Love, because I loved being part of it all. The pre-race atmosphere – hanging round the car park watching jumpy boys out-daring each other, seeing people that really did know what they were they doing – hoping somehow I would be mistaken for one of them. Love, because I actually ended the race a better rider than I started it. Enthusiasm (or possibly desperation) to finish had made me hurtle through stuff I wouldn’t even think of trying usually - and some of the time I had even stayed on my bike. Hate, because I suspected that no matter how much I loved mountain biking or however good I got at it, I might not like, or be very good at racing.

The next winter I found myself a long way from any trails, so started to ride my road bike. I teamed up with a couple of other girls, and we took ourselves off on gradually longer rides every Sunday. We didn’t rate ourselves enough to become ‘roadies’ and join a club, and there was never any thought of ‘training’. Just an unspoken understanding that when you came to a hill you were going to beat their sorry asses up it. Almost without me thinking, the miles added up, so that when I found myself back on familiar trails the next season I was amazed to find myself flying up hills that had previously reduced me to a crawl.

So I raced some more. I always enjoyed being part of the scene; I always learnt something new that improved my skills. But I was still pretty rubbish at it. I could play and get competitive with the rest of them out on a fun ride but something about racing stressed me too much. So I stopped. My confidence had taken a few knocks and rather than riding more, I did less. When I did go out I mostly rode with my partner, or a group of his friends.

Now you can have the most understanding boyfriend in the world, but at some point he will describe
something really quite scary as ‘easy’ and you’ll never quite escape the feeling you’re holding everyone up as you try to persuade yourself that a particular rooty descent is, in fact rideable. By you that is - as everyone else has sailed down it and is now mentally drumming their fingers on their handlebars at the bottom. There seem to be a lot of girls that feel the same - always worrying they’re going too slow for the (mostly) male group, or being knocked off-balance by the testosterone surge that accompanies anything even slightly technical.

Help came in the form of an accident of timing. All the usual suspects were out of town for the weekend, so one of the other girlfriends and myself took off alone and eventually found ourselves at the top of a natural bowl in the woods that was used as a bit of a playground for practising technical skills. There was no one else around to make us feel stupid so we started by daring each other to go down over some especially horrid roots. Much dithering later we both succeeded - and it felt great. We hadn’t felt stupid because it was boy-easy and there hadn’t been the pressure of a big group to hurry us more than was comfortable. So there it was, I had managed to get fitter and stronger- even improved my technical skills. I wanted to race to challenge myself physically, I didn’t really like racing. Then
someone said to me, “Come and do this long-distance ride with us.”

It rained for two weeks solid before the event. Miles of the course were actually under water and I found myself cycling through puddles that came up to my calves. On some sections I had to stop every few minutes to scrape the stickiest mud in the world from the brakes, the final few miles were into a headwind and I ran out of food and water. I finished an hour and a half later than the leading group, but I finished. And that was more than a few of the boys I had started with managed to do. I felt fantastic.

You see it turns out that women are naturally pretty good at this marathon-riding lark. It’s probably something to do with our fat reserves, but personally I prefer not to dwell on that. It suits my ‘steady-as-she-goes’ style and allows me to be part of an event that also works for my less steady riding friends. I discovered it by accident, but ever since it’s been my preferred challenge.

I made a few discoveries on the path to enlightenment. Four things that will make you ride your bike better – none of them are rocket science, but you’ll be amazed at the number of people that moan about not being very good/ fit/ strong (delete as appropriate), but ever so slightly forget to ride their bikes...

1. Ride your bike as much as you can. Ride to work- even if you haven’t got showers, cruise easy there (deodorant wipes are a marvellous invention) and ride hard home. Take the bike to collect Sunday papers. Mix up your disciplines and take to the road if the trails are too wet, plug in an iPod and get on a turbo trainer if it’s icy-dangerous. Every time you pedal another mile it’s ‘stealth’ fitness. Call it
training if you want, but mostly try to call it fun because that’s what it will be when you hit the trails next summer with a new-found confidence that an increased fitness brings.

2. Ditch the boyfriend. Well not forever, just for the occasional Sunday. Buddy up with other girls and take some long rides, or hit the technical playground and try the moves you wouldn’t normally have the nerve for. It’s way less pressurized and girls are much nicer when you’re having a wobbly moment.

3. If you want to get better at riding up hills, ride up hills. If you want to get better at twisty singletrack, ride twisty singletrack. Find someone who’s good at the things you’re not and get them to take you out for an afternoon of intensive one-on-one coaching. (NB. Partners, for some reason are not always the best or most understanding of coaches.)

4. Enter one of the Merida Marathon Series. Its all the love benefits of racing without the hate flipside. There’s atmosphere in bucket loads – and even if it’s your first one you’ll instantly feel part of the bike community. You’ll try things you normally wouldn’t, and without even thinking about it you’ll push yourself harder. It might be difficult in places, you’ll definitely ache the next day (and probably the one after that too), but you’ll have improved your riding more in one day than you could in a summer of ordinary trail cruising. Besides which, just finishing will give you such a high you’ll feel invincible. I take quiet satisfaction from knowing that although I’m not ever speedy, I’ve completed distances that leave a lot of cyclists turning for home. Find some like-minded mates and ride it as a team – but don’t worry if it’s just you, you’ll only be alone until the moment you arrive at the race site.

Oh, and I really was onto something with all that matching purple, as was the girl who chose to race in pretty gloves. Make sure that you look damn good. You look better you ride better. Simple. In the spirit of following rule number one I like to ride into town when I’m meeting a friend for coffee – but I like to look fabulously casual when I’m off the bike. Some days I just like to go faster – in a way that’s about sleekness and cool and not lumpy legs in bad shorts. I figured this rule might be important to others too, so I set up a business that only sells bike clothes for girls. But that’s a whole other story. Catch it at www.minx-girl.com