A Midlife Cyclist

by Rachel Ann Cullen

  ‘We’ve been going out doing forty-mile training rides most weekends, haven’t we, Mark?’ one of the non-Scots says, as though that’s within my sphere of knowledge. I gulp, knowing the furthest I have ever ridden on a mountain bike in one go is circa twenty miles. Even then, I stopped midway for a prolonged lunch break and to give my nether regions a chance to recover – and just to cry.

  ‘Well, I’m more of a runner than a rider, to be honest,’ I reply, feeling like I need to firmly put down my anchor that I-AM-NOT-A-CYCLIST-AND-I-HAVEN’T-TRAINED-FOR-THIS. Non-Scot and Mark are best friends from back home, and most weekends they go out riding on their mountain bikes together. Their respective wives are familiar with this – the Boys’ Annual Cycling Adventure (they did the ‘Cycle India’ challenge last year, I learn) – and I soon discover that this is true for many others in the group. It sounds like a grown-up version of a lads’ holiday to me, with a few mountain bikes thrown in for good measure: the WAGS are back at home, happily choosing not to take part in this ridiculous challenge. I wonder if I’d do the same, given the option.

  It causes me to take another look at the women on this trip, and I begin to see us all in a completely new light: there are only five of us in a group four times the size and as a collective, we hardly resemble a group of serious cycling enthusiasts. There is every possible age, size and body shape amongst us, with support bras, wobbly bits and all. And three out of the five women are *older*, by which I mean over the age of fifty. Sure, there’s Sally, the confident young lawyer from Norwich who is on best terms with Mount Kilimanjaro, has rowed competitively down at the Henley Regatta, and who – enviably – has no need for either a reinforced sports bra or support-panelled pants. Then there’s me – an undeniably long-limbed, thirty-nine-year-old half-decent runner with a fair number of marathons under my belt. But none of us look like we are even likely to put ourselves forward for a challenge like this. Have we turned up to the wrong adventure, by mistake? It’s entirely conceivable that someone amongst us pressed ‘ENTER’ on their keypad at precisely the wrong moment, by which time they’d committed to something far removed from the more appropriate entry-level trekking adventure. Taking the ‘appearances-can-be-deceptive’ caveats aside, it’s still a fact that two out of three of the women on this trip who are over fifty have already taken part in an epic cycling adventure of some description. Both Julie and Veronica (no doubt accompanied by her Ironman husband) have completed far-flung cycling expeditions abroad, and the classic London-to-Paris bike ride challenge back home. So, I must presume that they both have cycling knowledge, confidence and fitness that belies my rather naive first impressions. And as I said earlier, appearances can be deceptive.

  Once I’m familiar with the depth and breadth of cycling experience of seemingly every other participant on this trip, I begin to shift my focus to the cycling challenge itself. And the reality is very simple: I haven’t trained much for this trip at all. Sure enough, I’ve hopped aboard both my sturdy Trek and my lighter-framed Scott road bike many times since the embryonic emergence of Rach the Rider, but my twelve-mile rides to and from my mum’s house, plus the more ambitious sixteen-mile journey across the local hills to my hairdresser’s and back home again just doesn’t come anywhere close to the kind of distances, time on the saddle, or terrain I should now be familiar with in preparation for this trip.

  I remember the grading of the challenge: EXTREME. Would I don my skis and throw myself down a black run without undertaking any training, or building my experience on the gentler, safer green and red runs first? NO! So why then – WHY – have I leap-frogged the sensible, progressive stepping-stones, and gone straight for the toughest international cycling challenge this tour company offers? Once again, asking myself these questions is of little use. I am here now, and I must accept the fact that no amount of self-berating or name-calling will change any aspect of this trip. I must simply suck up the fact that I can’t do anything about the training I haven’t done: I just need to get on a bike and pedal … and keep pedalling until I’m told to stop.

