EverestingUK: Blog Author

Laurie Lambeth

Stephen Roche - Winner of the 1987 Tour De France, with me aged 5 during the 1988 Milk Race

From the age of five I grew up in Cumbria in the remote and hilly area of Alston Moor, I started cycling relatively early and entered my first MTB race at the age of nine. Cycling had always been in the family as older brother Jack, and dad Paul were also keen riders. After drifting away from cycling in my teens and early twenty's I rediscovered a passion for two wheels aged 27, and in the summer of 2010 I competed in a couple of MTB Enduros. My first was in the Scottish town of Selkirk, and the second down in wales.

Me aged 27 at the end of the Selkirk MTB Marathon

In October 2010 I set off on a 16 month 'around and the world' backpacking trip, whilst in Australia I met my partner Mairi and also competed in some more cycling events. I bought a MTB and trained, worked and lived, in the Adelaide Hills for 10 months. I entered some more MTB Enduros and a few XC Races, then shortly before coming home I did my first road event, a 140km sportive as part of the 'Santos Tour Down Under'

XC Racing in Adelaide, Australia

I returned home in February 2012, then in August of the same year bought my first road bike and joined Penrith based cycling club, the Beacon Wheelers. Since switching mainly to road cycling I've enjoyed trying a little bit of everything, local hill climb and time trial events, hilly sportives such as the 'Fred Whitton Challenge', a small amount of road racing and simply training on all the beautiful roads the North Pennines has to offer .