LUCA Guest Blog: Amber Keegan
Thank you to Amber for writing a LUCA guest blog on her cycling 'failure' that turned out to be anything but. We truly appreciate Amber's honesty and we are sure that her blog will resonate with you, wherever you are at, in your cycling journey. We love how Amber practised self-compassion and gratitude despite a trying ride and initial disappointment, and that her love of cycling prevailed - and hopefully became even stronger! Enjoy reading Amber's blog.
Failing at my biggest cycle sportive event to date was the best day out. I failed at my second-ever cycling event and am kind of glad. Hear me out.
Some friends and I signed up for UKCE’s 100-mile ‘Peaks Tour’. We thought it would be a great adventure – unfamiliar roads in a familiar area, and a challenge to ride further than we ever had in the Peaks before.
Honestly, the ride was a beautiful disaster from the start. There was illness, injury and incompetence in our little group. The incompetence? That was me.
I checked my kit and bike before rolling to the start and everything was in order. Then, as we rolled in a big group over the start line I just couldn’t clip in. I felt like a horse pawing at the ground.
“Strange,” I thought. But it was a super icy day, and I just assumed I had ice on my cleat. 15 km later, I started to suspect that it wasn’t simply ice. Maybe I just had some rubbish in my cleat? I stopped at the side of the road to clear it out, and that’s when I realised there was nothing stuck, but it wasn’t going to clip back in. My cleat was completely broken. It was never clipping in again. RIP.
I didn’t have a spare cleat on me (funnily enough), but then I remembered that the event had mechanics. I started feeling smug; if this had been a normal Saturday ride I’d have had to limp home and sort it, but here I was getting free mechanic’s help (because I’d paid for the event, to be fair).
Upon calling them, they told me they could help, but to get the parts, the first feed station wasn’t until 60 km, or they could hop in a car and be there in 20 minutes. I knew if I held the group up for that long this early then we’d be struggling to make the time cut-off. “I’ll cycle to the feed station”, I declared, and so I did. Downhills (passing swiftly), hills (less fun with one wobbly foot), flats (infrequent).
We made it to the base of Mam Nick, and then up. It’s a beautiful, brutal, 2.1 km climb, with an average gradient of 10%. I love it. If you’re slow going up that hill, like I am, it gives you lots of time to gaze across the beautiful Edale Valley. On this day, in the crisp sun, it was particularly spectacular.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t actually enjoy the views because I was more focused on trying to keep my bike upright. Mam Nick is a tough nut at the best of times, and when putting decent force through my broken cleat my leg kept slipping off. I was like trying to run with one leg on stilts and one on the ground. But I made it.
Relieved to be at the top, I freewheeled down to my knights in shining armour (aka: the event mechanics). The problem was swiftly diagnosed: me. I hadn’t tightened my cleats enough, which apparently is a pretty common problem. Anyway, I felt like a fool, but it was swiftly fixed, with time to stuff my face with some food station cake before we continued.
I thought things could only be on the up from here, but injury and illness were like annoying little mosquitoes buzzing at my companions. I kept glancing at my Garmin. We’d signed up for 100 miles, confident of our pace. However, that pace didn’t account for mechanical, illness and injury. I wanted to push on, I wanted to put my foot down, we could make the cut-off still. But I also didn’t want to push anyone else into discomfort. After all, we entered this “to have fun”.
About 60 miles in, we realised we weren’t going to do what we set out to do. 100 miles was off the cards, we’d just been delayed too much. I was gutted. I can’t explain why in that moment it mattered so much. There was absolutely nothing riding on this. But somehow, to me, there was.
I’d committed to something and not succeeded. I’d failed. I was disappointed, frustrated, annoyed at the circumstances of the day.
And then I caught myself, and I was ashamed of feeling those emotions. What on earth did I have to be frustrated about? I was surrounded by people I cared about, with stunning scenery, dry skies and winter sun. We’d had our trials, but despite that, we were still capable of riding our bikes in pretty places, and that was such a privilege. Why was I bothered by what the number on Strava said at the end of the day?
With our original mission officially failed, we circled back on the 75-mile route and eased our pace. With no reason clock watch anymore, we paid more attention to the scenery instead. We soaked in more sun and more of the views. It was bliss.
And I realised, that as nice as it would have been to do 100 miles in our backyard playground of the Peak District, our delays had ultimately meant I gained more lovely memories than I would have done if we’d been head down, rushing to keep up with our 100-mile timeline.
