me to not finish and then three weeks later go on to NC 500 which was the biggest uplift in the world because it was epic!

FY: For the people that don’t know a lot about audaxes like London-Edinburgh-London, they are a world away from the Bike the UK for MS rides right? On the Bike the UK for MS rides you ride 70 or so miles a day. It’s overnight stops and it’s stage by stage by stage. We have a rest day halfway through the JOGLE trip, right? But what does London-Edinburgh-London involve?

Rosie: So you’ve got 20 checkpoints that you physically have to check in at along the way. And you have a brevet card that you have to get stamps on from these checkpoints. The majority of the checkpoints you can eat, sleep, refresh, have a shower. On the first day, I made it to the fourth checkpoint at Hessle, which was 190 miles in, at which point it was 11 o’clock at night. I’d been riding since six that morning. I decided that I was going to try and sleep. Well, we were in this ginormous[sic] room full of 250 air beds. And the snoring was immense. And I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for four and a half, five hours, something like that. And yeah, I couldn’t do it. So I got up and carried on. And I can’t remember where I’d stopped again after that point.

FY: I guess it all becomes a blur after a certain point?

Rosie: Absolutely. And I think that was the massive problem for me. With each rest stop, you would try and refresh and have something to eat and make sure you fill up your water and your salts and so on. You’re just getting more and more fatigued along the way. And that is part of the endurance journey. And it’s, like you say, so opposite to Bike the UK for MS. I just thought I was hardcore and I can do it. But yeah, the next one [LEL] is in a couple of years. I will go back and I will do it again. To be honest, I should have practised that a little bit more.

Rich: It’s a learning curve. There are certain things that you know you could have done better.

Rosie: Oh, totally.

Rich: But you wouldn’t have known until you’ve done it.

Rosie: I learnt an awful lot of lessons doing that. And, you know, I wasn’t my own. I think there’s something like a 52% scratch [Ed.: riders abandoning the ride] rate on it. I didn’t feel well, I did feel really bad and cried a lot on the way home too, you know… Then I got the train back from Carlisle to Kingscroft. But yeah, it took it out of me, didn’t it?

Rich: You ended up, it was so hot that she ended up going into somebody’s garden and they gave her some ice lollies.

Rosie: Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that!

Rich: There’s also, if anybody finds it, I think there’s a penguin biscuit that you dropped by mistake underneath the Forth Bridge…

Rosie: Soreen!

Rich: There’s a Soreen bar under the Forth Bridge! So if anybody finds a Soreen bar, could you please hand it in and we’ll reclaim that?

Rosie: The things that we were eating along the way were just amazing. Yeah, you just feed as much as you can.

FY: I have a friend of mine from Canada who’s an ultramarathon runner, and he described it, ultramarathon running, as an eating contest that just happens to have some running in it and I think that’s probably a similar kind of thing to an audax like that, right? It’s just about what can you get in and keep in. That, like you said, i’s part of the endurance game isn’t it?

Rosie: Absolutely! For LEL, I didn’t practise enough before it and I just thought I’d be fine. I had done John O’ Groats to Land’s End and kind of can do anything, you know. But no, it’s just a different animal. I had done one audax ride before I did LEL so I thought I’d be fine but um… no!

I just got hooked to off-road riding

FY: We’ve spoken a lot about London-Edinburgh-London and some of the challenges involved with that but your your cycling journeys have taken you off the road into into the wild haven’t they in recent times as well?

Rosie: yeah, they have. Off the back of doing John O’ Groats to Land’s End… as soon as I got back I told Rich that I really fancied doing more long distance but going off road. Rich built a gravel bike for me, we bought one second hand and then built it through with Covid second hand parts and bits and bobs. Then I just got hooked to off-road riding. We did Dirty Reiver last year, that’s a gravel ride in Northumberland which was my first big event that I had done.

I’ve done some of Glorious Gravel rides all over the UK and done some of the Sonder winter gravel rides which are brilliant. They will eat your bike away! Just lots of testing things, learnt a lot, still not as fast as what I want to be but I’m getting there. I bought bought a new gravel bike last year and it’s much better…

Rich: not without its problems!

