seeing, cycling - thighs of steel

by Donald Harding

There always comes a point on a long hill climb when I click the shifter for an easier gear only to find that I’ve run out. I already know this of course. The switch into the last cog was about 5 km further down, but the painful effort to keep going has blurred the memory and pushing the lever is done without thinking, a reflex. Most mental activity now consists of willing myself onwards and rebuffing the quiet but deeply irritating voice in my head wondering when it will all end. But there’s always further to go and relief only comes when I finally stop pedalling at the top.

run out of gears…

A few summers ago, I was at the top of the Col du Tourmalet covered in salty sweat and looking back down at the grey winding thread I’d just cycled up. There were lots of cyclists and other tourists milling around, marvelling at the view. I was trying to make sense of what I was looking at; trying to replay every hard fought metre of road. But I was struggling, for although I had experienced the route and its scenery for over an hour and a half, I couldn’t really recall it, only certain passages came to mind, not the whole thing. And yet that’s not how my body felt. Aching legs and burning lungs had logged every inch travelled and I had a visceral memory more urgent and authentic than anything I could conjure in my mind as I stood there still panting in the morning sun.

Standing next to me was a guy who was taking it all in with a happy smile. I had seen him get out of his camper and walk to the edge. As our eyes swept the panorama, I listened to the jingling of his van keys and I started to wonder if we were looking at the same thing. We certainly were witnessing the same geographical features, but how did we perceive them? The mountain had taken something from me in exchange for the privilege of its vantage. Tired muscles and endorphins informed my experience of looking, the affable driver beside me, however, had reached this same spot after a very different journey. How could we look down at the switchbacks, grass verges and the distant valley floor, and see the same thing?

Col du Tourmalet

I don't know the answer to this, but my guess is that it is different, and that along with the others who had just ground themselves 1500m up the side of this col there was something shared and contingent in what we saw in the landscape we had just traversed.

For two weeks last summer I found myself sharing views in the Dolomites in Italy and the Dinaric Alps in Croatia with Thighs of Steel, a community of cyclists raising money in solidarity with refugees. Aside from the wry humour, ToS take their cycling pretty seriously, or they take their reason for cycling seriously. The group organise an 8 week/stage relay cycle from Glasgow to Athens to raise funds for grassroots refugee projects, and they’ve been doing this since 2016. Cyclists join for a week, pay a fee to cover their expenses and then are asked to raise a certain amount. It’s quite a challenge; wild camping and some rugged routes but I can say that it has been some of the most rewarding and pleasurable times I have had on a bike. I was part of the core team this time and that meant leading the cyclists on most days and, on others, driving ahead in a van to search for a wild camp spot by a lake or a river, cook dinner, and be ready to welcome some tired Thighs rolling in after a long day peddling.

No Borders

One of the ToS aims is to encourage inclusive can-do cycling, and their way of doing that is to foster the ethos of supportive mixed ability riding. The point is not to prove any physical prowess (although the mountains will always oblige) but to develop a spirit of mutuality so that even if you consider yourself a seasoned rouleur you might try to channel that strength into getting one or two others up over a mountain who perhaps have never cycled more than a few humps in Essex, or indeed are just having a bad day.

We cycled and lived cheek by jowl, and it was quite tough. Long consecutive days in the saddle, never knowing exactly where we’d camp until the guys in the van texted us a location in the afternoon: relieved to know we had a place to pitch our tents but gutted that there was still another 40k left and a couple of big hills to finish. When we got there, no hot showers but warm smiles from the ‘van team’ and always a fresh lake or river to wash in. The collective jeopardy of adventure, companionship on the long climbs and people finding hidden stores of energy fostered the can-do spirit over the week.

Home for the night

It took an effort to manage the differences in the group and make sure that everyone was OK, sometimes looping back to check on riders, (as others have done for me!) I often had to resist the urge to push on during a climb, or just generally to pick up the speed and get some miles in the bag! And I began to think that adapting my pace and way of cycling to accommodate the wide range of strengths in the group, in some faint way echoed what we were cycling for - a kind of accommodation of others, in this case migrants and refugees, and that someone’s (urgent) need might exceed one’s own desire; that none of us can journey alone without the help and support of others.

Fundamentally of course, it was a ride to raise funds, and the 2022 ride managed to raise over £100k and I was very happy to be a wee part of that. Riding out with all the ToS folk certainly has expanded my view of cycling, and what it can be. We rode our bikes up a mountain, and when we took in the view we saw a landscape different to the one we would have seen had we not got up there together.

Donald Harding

Gratitude to Hub Velo, Gary and Mike for the usual support and especially for getting the ToS spare bike serviced and ready for the 2022 Glasgow Athens ride. If you are interested in ToS and the 2023 ride, check them out here: https://www.thighsofsteel.com/