by Maghalie Rochette

When I close my eyes, many memories from the last 10 days pop up in my head. I see the yellow and green country roads of Ireland. I see the pink heather flowers spreading infinitely and surrounding tiny single track at the top of Scottish hills. I think of the many pastries we fuelled on during our bike packing trip. The muddy, rooty, mossy, and loamy trails of the Marathon MTB World Championships. Moments with friends…All of it adding up to create a wonderful, happy picture in my mind!

So much happened in this small amount of time, yet, each day was so filled with enriching experiences that it feels like we left weeks ago! As we are on our way back home, I find myself reflecting on all of this, and I feel motivated for what is to come. After a Spring and early summer plagued by injury, I feel like this trip has given us a lot of momentum for what’s ahead!

Part 1: Getting to the race (Bike packing from Dublin to Edinburgh)
Our adventure started in the rain of Dublin, Ireland. We packed our bikes with our seat packs and handlebar bags, left our cardboard boxes at the airport, and started pedalling North towards Belfast. Our two days of riding in Ireland taught us why Ireland is known for its rainbows and green hills. The intermittent rain and sun episodes create the perfect conditions for this environment to flourish. We loved the riding, and learned that although we know this land for its tea, Irish people are also very proud of their coffees, and we enjoyed a few good ones along the way. The highlight for me, in terms of riding, was the day we rode up, over, and through the Mourne Mountains, and dropped down from the top towards the sea. The views were outstanding and it felt special to ride in this mountain range!

Day 3 and 4 of our bike packing trip were in Scotland. We started day 3 started with a ferry from Belfast to Scotland, and we instantly felt the magic of this place upon arrival. Scotland has a “free to roam” law (The Land Reform Act); which basically states that everyone is allowed to ride/walk everywhere, on all properties. This creates incredible routing opportunities, and I feel like we made the most of it by taking up a lot of off road paths on our route. Personally, the riding in Scotland might have been the best I’ve ever experienced. The narrow quiet roads were a highlight, but what stands out the most in my mind were the few mountain passes we got to climb and ride through. Up there, with no signalisation or sign of life except for sheep, and with the pink, granite, green, and purple color pallet of the mountains, it was easy to feel a sense of adventure. A sense of being out in the wild, and experiencing nature on our bikes. After 4 days and 506km of road and mountain bike riding, we made it to Edinburgh, our final bike packing destination.

The whole point of this trip was to ride to the World Championships, where I would participate in the Marathon and the E-MTB races. But let's be honest, this was the premise, and the adventure was about way more than that!

For me, every time I get to do a trip like that on my bike, I am reminded of how much I love to ride my bike. I find that riding a bike to get places is an incredibly fulfilling and enriching way to travel. The bike is a conversation opener to meet locals and ask about their culture. The pace is fast enough to see many things, yet slow enough to feel them. There is an irresistible simplicity to the days: wake up, have breakfast, pack your bike with your very few possessions, and hit the road to ride all day until you go to bed. This simplicity reminds me to live in the present and appreciate every moment, it makes me feel alive!

Part 2: Racing the World Championships
Now, there was an interesting contrast in this way of preparing for the World Championships compared to what I usually do. Normally, my preparation lasts for months, increasing in focus and intensity every week as we get closer to the race, fine tuning every details to squeeze out the most out of my fitness an mindset on that day. This time, I came in with a subpar fitness, and smashed a 30h week of bike packing adventure before jumping into a race. Definitely not an optimal way to perform in normal times…but weirdly, it felt very optimal this time. Of course, coming back from injury, my goals were different, I wasn’t expecting for myself to fight for the win in the Marathon, rather I mostly wanted to have a solid day on the bike, give my best effort, and use it as training. But somehow, the bike packing adventure gave me confidence in my fitness; I felt strong during the trip even carrying 30lbs of stuff on my bike. Above all, I think I was so happy and high on life that it was hiding the fatigue, and made me excited to push hard and ride well in the race. I was also stoked to ride my mountain bike on fun trails WITHOUT the weight of the bags, and simply shred and climb fast.

This is exactly what happened. The Marathon was 97km km of dirt roads, single track, forest roads, and double tracks around the Tweed Valley of Scotland. Honestly, this was the most fun mountain bike course I have ever ridden. I would go back to do it again. As predicted, my fitness wasn’t top…but knowing that, I decided to respect myself and be more conservative in the beginning. That allowed me to ride a high tempo all day and be able to enjoy all the trails, without completely blowing up too early. I ended up riding pretty steady for the 5h45 minutes of the race, with the last hour being a bit of a death march to the finish line. I finished muddy, cold, completely cracked, hungry, and so happy! As hard as it was, I'm honest when I say I enjoyed every minutes (except maybe some minutes on the last hour): the trails, the views, the downhills, the people cheering, working with/against my competitors was simply too fun!

I mentioned earlier that this Spring had been tough…to be honest, my last good (awesome!) racing experience goes back to the Cyclocross World Championships in February. This Spring, the few races I tried to do all left a sour taste in my mouth, bringing no joy, no elation, no excitement…Now I understand that part of it was due to having so much pain in my back. So having such a blast pushing myself and racing in the Marathon meant the world to me. It was such a positive experience, and exactly what I needed to build momentum towards the rest of the season.

I was supposed to race the E-MTB race two days later, but I decided that morning not to participate. I had not had a chance to try the E-bike until the day before the race. The course was super challenging, and e-bikes are powerful machines that ride differently. With so little time to get accustomed to the new motor, and with a challenging course, I felt uncomfortable jumping into a World Championships race, and opted to not take any risk. The cyclocross season is coming, and at this point, I don't want to risk any injury.

Despite doing one less race than planned, I’m leaving Scotland with my heart full, my legs and body fitter than when we left, and my mind excited for what is to come. We discovered a cycling heaven in Scotland and I will definitely go back to explore more. Above all, I feel like I connected more deeply with my love for the bike.

I couldn’t be more grateful!

Now, we race a gravel event tomorrow at home***

***Turns out that never sent from the plane! So now we are Sunday, we've done the Skills Clinic at the gravel event and rode the gravel event already. It was awesome. I didn't "race" it per se, but instead used the opportunity to connect with the local community at this amazing event, The Big Red Gravel run.Full gas CX training starts tomorrow. I'm ready for it!

Cheers and thanks for following :)

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