The Quiet Joy of Learning to Cycle Late
A reflection on sport, ego, privilege, and rediscovering curiosity
When I started running, there was barely any buzz around it. If I told people I ran, the response was curiosity—why would you do it, and how? There was no culture attached to it, no sense of relevance. Today, running feels like another trend the younger generation has latched onto. Relevance, it seems, has become a lifeline we’re all holding on to.
I think about this often when I reflect on sport itself. Cycling, especially in its current form, feels like an extremely privileged space. When equipment can amplify or cancel out an individual’s strength, something about the idea of sport begins to shift.
Sport, at its purest, should be the greatest leveler—where effort, intent, and resilience matter more than access, affordability, or gear.
I grew up as a kid who never cycled. What followed were years—decades—of questions.
“You don’t know how to cycle?”
“How will you take your girlfriend out if you can’t ride?”
“How will you take your girlfriend out if you can’t ride?”
Mostly asked by men. Always said with judgment. How can you not know cycling?
For a long time, my biggest agenda was simply to get past this. To erase that gap. And when I finally did, I found something unexpected—a childlike curiosity.
Learning something I “should have” learned years ago, but learning it now brought the same excitement as a kid discovering balance for the first time. No ego. Just wonder.
I grew into cycling through fascination. Watching the Tour de France, in awe of riders like Vingegaard and MVDP, and the absurd limits of the human body.
But when I did my first bikepacking trip, it barely qualified by conventional standards—about 130 kilometres spread over three days.
The longest day was 58 kilometres, a distance many would call a casual morning ride. But distance was never the point.
The rides would start late, around 9 a.m. I hate early mornings. We’d wrap up by two, pitch the tent, look for food nearby, and sit through sunsets—rather than ride endlessly as if there was something to prove.
There was no point to prove. No rush to sprint.
That is the idea of cycling I want to hold on to — not as a sport to optimise, but as a way to arrive, at places, at moments, and sometimes to myself.