Riding Back To Health Twice

Cycling first helped Richard Cavender to lose four stone, then to shine at RideLondon, in spite of a debilitating spinal condition

- David Bradford

Rewind two years and the mere task of putting on shoes was a challenge for Richard Cavender.

“I had to lean down on the side of the bed to reach my foot, then sit up and take a few breaths before putting on the other one. I thought to myself, this is mad.”

Since emigrating to Spain a decade earlier and setting up an IT business, Cavender had settled into bad habits, “working harder and harder while getting fatter and fatter”. With his weight hitting a lifetime high of 110kg, there was no more denying it: he needed to take action.

Digging out a neglected hybrid bike, Cavender tentatively began cycling, at first just the odd 5km or 10km as his work schedule allowed. Before long, though, he was part of an expat cycling community.

“The guy running my local bike shop suggested I try a road bike. From that moment, I was hooked; I bought a bike and started riding more and more.”

Within a month, his priorities had flipped: “I was doing 200km a week; work was getting in the way of my cycling.”

Cavender lost four stone in as many months and spent the summer of 2016 relishing his newfound fitness. But one morning last October he woke up with a sore neck that, rather than easing through the day, grew progressively more painful. The next day it was worse. Much worse.

“By 7pm that night, it felt like someone was taking a baseball bat to my head and I was wearing a helmet of pain.

“My wife drove me to the hospital. Every bump in the road was like being smacked round the head with a sledgehammer. That night was horrible, unable to lift my head, the pain unrelenting.”