  Finally, we get our first glimpse of the Trek mountain bikes we’ll shortly be riding. They are all identical – a garish, light chameleon green colour – and they are stacked on top of the minibus, which will be our virtual mobile home for the coming ten days. Well, almost – except for our sleeping arrangements, for which we have various floor surfaces and tarpaulin covers available. This bus will be our lifeline. It will follow us along the passable sections of the route (which worries me greatly – because why on earth would any section be impassable?!), it will carry all our water, food, and any emergency supplies we will need; it will pick us up at the end of the day’s riding (if we don’t finish cycling at precisely the point where we will drop to the ground and fall asleep, that is), it will carry the weary and those who are simply unable to go on, if the riding becomes too much, or if someone becomes ill or otherwise incapacitated whilst on the trip. It will meet us at various points en route – roughly every fifteen to twenty kilometres – to provide us with much-needed water refills and snacks. The driver of the minibus is called Coco and will become our saviour over the coming days. We already love Coco, as we understand perfectly that he is now a key part of our survival.

  Our guide Sam shouts out above the excitable cycling chatter as we’re boarding the bus: ‘We’ll shortly be arriving at our camp for tonight. When we get there, you’ll each need to find your bikes so we can make sure they’re properly fitted. We’ve got an early start in the morning, so any problems will need sorting out tonight.’

  An acknowledging murmur passes through the bus and a heady mix of travel fatigue and building excitement is making the group swing from long silences to sudden bursts of hysteria as the cockney boys joke about all the mishaps we’ve encountered thus far. Meanwhile, I ponder over Sam’s instructions and wonder what ‘our camp for tonight’ might be. It isn’t a hotel, we know that with absolute certainty. But what will it be like? I’ve heard of glamping, and I’m kind of hoping there will be some elements of relative luxury, such as hot, running water, perhaps even on-site hair straighteners? Also, I’m wondering about our ‘early start’ in the morning. We’re already completely exhausted after what feels like an eternity of botched travel plans, so what time will we be roused? Six-thirty is my worse-case scenario guestimation. I’m not on my own wondering about this and one of the Scots asks Sam that very question.

  ‘OK, guys, I know this comes as a bit of a shock, but we’ve got a long day of riding ahead of us tomorrow, because we’ve already missed a day,’ Sam explains, laying the groundwork for managing our expectations. ‘So, if we can be up for 4:30 a.m., get a quick breakfast, and be away for 5 a.m. at the latest, we should catch up on some of the mileage we’ve missed.’

  Four-thirty in the morning? That’s the middle of the night! WTAF?

  The bus falls stony silent, which is only broken by the first mutters and grumblings in protest at this unwelcome news. Eyes meet each other in recognition of the reality we are now facing. As I sit and stare out of the bus window into the darkness, I can see little more than the outline of my own reflection – that is, a featureless face, two limp plaits and a baseball cap – but I don’t care about that. I’m so tired. It feels like days since I had a shower, slept on a bed – or just slept at all. Night has long since fallen in Costa Rica, and we are now on the final leg of our journey to the start of our cycling adventure – an irony which isn’t at all lost on me. When did we leave home? I’m already struggling to remember. It’s pitch-black outside, and we are yet to arrive at our base for the night. We must then claim our bikes, have them fitted, locate a tent (which – we’ve been told as though it’s any kind of luxury – have already been erected for us) and collapse into it, only to wake a few hours later.

  Coco slows our minibus down. We turn a series of corners, and the streets become narrower until eventually we come to a stop. Floodlights illuminate a small, gated square of Astroturf on which are pit
ched eight or maybe nine two-man canvas tents. This IS NOT a campsite, I know that for a fact. And my dreams of a luxury glamping experience are suddenly shot to pieces.

  ‘Lads, it’s a five-a-side football pitch!’ one of the cockney boys calls out in hysteria to the rest of the bus, just in case we couldn’t see that for ourselves. I look out of the window and can’t quite comprehend the scene as we pile out of the bus, and are told to go and claim one of the small tents on the fake grass. We stand around in awkward clumps pondering on this – the first night of our adventure – as Coco and his helpers begin to unload the bikes from the roof of the bus.

  ‘This is it, then,’ I say to my Other Half, who is trying to capture snapshots of the surreal scene on his iPhone. ‘I guess this is what we’d better get used to for the next ten days.’

  * * *

  There’s a steady hum of activity across the Astroturf pitch as people lug enormous bags – plus themselves – into two-man tents, inflate ineffective sleeping mats, and rustle around to locate dissected bicycle parts, which will all need fitting to our standard-issue chameleon-green Trek mountain bikes. Some have brought along special bar ends designed for increased comfort over long-duration rides (who knew?), whilst others have their well-worn seats and beloved clip-in pedals. I didn’t end up dismantling my Trek bike in the end, figuring any slight tweaks to the ‘no-frills’ mountain bikes provided are unlikely to make a shit of a difference to either my riding ability or comfort levels on this trip – I chose to bring my fluffy pillow along, instead.

