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.
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.
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
