Episode 175: Megan Young

Racing Ultras and Bikepacing the Andes

Megan is a UK-based ultra cyclist and bike packer from Dorset who’s built up quite an impressive adventure cv. Over the past few yearshas raced the Atlas Mountain Race in Morocco as a pairs entry with her husband Angus, taken fastest female honours on the Dorset Divide, spent six months cycling through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile on sabbatical from her job as a surveyor, and then capped the whole thing off with the Tour Te Waipounamu, a 1330km ultra race down the South Island of New Zealand. At the time we recorded, she was just a couple of weeks out from the start line of Lostdot 101, a women-only road race across Spain and Portugal where every rider plans their own route from scratch.

That is a lot of kilometres and a lot of start lines, but Megan is so modest you’d have no idea of what she’s done just by talking with her. Often people like this make the best of guests.

Getting better on the job

Megan has learnt through doing, and she can see that progression when she reflects back on what she has done. She talked about arriving in New Zealand for the Tour Te Waipounamu with basically no experience of technical downhill riding, and by the time she left the country she was a noticeably better descender.There is also a really lovely moment in the episode where she describes going back to ride trails near Nelson that she had ridden earlier in the trip, and actually being able to see how far she had come.

The DNF 100km from the finish

She also spoke honestly about the DNF in New Zealand which came just one hundred kilometres from the finish line. Her knee and hip had stopped cooperating and electric gears on her bike had already failed twice during the race. She made the call to scratch figuring she had experienced what she came for and she didn’t want to put her other goals in the year at risk by continuing on. To be able to make a decision to scratch with a level head looking ahead to what you want to achieve later on, is something that I really respect.

Three months riding in the Andes

Earlier this year Megan spent three months cyclingthrough five countries making her way across the Andes. It included an attempt to climb a volcano at night by moonlight that got turned back by avalanche risk, and a spontaneous detour through Colombia that ended with both her and her husband Angus, needing to catcha bus back to higher ground because 40 degrees in a desert is nobody’s version of a good ride.

Then we hear about Max, the guardian of the mountain and a stray dog who befriended them. They encountered somewhere in the mountains of Peru who adopted them for a full day, guided them through private land gates, chased off aggressive farm dogs on their behalf, refused all offers of food and water, and then vanished completely on the descent. Normally when people chat about dog encounters on the podcast, they aren’t of the friendly nature so I especially loved that her experience with Max was so different!

The practical stuff worth knowing

Our discussion had a lot of really solid practical material for anyone thinking about ultra racing or longer bikepacking trips. How Megan approaches wild camping and why earplugs have changed the game entirely for her sleep in the field, what she got badly wrong with food on her very first ultra. Sometimes you don’t know until you try and we discuss how it is to work your way as a beginner, navigating the crazy world of riding long distances day after day. Megan talks about how she has benefited by building experience gradually with each event, and how that experience has led her to seeing new challenges as something to aim towards as opposed to something to be nervous about.

Girls That Ride Bikes

Megan is part of Girls That Ride Bikes, a community started by her friend Roseanna Warren in the south of England that has grown significantly over the past year and now covers most of Wiltshire. Six of its members, Megan included, have signed up for Lostdot 101 which is just brilliant. The community thread in this conversation is a great example of how groups like this can help to make it genuinely easy for newcomers to walk in the door without feeling like they are already behind.

Go have a listen to the episode and if you are going to be watching dots across Spain and Portugal in the Lostdot 101, you already know exactly who to follow. You can also keep up wtih Megan’s adventures via her instagram – @MeganOnTwoWheels

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