Life in Lockdown - Losing Long Distance (Grace Lambert-Smith)

Life in Lockdown - Losing Long Distance

By Grace Lambert-Smith

In many ways, the last six weeks have recalibrated my ‘important to me’ list, which in itself has been an adventure within my four walls. I had a whole calendar of events lined up on the bike: a 1000km audax in May followed by a 1000km two-up in the north with my friend Jane just a couple of weeks later. The year would peak in the Pyrenees in June where I’d navigate myself from one end of the range to the other. And after all of that, I’d probably settle on a beach somewhere for a few days. I couldn’t wait, except I’ll have to now.

In January, I completed a goal I’d been chasing for twelve months by riding the final 200km ride of my Randonneur Round the Year. I felt so strong, invincible almost. I was ready for whatever the rest of 2020 threw at me.

Of course, I wasn’t.

With a calendar now devoid of excitement and friends in faraway places with whom I am unable to ride, I had to re-evaluate. What do I want to get out of this year? What can I do in place of the events I was so desperately looking forward to? I had waited so long to do these rides and now they had been snatched from my reach.

Cue the community.

It turns out that I’m a member of a wonderful bunch of like-minded people who crave the same things I do. Very quickly, there were suggestions of backyard campouts and urges to ride local lanes I previously omitted from my loops. I turned left where I’d previously turned right, I took the gravel road where I’d usually continue on the tarmac and I pitched up to join a night of others sleeping under the stars.

My physically distant friends have actually become socially closer: I’ve never had so many video calls and flurries of messages between friends I’d usually chat to on a maybe monthly basis. Life just gets in the way, y’know? While social media has always played a fairly important part in my (social) life, it’s become a lifeline.

A couple of weeks into lockdown, I began to feel less confident in myself: my fitness felt like it was deteriorating and my cycling clothes were reaching their lycra limits. Jane offered me a free trial to a virtual cycling platform, and with only perhaps a couple of kilos to lose but mental and physical strength to gain, I took her up on it.

Since then, we’ve become closer friends, bonding over our shared pain before, during and after a turbo session. We’ve created fictitious events in our calendars to build up to in hopes they’ll be realised. We want to ride together, laugh and enjoy these hopefully-happening weekends away but we also want to ride hard and feel strong.

Jane’s much more disciplined than me, but I think our virtual partnership has helped us both. It’s made me more accountable, it’s given me someone to talk to on a near daily basis and the would-be events are something to look forward to. As she lives alone, I hope I’ve been able to provide a good ear for listening and my clown-like humour that tends to accompany it.

I’ve also spent an hour every couple of weeks co-hosting Audax chats with Liam Fitzpatrick who rallied around to find a panel of guests each week. We grab a beer, sit in the garden and fifty or so fellow audax riders join in for a chat. On the surface, it’s a screen full of faces but more than that, these are the people I’d expect to share a wheel with, the people who might lend me £1 if I fall short at a cafe and the people who’d wait for me while I fix a flat at 2 o’clock in the morning.

Don’t get me wrong, I desperately miss the human contact of riding bikes, calling in at the cafe, eavesdropping on conversations in the street. I mourn the events that have been cancelled but more so than I realised before these ‘uncertain times’ I miss the company. I miss racking my bike up next to someone else’s, I miss the simultaneous clipping-in sound at the start of a ride, I miss the cackles of laughter at silly place names and the sighs of frustration at elusive information controls.

I always thought I was quite introverted prior to lockdown, but perhaps I’m realising that I’m more of a social butterfly than I care to admit. I don’t mind my own company: I’ve done plenty of solo rides before now and I’ll certainly do more I’m sure but for at least the foreseeable, I’ll be putting more emphasis on riding with my friends, maintaining my training plan catch ups with Jane and forging new friendships through mutual affection for riding bikes.

Grace Lambert-Smith

Grace is a rider with a propensity for long-distance audax events, cycle tours and anything in between. Having completed a Randonneur Round the Year and PBP in 2019, she's looking forward to discovering whatever's next on the long ride ahead...preferably with her friends.

Find Grace on socials @thisisgrace_ and catch up with her blog here.