Get on your bike, it's good for your meditation

CELEBRITY FANS:  Tracey Piggott  Broadcaster, 44: Cycling

A 100-mile leg of a fundraising cycle 12 years ago led to Tracey Piggott being hooked on the bike

When did you get started on a bike?

When I was a kid I always cycled to my uncle’s stables, three miles away, to ride out, come hail, rain or snow. If ever I was away on holiday I would rent a bike. I always used a bike but I never, unfortunately, looked at doing it competitively until quite late. Then in July ’98 I did a 100-mile leg of a fundraising cycle from Mizen Head to Malin Head.

From then, I was absolutely hooked.

What’s the attraction with cycling?

I love the challenge of the bike – that you can never get to the bottom of it. It’s always going to find you out. There’s so much of the psychological aspect to cycling. Also, even though you could be in a big group, it’s very solitary.

Is cycling therapeutic?

It’s very strange. I remember crying for 55 miles one day during a cycle across America and I didn’t know why I was crying. There’d be other days when other people would be in an awful emotional state and I think – and I’ve read about this – because you’re pushing your body you get into a kind of a rhythm.

It’s almost a kind of meditational state. It’s the same with diving – when you’re breathing in and out in such a regular way. You start feeling different emotions. We were on the bike, 10, 11 hours a day that time. You have to focus, you have to look where you’re going, that you don’t bump into someone else, but there’s not much to see or do so I found I started to deal with stuff.

What’s the most difficult thing about cycling?

I suppose thinking about doing it! You’d get up in the morning and it’s freezing cold and pouring with rain and you’d go: “Oh, I just can’t go out in this.” But once you put the gear on and you get out, you think: “Hang on – it’s not so bad.” I think the weather always looks much worse when you’re sitting inside looking out the window; when you’re actually out there, it’s fine.

I always find that the first 15 miles are the toughest. It probably varies with age, but in my 30s, when I used to race competitively, it took me that distance for my body to loosen up and get into this flow and into this rhythm. It’s amazing. You’d suddenly feel great. Between 12 and 15 miles, almost to the yard, you’d just go: “Okay, I feel fine now.”

What was competitive cycling like?

I hated it! I used to hate it. It used to be Sunday mornings and Tuesday evenings and I wouldn’t sleep the night before. I’d get myself into such a tizzy. I’d feel sick in the morning and I’d make myself eat because you had to because the races were about 55 miles long. You had to get the carbohydrates into you.

I’d be shaking and I’d have to go to the loo about eight times before the race but then you’d be on such a high when it finished that you’d go: “Oh, that’s why I did it.”

It’s strange punishment until the end when you go: “That was amazing. I want to do it again.”

Were you any good?

Racing didn’t really suit me because I wasn’t tactically astute. I was no good at saving my energy. I’d feel great, get all excited and shoot off and blow all my energy far too early.

What did racing teach you?

I learnt that I was very hard on myself if I had a bad race and I didn’t do well or I’d given up. I’d come home in floods of tears. I would be so angry with myself and think that I was a useless and hopeless person, but all it was was a bloody cycling race, but it used to upset me that I couldn’t win, that I couldn’t master it. I wanted to be good straight away but you have to work up to it. I had to teach myself that it’s about taking part.

Do you cycle much these days?

I used to be totally addicted to it. I’d be training three, four days a week, sometimes more, but since I’ve had my little girl, obviously I’m not able to get out as much as I did. I haven’t given it up altogether but I’m not doing it at the level that I used to.

Were you particular about equipment in your heyday?

Oh, yes! I was a complete nerd! Everything had to be the lightest you could get. I had to have the bike that Lance Armstrong had when he was riding for US Postal.

And Lance . . . is he clean?

My heart wants to believe that he is just a supreme athlete. But I don’t know is the answer.

In conversation with Richard Fitzpatrick