In a recent interview, I asked ex-international cyclist Roddy Riddle if he got any pleasure out of extreme challenges such as the forthcoming 6633 Ultra, which he is returning to after not managing to finish the 350-mile race in 2016.
“None” was his unequivocal response.
He told me: “There is no fun whatsoever. You get a smile now and then when you see the Northern Lights, or an ice road trucker stopped one day and he got out and said, ‘do you mind if I take a couple of photos?'”
“‘Where have you come from,’ he asks me.”
“‘Eagle Plains,’ I told him.”
“Where are you going”
“Tuk.”
“And they call us f***ing idiots!”
“Wee things like that put a smile on your face but no, there’s no enjoyment whatsoever, none, none, none.”
So why does he put himself through it?
Read my interview with Roddy, a type 1 diabetic, in the Inverness Courier today.
