Scot from Skinny Tyres Cycling Tours reflects on a life of cycling

It sometimes surprises me how much cycling has been part of my life. Although it is my day job, it has always been a passion and even now it is much more than just a way to earn a living.

At two years old my dad put me on a bike which I immediately fell off and for years afterwards I had the gravel marks on my forehead to prove it. 

Now I head to the mountains with my family on multi-day bike-packing adventures and enjoy aimless rides around the quiet roads of Highland Perthshire. Along the way I have made many friends – in fact there are very few people I know who don’t have a link with cycling in some fashion or other. 

I was never an academic school pupil so it was the Duke of Edinburgh Award that gave me the confidence to venture further afield and realise that there was more to life than qualifications. 

I grew up painfully shy but being in the outdoors helped me overcome that obstacle. From once lacking the confidence to put my hand up in class and answer a question, I now revel in standing up in front of large groups and speaking about bikes and cycling and often anything else that comes to mind.

It would have been hard to imagine then that my future self would travel the world meeting amazing people and that cycling would be my career and a passion that permeated every part of my life.

I have cycled through the Channel Tunnel; I have ridden alongside celebrities including Tom Daley and Zoe Ball; I have been involved in large-scale charity events and I have supported individuals in achieving their goals.

My children have just completed their exams, and my daughter has now finished her final year at school. For them, their journey is only at the beginning and they are still at such a young age with so much to experience, but the pressure and expectation to consolidate learning and results with a view to future careers is immense. The idea that this is the most important time of their lives and that the choices they make now will have a lasting impact on their futures can be suffocating and paralyzing.

I left school with few qualifications and even less of an idea of what I wanted to do with my life. It has been a bumpy yet fascinating ride to where I am now. Along the way, I have had many jobs and roles and it wasn’t until I was in my late thirties that I decided to start my own business and do what I loved, rather than what was expected of me.

If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be not to stress on the details. 

The idea that money makes the world go around is a source of much unhappiness and leads to people making all sorts of decisions that are often not in their own best interests.

If you are passionate about and believe in something enough, then you will enthuse others and you can make a success out of whatever you choose to do. You may not end up wealthy in material terms, but you will be rich in happiness.