Rosie: It has just gone wrong for me a few times recently. I did Dales Divide recently.

FY: Another real test of endurance in the purest sense of the word right?

Rosie: Yeah, it was an absolute mudfest. Great fun but I had a massive mechanical and ended up having to leave the course. Ended up kipping at somebody’s farmhouse. In fact, it was the organisers farmhouse, he was on the course so he didn’t actually know. I still need to send him some cheese or something to say thank you!

Rich: Special cheese, not just supermarket stuff!

Rosie: Yeah! These lovely people took me in because I just needed parts for my bike. They took me in, fed me, let me sleep in the spare room and then took me to the bike shop the next day and I got parts and then managed to get back on course. Unfortunately, I’d lost the pack and I haven’t done stacks of bikepacking before. Sorry, this all sounds like a bit of a disaster doesn’t it?

Rich: It’s a learning curve.

Rosie: Yeah, so I’ve always wanted to do lots of bikepacking but I’ve never had the confidence to go out alone. We don’t really get the chance to ride out alone because we’ve got three young boys so it’s quite tricky. I don’t know lots and lots of gravel riders so I thought well, sign up to Dales Divide and then at least you’ll be with other people. Even though you don’t know people, you won’t be wild camping on your own. So that was what pushed me to sign up initially and unfortunately I had a mechanical.

After I got going again, I ended up sort of near my brother’s house near York and kipped on his floor rather than using my tent because I couldn’t see anybody on the course or even on the shorter version of the course. So I spent a few hours on his floor and then got going the next day and tried to make my way north and I couldn’t find anybody and so I knew when to call it a day. There was a weather front coming in and it sounds a bit of a “big girl blouse” but yeah, there was a big weather front coming in…

FY: I’ve worked with riders that have done similar events as a coach and and there’s this kind of rose-tinted, Rapha-style, glamour of gravel and bike-packing but the reality of endurance… The clues in the name! It’s about enduring it, right? It’s going to be miserable and you’ve got to learn. The experience of outlasting that misery, enduring the misery is the whole name of it and the reality of it can get lost a little bit in some of the sepia-style black and white images of the romantic side of gravel riding. It’s tough and there’s no shame in having to be pragmatic. I know lots of really experienced riders that did Dales Divide this year and were in a really similar place because the conditions were tough and sometimes it’s out of your control.

You can listen to the interview on our podcast or watch it on YouTube. To read Parts 2 & 3 you can follow the links here:

Part 2 – Riding with Bike the UK for MS
Part 3 – Living with Multiple Sclerosis

The scenery of the Scottish Highlands never disappoints!

Cycling in the Highlands: Experience Scotland’s Natural Wonders on Two Wheels

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.
– Ernest Hemingway

It may be a well-used quote, but here at Bike the UK for MS we are bringing Hemingway’s words to life for you. Get to know the UK as it actually is by cycling the Scottish Highlands; an unforgettable place to explore and enjoy.

The Highlands of Scotland is the one place that features prominently in the memories of all our alumni. Acting as the grand crescendo of our 1000 mile Land’s End to John O’ Groats cycle ride and of course the star attraction of the North Coast 500 cycle route; the Highlands are a place like no other in the UK and possibly even the world.

Cycling the Wild Coast of the Scottish Highlands

The coasts of the Highlands bear hard-earned treasures. When you think of the Scottish coastline the first word that comes to mind is often “rugged”. Images of towering cliffs and crashing waves as the force of the Atlantic Ocean comes thundering into the British Isles. However, nestled within this brusque exterior hide the other extreme conditions that the coast of Scotland has to offer.

Remote, tranquil and storied coves and beaches. Refuges from a hectic modern life in the 21^st Century, but filled with a history of sanctuary from the threats of an outside world for those on the water and the land.