  I locate my bike, and I warm to her immediately. She’s a Trek, just like my 2010 model back home. It feels like a small blessing. I hear others grumbling about how ‘basic’ the bikes are, and how ‘heavy’ they feel, but I breathe a sigh of relief because at least she feels familiar to me. Whilst she may be a few pounds heavier and possibly slightly chunkier than I’d like – I’d rather that she felt vaguely recognisable to me, in a simplistic ‘I-think-I-know-how-to-ride-you’ kind of way. That’s good enough for now.

  I sit on her as we’ve been instructed to for the fitting, and the seat needs raising a little. I have a mini ‘YAY ME!’ moment when I realise that (a) I know how to do that; and (b) I even have the correct Allen key to do the job myself. I dig around in the bottom of my awkwardly-shaped bright orange travel rucksack for my multi tool, and make the necessary adjustments.

  I’m thrilled. Maybe I’m not such a gatecrasher at this party after all …

  Our bikes have been fitted – or at the very least, my seat has been raised two inches – and I have successfully wobbled around two laps of the prickly Astroturf. And so, we begin the task of sorting out our tent for the night.

  ‘There isn’t room for both of us and our two enormous travel bags in here!’ I plead helplessly to my Other Half, who is busy wrestling with himself inside his crumpled sleeping bag as though he were secured inside a straitjacket. Tiredness has overwhelmed me, and I simply can’t process all the anxieties now convulsing in my head. It feels as though this trip is forcing me to come face-to-face with absolutely EVERY FEAR I could possibly imagine. If I were to sit down with a clear head (as opposed to the one I currently have: a travel-and-anxiety-induced fatigued one) and list them all, they may look something like this:

  (1) SLEEP DEPRIVATION

  Tiredness is something I struggle to cope with. It’s for this reason that most nights I go to bed around 9:30 p.m. and I don’t drink coffee after 2 p.m. I’m horrified when MasterChef is scheduled for 9 p.m. (which, BTW, is the watershed for my bedtime), although the modern-day concept of BBC iPlayer is a revelation for which somebody, somewhere, should be awarded a Nobel Prize.

  Waking up after a bad night’s sleep is a huge cause for concern, because tiredness seems to exacerbate all my mental health woes, rather like the effect of alcohol (I remember this from the days of combining my mental health medication with vast quantities of cheap white wine …).

  Extreme tiredness makes my body dysmorphic disorder symptoms more severe, whilst at the same time reducing my SWAT team’s ability to identify interpretation traps and deal with any potentially damaging thoughts. Looking back at my early BDD diary entries, they are littered with concerns about my ‘looking tired’ and having ‘dark circles under my eyes’ – these being things which my warped, unruly Chimp would have me believe make me look ‘ugly’. Tiredness also increases my levels of anxiety more generally. A small, niggling worry can quickly turn into a vast, sprawling panic as my mind is simply too fatigued to consider the possibility of perspective, and I can’t muster the energy to offer a more reasoned, logical explanation.

  My inability to handle a lack of sleep is also one of the main reasons why I have dragged my soft, fluffy pillow over 5,000 miles from the UK to Costa Rica. So, in summary, I need my sleep.

  (2) SOCIAL ANXIETY

  Meeting new people is hard work. Don’t get me wrong, I like meeting new people and I can be – ironically – very sociable, but I’m also an introvert. I find that the effort I need to maintain my levels of interest in casual chit-chat and social interaction is disproportionate to that of those people at the more extroverted end of the personality scale. This comes as a surprise to some, who see me doing an extremely good job of disguising the fact. I’m genuinely interested in new people; I love to hear their stories, and to discover what we may – or may not – have in common, but I also find it exhausting. I can dip in and out of the social butterfly role with great success, but I’m not one to languish there. When social fatigue kicks in, I need to retreat and find my own space. I crave peace and stillness as a counterbalance to the small talk and banter I’ve been exposed to. Rather like radiation, too much of it can be harmful.

