Adventures so far

Shortly after my record attempt in the Indian Himalaya, I headed to the French Alps for racing down a 3330m glacier on my mountain bike. I hadn’t ridden my MTB for two months at this point. Talk about jumping into the deep end!

This route from the foothills to the heart of the Himalayas spans across 470km, with an average altitude of 3500m. The mountain passes along the way range between 4000m and 5300m. The total elevation gain is over 8700m. It took me 51 hours 49 mins to cycle this distance. I broke the record by a fair few hours.

An east to west crossing of Svalbard on skis. This expedition was carried out through Newland Expeditions.

In November 2021, I organised UK’s first downhill race for adaptive mountain bikers. This was in aid of my friend Casey Gemma who became paralysed in an unfortunate mountain biking accident. This race was attended by over 170 people and nearly 25% of the field consisted of women. The event went really well and we raised nearly £5000 for spinal cord research and recovery causes.

Put together a 1000km bike packing route called “Just Around The Corner” to explore the best of South West England on a bike. Along the way, there are several excellent wild swimming spots, remote wild camping spots, fun gravel paths and quiet country roads. Crossing all Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and both the big National Parks in the South West region, this is a route that offers many adventurous possibilities along the way. More information on the link here.

Dropped out of uni to set up a business in Expedition Management (www.theadventureshed.com )

What should’ve been a great race in the Tien Shan mountains, turned out to be a disqualification when I went over the handlebars on my way to the start line of Silk Road Mountain Race. Not quite an adventure that I had in mind. But a great lesson in solving my problems as and when they occur rather than putting them off.

I rode 18000 miles around the world in 159/160 days. I was 19 when I started, 20 when I finished. I was riding solo and unsupported for most of the ride. Everything that I was and wasn’t prepared for went wrong- visa issues, tracker issues, stomach bugs, being chased by a bear, lung infection due to forest fires, weird stalkers, getting hit by a minibus during a storm in Iceland, being mugged at knifepoint, getting a bad case of concussion, riding through that injury, not-so-well-prepared winter halfway across Russia, sunburnt and blister-riddled ride across India. I was aiming for 300km or over each day. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. I was also aiming to be the fastest woman to do this sorta thing. That didn’t happen either. Instead, as far as I’m aware, I reckon I’m the youngest woman to circumnavigate the world on bicycle. The highlight of the journey was most certainly all those amazing people that I met along the way. Absolute life-savers! And that person who gave me 2kg of grapes when I was facing a tough patch across the Prairies? YOU LEGEND!

I was forced to pull out 350km into the ride. I had a knee injury. So, I took a few days off, got back on the bike from where I had been DNF’d and completed the 1400km journey in my own time, whilst nursing my knee. I thought "sleeping less” was part of the deal with an event like LEL, so I tried to do it with as little sleep as I could. It was miserable! I didn’t realise that if I wasn’t in the actual event, I didn’t need to be sleep-deprived. Somehow it felt like I was keeping with the spirit of the event! Ahhhh kids!

Introduction to Bikepacking. I rode around a thousand miles from Bournemouth to John O’Groats. At the time, I didn’t know that what I was doing is called “bikepacking” or that it is “adventurous”. I didn’t know much about the British culture. I knocked on strangers’ doors and I was welcomed with open arms. I didn’t carry a sleeping bag with me and slept under bus shelters across the country where I couldn’t afford checking into a hotel/hostel. I think it took me two and a half weeks. A journey that marked the beginning of something amazing!

When I was 17, I rode an 800km route from Manali to Drass via Leh, a city in Ladakh region. One of the highlights from this was getting to ride up Khardung La- a mountain pass at over 5300m, also known as the highest motorable road in the world.