Fitness and health for the ‘older’ rider!

When you’re young, your body seems to cope with whatever you throw at it: late night parties, drinking, fast food and snacks, you can take it all in your stride. You might even get away with that as an older rider for a week or two with friends and worry about the aftermath (you’ve put on 5kg in weight!) when you get home, but being away for 6 months presents far more of a challenge! When we set off from Sydney to ride back home to Wales, UK on Feb 1st, we can’t consider ourselves to be on holiday, that will be our reality for half a year, so we are going to have to look after ourselves.

To counteract long days in the saddle, our plan is to do yoga every morning for 30 minutes – this will not only keep us flexible and strong but will hopefully calm our minds before that days adventures. One of our few luxuries will be our Yoga mats!

Food: the temptation is always to eat like you’re on holiday, so sandwiches, chocolate bar and a bag of crisps from the fuel station for lunch and then eat out at night (if that’s available to you) and any thoughts about eating plenty of fruit & veg goes out of the window. Live like that as older riders (60 in our case) and you’ll very quickly know about it!

Medication: can you get 6 months’ worth off your doctor and then get it into all the countries you are passing through? We have been advised that you can't even take prescription medication in your name, or 'over the counter' drugs into some countries! Fortunately we are a relatively healthy team apart from Lobo's back, Richard’s hip and my dodgy knee.
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The upside of being older riders is that we have the time and the opportunity to do something like this.