It all began with a Facebook message. Katie had planned to ride the Transcontinental with a partner, but with weeks to go, she had found herself sans partner. Jayne was asked to step in, and the offer could not have come at a better time.

She explains: “I’d just fallen out of love with cycling. I just felt like I wanted to do anything except ride a bike. That’s a problem because I’ve got too many bikes – I’ve got five. My coach [at Elite Cycling] told me to just take a break, but added ‘see how you feel, I think there is something for you in endurance’. Two days after that conversation a friend sent me a link to Katie’s plea – she was looking for a partner. I said ‘yea, I’ll do that’ without really looking at what it was or how soon it was. When I spoke to her, I realized it was self-supported, and started in two weeks.”

Jayne had taken part in multiple endurance rides before, including the 1,500-kilometer HBK from Handburg to Berlin, Koln and back to Handburg – but she’d always followed. She explains: “Whenever I’ve done these long distance things before, I’ve always been the weaker rider, or the less experienced cyclist, or the younger one. I always handed the responsibility to another person, usually a guy, and just rode my bike.”

In this case, Jayne was the more experienced, and 10 years senior to Katie – she says: “It became apparent early on that as a more experienced cyclist… I was going to take responsibility. I didn’t realise how emotionally strong I was until I had to look after myself, and Katie.”

Twelve days in, Katie had to abandon – Jayne describes the final ride, saying: “We pulled into the car park of the restaurant to see if they had any accommodation and Katie collapsed, she struggled to actually get off the bike and couldn’t walk unaided into the building.”

Finally the decision was made that Katie couldn’t continue – and Jayne was surprised by her own resolve: “When she pulled out in Albania, it never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t continue on my own. I never thought ‘can I do this?’ – it was just like – ok, talk me through the routes. Katie went through them with me, we said goodbye, and it never struck me that I was doing it on my own.”

She did it, though – despite later hearing from her parents who suggested she pull out. She says: “I’d already started, it was too late.”

This year, 250 people entered the race, 178 started, and 76 finished – Jayne being the only solo female. She explains: “We bumped into people along the way who were just defeated – their soul was destroyed. Nothing physical or mechanical, just the mental hardship of it all.”

Jayne’s outlook on the world has changed dramatically – she says: “I think I’m just a lot more confident – I know I did that – when things broke, I fixed them. I think I’ll always carry that with me, making me a bit more self assured – I relise now I can cope and solve problems in really stressful situations.”

“I learned to deal with the fear of ‘what happens if…’ – what happens is you cope. If you’re really in need, you just knock in people’s doors. Everybody ran into trouble at some point, but when that happened they always had these amazing stories of incredible kindness from strangers.”

Next year, she plans to start and finish the same race – solo. The winter will be about riding Audaxes, perhaps the 12 ans 24 hour National time trials, and notching up the miles, in preparation for her greatest challenge. We wish her all the best.

All images from Jayne’s blog, here.