Richard Curtis - time matters

It all started when…

I have always had a bike, from a very young age I remember a bike in the garage. I would ride round and round the street I grew up on and in the local woods with friends. It gifted me with a sense of freedom and speed, two things most children love growing up.

In all the sports I have been fortunate to compete in, my competitive nature and desire to win has always played a part. I thought I had found my perfect sport in Triathlon, combining what were my two biggest strengths at the time, Swimming and Running. My cycling needed improvement to really be competitive at the top level.

However, the more I cycled the more I fell in love with all forms of cycling and racing. I joined a local cycling club and instantly made a group of weekend cycling friends.

My rides and personal challenges gradually got longer and longer. Riding 100 miles in a day stopped becoming a challenge and I wanted to push myself and see how far I could ride and where I could go. I entered a road race which was 140 miles, with the equivalent climbing to one and a half times the height of Ben Nevis. It hurt, I was completely underprepared and once my body recovered, I realised I loved it and immediately wanted to do more.  

Over the next few years I cycled 1,000 miles from Lands End to John o’Groats in 9 days, the South Coastline of England from Margate to Lands End, which was 440 miles in 3 days, London to Paris and back in 2 days to complete a challenge known as the Arch-Arc-Arch, various trips to the Alps, but one of my most memorable rides was riding from London to Copenhagen, a distance of 642 miles within 3 and a half days. 

Rapha had jokingly posted on social media asking if anyone wanted to ride from their HQ in London to Copenhagen ready for the their first International Rapha Nocturne. I accepted the challenge. It was such an adventure across 4 countries, amazing scenery, riding on my own, self supported, finding differences places to sleep along the way, from a farmers field to a bus shelter! The plan was to do more long distance racing.

I had my eye on The Transcontinental Race and was even helping Kinesis design a bike specifically for such races.

I was still racing shorter one day events and in 2018 I entered The Tour of Cambridgeshire, in the hope I would qualify to represent Great Britain in the World Championships later that year in Italy. The race start well, with an early crash splitting the field, I found myself in the second chasing group, exactly where I didn’t want to be and out of contention to qualify.

That day I found out what I am willing to do for a dream.

I pushed harder than ever before, riding over 55 miles at race pace, on my own, chasing down the main group in front. It paid off. I qualified. I was off to Italy to compete for Great Britain at the World Championships. Without question the proudest moment of my sporting endeavours. 6 weeks later, at the peak of my physical fitness, it all changed, my life changed, forever.

October 2018, the M25 motorway was busy as usual and traffic was at a standstill. The driver behind was not paying attention. He drove straight into the back of my car at approximately 50-60mph. The next thing I knew another driver was knocking on my window, asking if i was ok. Amazingly I managed to come away with no physical injures, to the surprise of everyone involved. 

When I finally got home, I went to bed with a headache and thought I would wake up feeling sore in the morning. The next morning I was feeling worse for wear, swung my legs round to get out of bed, went to stand up and fell straight over. In A&E I was told I had concussion with a small bleed on the brain which should pass and to come back in a few days if it got worse.

For the next few days I laid on the sofa, unable to move and very unstable on my feet. I went back to A&E to request more tests and seek help, which lasted for several months.

Nearly 7 months after the car accident, many Neurologist appointments, scans and tests, I lost all  feeling in my left arm. I couldn’t move my arm, my wrist or fingers, I had no movement and no physical sensations. Doctors first thought was that I had had a stroke, but thankfully this was not the case.

I was sent away in the hope my body would naturally improve. I can’t describe how it feels to walk away with no answers and no understanding of what your body is doing. It took almost a full month to get movement back in my hand to the point where i could use a fork, put toothpaste on a toothbrush, open a door, or hold my phone.

It was now Christmas 2019, over a year since the accident.  A year of MRI scans, tests, appointments, a Lumbar Puncture and me telling Doctors ‘I know my body, something is not right’. 

I remember the Neurologist looking at me in his office and saying,  “I’m really sorry Richard, but you have Multiple Sclerosis and permanent brain damage”.  

I had heard the words Multiple Sclerosis before, perhaps on TV or Radio, but I had no understanding of what it was, but the look and manner of the Neurologist informed me it was serious. I got back to the car, opened the door, sat down alone and just cried. I had a horrible feeling I wasn’t going to be able to be the same person ever again.

What the hell did this mean? Am I going to have to deal with this forever? Will my health deteriorate further? Can this kill me? Will I be able to ride again?

Why me?

All questions I asked myself over and over and over again.

Every second of everyday, in my sleep, whilst trying to take my mind off things, it was constant, relentless, it consumed my entire being. 

In the weeks that followed I told 3 maybe 4 people, including my Mum and Brother. I didn’t want people to know, I was embarrassed, feeling like I had let people down and was now going to be a burden on peoples lives. This period is undoubtedly one of my darkest and a lesson that will serve as a deep reminder to notice this signs from myself and those around me. 

Something needed to change.

I had to go about this differently or I was going to be guilty of giving up on myself.

I had been off the bike for over a year. I had tried riding on the turbo trainer several times, but it made me dizzy, I had fallen off, created headaches that lasted for days and I lost motivation to keep putting myself through that pain. 

I had lost contact with friends, I wasn’t going out, I was almost unrecognisable. I couldn’t talk about cycling, couldn’t look at bikes and couldn’t watch any racing on TV.

Imagine waking up tomorrow and being told, sorry, thats it, no more cycling for you, ever.  I was now starting to understand how to operate my body day to day, without causing my symptoms to worsen.  How quickly to get out of bed, walk up and down the stairs, go to the shops.

Everyday things I used to take for granted. 

My frustration had reached an all time low, I had nothing left to lose and no amount of pain was worse than I had already experienced.  Either admit you’re giving up on cycling all together and find something new, or start again, from scratch and find a way to make it work.

Before the accident I was a brand ambassador for Kinesis, a UK based bike manufacture and some of the nicest guys you could meet in the industry. Kinesis called and asked if I thought an ebike would help me, as they were looking at producing one. 

This was the motivation I needed and gave me a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. A few months later and I had one of the first Kinesis Range ebikes in the country. 

My first ride was petrifying and was the opposite of what I had hoped. I was slow, I felt uncomfortable, I had forgotten how to ride.

I remember closing the front door and sitting in the hallway crying, not with joy that I had just been out riding, but with the realism of how far I had fallen and the amount of work I still had to do.

In the coming weeks riding the ebike gave me back the feeling I had when I was younger, the speed, the freedom. To this day I still ride my Kinesis ebike and will continue to champion what they can offer so many people. I am now able to ride about 25-30 miles, at an average pace, using the medium assistance mode and only have mild symptoms, which still have to be managed.

The ebike has been a gift and the one single reason I am able to ride on the roads again. 

With that, people started to notice elements of the old me coming back, to the point where other were making time for me to go for a ride. It has been a long, horrible, dark journey and with my background in film, I wanted to document this in the hope it might help someone else. Show them they are not alone and it is ok to feel down, but you have to create a support network around you to build yourself back up. 

So I made ‘Time Matters'. A 16 minute short film about this period in my life. On release it received critical acclaim and has won numerous industry awards, which quite frankly blows my mind. 

I will wake up every single day for the rest of my life and take a minute to check I can feel all my limbs, fingers and toes. Once I know I’m ok, I begin my day.
There is a real possibility that one day I will wake up and the outcome will be different.
I can’t control this. I can’t plan for it. I can’t anticipate it. My body is a prisoner of my own brain.
This is MS. 

I will never underestimate the power of cycling or the willpower of an individual.

“To keep your balance you must keep moving” - Albert Einstein. 

Richard Curtis