Notable highlights, such as Big Sand beach near Gairloch, are joined by the beaches at Scourie where the campsite for our riders sits right against the water’s edge. The quiet Berriedale, where you cross a narrow suspension footbridge to learn of the navigation beacons, standing high above you on the cliffs, that have guided ships returning from the open sea safely homeward.

The rugged coastal views you get to see when cycling in the Scottish Highlands.

Cycling Amongst Giants

No place in the UK can give you a sense of scale to match the Highlands of Scotland. We are fortunate to have the ability to enjoy exploring places that once acted as Mother Nature’s hostile barrier to all but the boldest.

Ben Hope towers above a rest stop in Tongue on the North Coast 500 cycle. Nearly 1000m high, in the far north of Scotland, it still inspires a mix of awe and mystery in a way that is impossible to replicate without experiencing it in person.

As you skirt your way around the peaks, through the valleys and glens that stand across the vast landscape like wide corridors in a country sized stately home, you can expect every distant horizon to hold new surprises. Not least the towering peaks of the Isle of Skye as you gaze across the water far below from the Applecross Pass – the wildest and most spectacular climb in the whole of Britain.

Cycling amongst giants in the Scottish Highlands on the North Coast 500 or NC500.

Beneath your wheels while cycling in the Highlands

For all that the surrounding landscapes inevitably catch the eye, a subtle treat is in store for those learning the Highlands’ crinkly contours by bike. The kind of treat that you first notice by the absence of one thing, before being able to savour what has replaced it.

A thin, snaking ribbon of tarmac. Winding away from your front wheel, off towards the distant sky and pointing you at yet-to-be-known experiences. Space to take a deep breath and really experience what it is to ride a bike. What it is to feel the gradient, up or down. The push of the wind, in support of your efforts or as an invisible challenge that you must find spirit from within to overcome.

Every bike ride is unique, but nothing is quite as unique as the Wee Mad Road; a rollercoaster of a journey taking you from the peak of what human engineering can achieve with the Kylesku Bridge. Immediately showing you that humanity is but a passenger on the wild planet beneath our wheels. What a privilege to sample some of what is normally reserved for “off the edge of the map”.

Above it All

Taking everything in while cycling in the Highlands is the theme of these words so far, but you must cast your eyes further still to capture it all. Daylight, taking you almost through the night with long, spectacular performances from the sun as it briefly leaves the stage at sunset, only to be replaced by light shows of a sky full of stars. Perhaps, even an aurora borealis if you have fortune on your side.

Distant beauty dovetails with the chance atmospheric blanket of mist where the world draws in close, creating the feeling of spooky isolation. Every sound is dulled to silence and the unknown of what hides beyond the murk is unknown. How better to experience the vastness of the universe than to have it re-revealed from behind the curtain of dense fog?

No better scenery in the UK to stop and enjoy on a bike ride.

The Scottish Highlands: Where the Wild Things Are

Mountains stand immovable and the sea reaches out endlessly, but blink and you might miss the dynamic movement of animal life in the Highlands. At the Falls of Shin, can you gaze down and spot a salmon making the leap against the rushing rapids? Did you catch that seal bobbing in and out of the rocks as you sit on the beach watching the seabirds dive into the waves?

Highland cows stoically standing as statues or lying aside the road as you pedal past. Deer bounding over the open moors, racing faster than a bike on the road. Cycling in the Highlands has enough to fill a camera roll on a phone or a highlight reel in the memory.

Join us for the Adventure

We will be in the Highlands on both our Land’s End to John O’Groats cycle, often known as LEJOG, in July 2024 and our North Coast 500 cycle, or NC500, in August. Cycle the Highlands with us and give yourself the ride that will last long in the memory; all whilst giving back to a great cause and supporting those living with multiple sclerosis.

There is no better way to enjoy everything that the Highlands of Scotland has to offer than with Bike the UK for MS. Our route leaders are there to support you and ensure that you can experience the best of what the Highlands has to offer. Your teammates will be there to share the experience with you and bring every moment to life. Time for a bike ride like no other?