  On this trip, there may not be a single moment when I can withdraw from the radioactive chatter, whether that is travelling on the minibus, refuelling at meal times, preparing our tents for the night, or even whilst riding the fucking bikes! Unlike running, riding is well known for being a more ‘sociable’ activity, in the sense that it is entirely possible – and even probable – for folk to chatter whilst riding along together, especially in a group such as this. But this worries me greatly, because I cannot imagine anything worse than a 5 a.m. breakfast filled with tales of ‘When I cycled across India …’ followed by four hours riding alongside someone quizzing me about various aspects of my personal life, including my recent cycling experiences, or lack thereof. My ‘Yeah, I rode fifteen miles to my hairdresser’s the other week’ response may sound rather lame to someone who has frequently undertaken forty-five-mile training rides in the Peak District and is on first-name-terms with Mount Kilimanjaro.

  (3) BDD ‘EXPOSURE THERAPY’ CHALLENGES TO RIVAL ALL OTHERS

  ‘Is there a shower on site, Sam?’ I ask our magnanimous guide, who now has the look of someone being beaten by life. He’s had a far more stressful fifty-plus hours than even we have, and it shows. He replies saying that no, sadly, there isn’t a shower here at the Costa Rican five-a-side football pitch. Of course not! Well, there is a small, dirty room the size of a broom cupboard around the back of the Astroturf pitch, where a dirty, wall-mounted pipe will dribble a steady flow of cold water, if that constitutes a shower – which I conclude it does, around here.

  ‘Just make sure none of the water gets in your mouth!’

  Sam follows up his immediate response with a health and safety warning.

  Where are my home comforts? When will I next have a warm shower – or a bubble bath – and wash my hair? When will I be able to take steps to remove the chip-shop layer of filth from my entire body, which has now become a standard that I’m getting used to? If nothing else, it makes plaiting my hair a lot easier, as the strands are caked in a natural lubricant with absolutely no risk of ‘flyaway’ or static. I feel like a smack addict going cold turkey with the sudden and absolute removal of all basic grooming products, including a hair dryer and straighteners, or even a hair brush. Oh, and mirrors (at least ones I can see myself in – bus
windows at dusk don’t count). Come to think of it, has Dr G planned this trip for me as part of the follow-up assessment to his online BDD therapy treatment? I can’t help but wonder …

  (4) PLANS AND ITINERARIES BEING SHOT TO PIECES

  I was nervous enough about this trip before everything went to shit and flights were cancelled, scattering the group far across the planet from Mexico and Panama to Bogota and – eventually – Costa Rica. It’s funny how a sudden and unexpected change of plan can cause such a feeling of discomfort. Plans and itineraries, lists and schedules, all help me to mentally prepare myself for whatever lurks around the corner. I guess it’s akin to pacing myself for a race: I wouldn’t dream of running a marathon without mentally going through the steps of reaching miles 5, 10, 13, 19 and 26, first.

  How will I feel at those points? What will my pacing be like? How can I expect to be handling things, physically and mentally? When am I likely to feel good? And not-so-good? What about nutrition? Where are the most critical, vulnerable sections going to be, and how can I prepare myself for those?

  I had worked through this process ahead of this trip. In my mind, I had visualised the journey from my own front door, driving to Manchester airport and flying to Heathrow, waiting to fly across to Amsterdam, and then the long-haul reality of a journey thousands of miles to a country I didn’t even realise was in Central America. I had contemplated what the more frustrating, tiring elements of that itinerary might be. I had worked through the inevitability of waiting in various airport lounges, and the discomfort of being incarcerated in a small airplane seats with little leg room for ‘X’ number of hours. I’d even come to terms with the absence of any home comforts, or mirrors, for that period. Accepting that I would be TRAVELLING … A LONG WAY … and that I would BECOME TIRED and possibly INCREASINGLY ANXIOUS was something I had processed with the itinerary printed out in black-and-white, and laid out in front of me. But this no longer exists. It hasn’t existed since approximately 7:35 a.m. on the very first morning in Heathrow airport’s Terminal 4, at which point it felt like reaching the start of a marathon only to be told that (a) the start time has changed; (b) the route is no longer as advertised; and (c) it isn’t a marathon at all. In fact, the precise distance is yet to be confirmed, but it could be anything ranging from 26.2 miles to 56 … and back again.