My bicycle riding life has had different seasons. I’ve decided that I need a change of pace. I have been riding mountain bikes mostly quite slowly for the past four years and I now need more speed. I also need a fresh challenge. So, I have decided to make the following changes. If you have been riding for a long time, you might relate to this…
By Sean Badenhorst
At the risk of sounding morbid, I don’t have that much time left. While I don’t actually feel 55, the reality is that I am and nothing can change that. We have no control over time. What we can control though is how we spend our time.
Looking back, I have spent my time quite well when it comes to riding and racing bicycles. I feel it has kept me fit, healthy and feeling younger than I am. I have also managed to make it how I earn a living, which is pretty cool too. From racing BMX bikes as a kid and teen, to getting into triathlon in my final year of school. Then racing road bikes while in the army and during my studies; and then discovering track cycling and mountain biking and giving both of those a bash as I hit my 20s…
In my 20s and early 30s I took my bicycle sport quite seriously and gave triathlon, duathlon and road racing a lot of my time and energy. I loved it! I’m super competitive and with that you need to be fast. While mountain biking featured in my life from my early 20s, it was only from my mid-30s, that I gravitated fully back into mountain biking.
Stage races and marathons were super popular at that time. I gave them a full go and also spent a couple of seasons racing XCO in the sub-veteran age division. I did my second Absa Cape Epic at the age of 44 and then decided after that to focus on supporting my wife, Joanne and youngest son, Cade, in their mountain biking quests.
I have done several stage races with Joanne and enjoyed watching her grow in her love of riding – she now rides more than I do most weeks. In 2021 my youngest son and I got into Enduro racing together and I have enjoyed being part of his developing relationship with mountain biking, which he absolutely loves.
Now it’s time for me to focus on my riding again. After spending the past four years doing Enduro races, where most of the riding is slow and social between the high-risk, mostly technical timed stages, it’s time to ride faster again. So, I’m going to do some marathon mountain biking, mountain bike stage races and I’m going to try gravel – again. I did try gravel in 2021 and it didn’t exactly blow me away, which I wrote about here.
Am I slowing down? On one hand, compared to the risks involved in Enduro racing, yes. But from an actual moving speed perspective, no. I’ll be covering more distance at higher speeds on both marathon bikes and gravel bikes and I’m looking forward to the change of pace…
Sean Badenhorst is the co-founder and editor of TREAD Media. He’s been riding bicycles since the age of two and writing about riding bicycles since 1990. Follow his change of pace via his Instagram account.
