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
