Susan: And so the social cycling club, they actually cycled from Leicester down to Oxford. And I went, yeah, I went along with them.

Dulce: Did you have your heavy bike?

Susan: Oh, no, I had a road bike at this point. Because I remember the time when I turned up on a road bike, and they were just like, “Oh, you’re doing so well” and I was like “Just shut up because it’s a different bike”. They didn’t... they just thought I’d gotten fitter and faster. Whereas I was trying to explain I’m a personal trainer, I teach quite a few spin classes a week, but they just saw it as I’ve gotten faster.

… Oh, so I suppose, like with starting from the cycle touring with the social group to Breeze champions, and Breeze rides, and the Breeze champions in Leicester starting up Leicester Women’s Velo, there was one woman in the group, Indy who had cycled from Bordeaux to Narbonne in the south of France. And she’d done it like about eight times before, or so. And she came up with this whole idea. She was like, and we’re gonna go across here. She was like “I’ve got this idea of why don’t we get a whole group of women to cycle across France?” and especially with the Breeze network – meant to say that there was like Breeze in Leicester, Leicestershire and in Preston, and so there are all these networks all over the place. So, you could actually start contacting them saying, “we’re going to do this women’s only cycle group across France. Maybe you might, you might be interested or there might be other women riders in your group who would be interested”. British Cycling weren’t interested in it at all because she did mention it to them, but they weren’t interested in it at all, but in the first year, she got 27 women joining us on a cycle across France, or so. It was really, really good. Partly, because it was funny watching all these people wondering what all these women were doing, because it just must have seemed really odd to them, because you get groups of men going out cycle touring, and it wouldn’t be seen as odd but you wouldn’t normally see groups of women. So, she started at that. And then from that I started arranging tours in the UK. Like Coast to Coast and Coast and Castles. Different UK tours or so and so I suppose over a couple of years, just starting to build up the confidence to cycle tour. So, it was quite gradual. And there was one woman in the group who, she was going to go cycle touring anyway and she was looking for somebody to go touring with her. And one of my friends was like, “Well, why don’t you go with her?” And I was like, “Well, what about my cat and my mum?” And I had a cat, which I had to rehome... so we’re gonna go left so you can drop down the curve or so... So, it was, I suppose just a gradual thing, really. Yeah, just a gradual thing that over a period of time getting used to organising tours and cycling, cycle tours and stuff. And then somebody just suggesting, because I wouldn’t have, I don’t think I would have ever thought of doing it, even though I’d been sat at my job every day, which was a nice job, but thinking, I’d hate to think that I’m just going to be, I’m not going to get to see other places, but just not realising that it’s a lot easier to do than what it actually is really. If that makes sense.

## [Transition]

Sidrah: I’ve always cycled. Like, some of my first memories are like when I first learned to ride, and my dad was saying “I’m holding it, I promise I’m holding it!” and he wasn’t holding it. [laughs] But like, you know, I remember having a tricycle and you know, all of those different increments and then I always rode. And then I got to a point where maybe when I was like 10 or 11, I no longer fitted my