Jenny Graham
The fastest woman to cycle around the world on overcoming her fears, cycling through a herd of bison and making adventure accessible
Cyclist: How did you get into cycling?
Jenny Graham: I wasn’t into sports as a kid. I liked riding my bike and getting muddy, but I didn’t know cycling was a sport. I was in the Army Cadets, so I knew that I liked being outside, staying up all night and not knowing how the night was going to end.
I had my son Lachlan when I was really young, so it wasn’t until he went to school that I did an outdoors pursuits course at Inverness College and I found mountain biking. My first rides were small and local but they would blow my mind, and I just kept cycling further. I spent a good ten years mountain biking without thinking about anything else. Then there was a road bike for sale in a local cafe and I’d been thinking about getting a road bike to train on, so I sold one of my mountain bikes and bought it. It really wasn’t a great bike and it was far too big for me, but I loved it. I couldn’t believe the miles I could ride on it. Going from mountain biking to doing back-toback 100 miles a day, it was awesome.
Cyc: How did you end up cycling 29,633km (18,413 miles) around the world in just 124 days?
JG: It was one of those things where certain aspects of your life just begin to align. I knew that as Lachlan was growing up there would be a point where I would be able to do some of the big adventures I was thinking about, and it felt like that point was getting closer. I was clocking up lots of miles and I’d been building up resilience.
Then I went away on an Adventure Syndicate training camp in 2017 and met John Hampshire, a professional endurance coach. He gave me my first ever coaching experience and, after the camp, offered me a year’s free coaching. That’s how cycling around the world came about.
Cyc: What were some of the testing things you saw on your trip?
JG: Obviously I love the wild, but in Scotland we don’t have any predators, so I didn’t realise quite how wary of certain animals I was. Like the bears in Alaska – they were really scary. They’d appear as the sun went down, when I still needed to ride for another three or four hours in the dark. The roads were so quiet. It was just me and the bears. But at the time I was so tired it was hard to be rational about fear.
Coming down the Yukon I rode through a herd of bison at night. I was right in the middle of the herd before I even realised. All I could do was pick my way through these massive animals and try not to panic. I was really lucky to get away with that.
My brain also played a lot of tricks on me. In Mongolia I thought I saw a large rock on the side of the road, but it was actually a camel. In Nova Scotia, Canada, I let my guard down completely and I was sleeping in the bushes. I saw this thing in front of me and my brain was like, ‘Oh, is that a bungee cord?’ Then I suddenly realised it was this massive snake. Luckily it was dead. I’m absolutely petrified of snakes.
Cyc: Where do you get the mental strength to take on such a mammoth challenge?
JG: For me it’s all about the way you look at an issue. If you’re telling yourself it’s miserable and are seeing all these negatives, you’ll find it 100 times harder than it has to be. That’s not something I have to try very hard at because I tend to naturally think positively, and I don’t often feel that I’m suffering. Of course, there are times where things get bad, so I use music, storytelling or just about anything really to bring me out of my head and block out those thoughts.
It also doesn’t take very much to perk me up – a simple thing like warming my hands up with a hand dryer in a public toilet helps no end.
I’m probably a connoisseur of public toilets as I’ve spent so much time in them. I know exactly what I’m looking for when I find one – a changing unit, hand dryer, radiator, hot water, window, and if the actual toilet is separate from the ‘living space’.
As I was riding around the world, it became apparent it was less about the cycling and more about how I dealt with things that went wrong. It’s developing that resilience to deal with those things that is most important. Because it will go wrong on so many levels, but that’s part of the fun of it.
Cyc: What other challenges have you got lined up?
JG: I am riding the Transcontinental Race in a pair with Philippa Battye this summer. We are making a GCN+ documentary exploring the psychology of riding as a pair. We know we can do it individually but riding it together will be a different sort of challenge.
I’m also writing a book about my round-the-world record, which is a big type-two adventure. There are moments where I can’t string a sentence together, and then other times it just flows. Writing the book has almost been as big an adventure as the actual cycling that I’m writing about.
‘The bears were really scary – they’d appear as the sun went down, when I still needed to ride for another three or four hours’
Cyc: How do you feel about the current cycling landscape?
JG: The boom of bikepacking is really exciting. In the past I have been the only woman on the start line at events but now more women are getting involved, and race organisers are encouraging this. But it’s also hard to know what is related to reality and what is just the bubble I’m living in. I’ve been really lucky as I’ve always ridden with, and been surrounded by, strong and adventurous women in the Highlands.
I also think it is important to show a variety of people out on a variety of bikes and looking a variety of ways. Growing up, I thought adventure was for other people. I didn’t realise that you could be an ordinary person and do it. Cyclists like me have so many inspiring experiences, and we need to share them to show people how they can make it happen for themselves. That’s why I want to tell my story, so anyone can see what’s possible. I want to show people how adventure can be accessible to them.