All season, Joss Lowden had been trying ahead to Tre Valli Varesine, her ultimate race as knowledgeable bike owner. In her personal phrases, she was “determined” to get throughout the end line, and finish her profession. “I actually couldn’t wait till the season was over,” she mentioned. However within the pouring rain of Lombardy, when the second got here to hold up her bike, she discovered herself with blended emotions.
“I believed, ‘I don’t need it to finish. I’m loving this journey a lot, and I’m actually having fun with being away with the women’,” Lowden mentioned. “There are all kinds of emotions about it, whether or not I truly actually need to retire or whether or not I don’t, however I do know, primarily, I do. It’s simply not so black and white.”
The Uno-X rider was one among simply 35 finishers on the Italian one-day occasion. Afterwards, aged 37, she known as time on a seven-year highway profession, one which noticed her break the world Hour Document, grow to be nationwide time trial champion, and symbolize her nation on the World Championships and Commonwealth Video games. Nonetheless, talking to Biking Weekly days later, she made clear she’s not completed on the bike.
“I’m not 100% positive I’m utterly able to cease, which is why I go away it open and say it’s the top of my skilled highway racing profession, it’s not essentially the top of my racing,” Lowden mentioned.
“I don’t need to cease using and I don’t need to cease racing. I don’t really feel like I hate racing, and I’ve had sufficient of it. I don’t really feel like I don’t need to practice anymore. What I don’t need anymore is the construction, and the calendar made for me, as a result of that’s what’s troublesome with being a mum and a spouse to the busiest man on this planet.”
In June 2023, Lowden and her husband, Olympic silver medallist Dan Bigham, welcomed a son, Theo, to their household. She returned to racing seven months after giving delivery, and has ridden a full highway calendar this yr.
How necessary was it to her to get again competing? “It was actually necessary,” she mentioned. “It’s fairly ironic, as a result of I actually wished to indicate that you may have a child, you may have a household, and you may nonetheless be a top-performing skilled athlete, and I really feel I didn’t essentially try this.
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“I feel it is advisable have an enormous quantity of help to have the ability to do it. I feel it’s doable, and I might completely encourage any feminine to have a child and are available again and practice to race, however it’s actually, actually difficult, and also you want numerous help.
“We didn’t actually assist ourselves as a result of we had been dwelling up in Andorra, which made the journey actually lengthy, and also you simply don’t have the household community round you that I feel you want. Nevertheless it was actually, actually necessary to do one other yr’s racing, and I’m actually happy with it.”
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
In a world of 18-year-olds signing WorldTour contracts, Lowden got here late to biking. She was 30 when she joined her first UCI staff, and 34 when she turned skilled, having beforehand labored as a venture supervisor and an information analytics guide.
“I really feel like I spent so many the early a part of my working life, and my profession, actually eager to be older, as a result of I wished to be taken extra severely,” she mentioned. “Once I moved into biking, I believed, ‘Oh, out of the blue I’m just like the oldest. That’s actually bizarre. I need to be youthful now.’”
The truth is that, when Lowden was youthful, biking didn’t actually curiosity her. “Vitamin simply wasn’t pretty much as good again then,” she mentioned. “It wasn’t irregular that you just’d exit on a 120km trip and simply take one water bottle and a banana, after which funnily sufficient, you’re feeling actually, actually garbage. I simply didn’t actually prefer it, after which it simply actually modified.”
That second got here on a biking vacation to Mallorca in 2016 along with her then membership Lewes Wanderers. It was using across the Spanish island that she realised she had expertise. “I used to be simply good. That was it actually. And I actually appreciated being higher than all the boys,” she mentioned.
“That was sufficient to make me assume that is value pursuing, after which I assume I used to be simply profitable actually rapidly. For those who go and do some races and also you win, and also you break information, in fact you’re going to get addicted, as a result of profitable is addictive. It made me adore it actually.”
Now, reflecting again on her profession, it’s not the victories – comparable to her nationwide time trial title, profitable Hour Document try, or general win on the Tour de Feminin within the Czech Republic – that spring to thoughts as her proudest second. No, it was the bronze medal she received within the blended relay staff time trial on the 2019 World Championships, in a staff along with her now husband Bigham.
(Picture credit score: Alex Whitehead/SWpix)
“That was undoubtedly a large excessive. It was so surprising,” she mentioned. “It was simply so, so thrilling. Clearly a house World Champs, and being on the rostrum within the scorching seat for such a very long time. That was actually, actually cool.”
As she seems to be past the professional peloton, Lowden has a number of concepts of how she’d wish to hold bike racing in her life. “I would go race gravel,” she mentioned, including that Bigham is making an attempt to persuade her to tackle the 4km particular person pursuit world file on the monitor. “However I am pondering, how a lot am I prepared to offer myself up as a guinea pig for that venture?”
The 37-year-old’s additionally bought her eye on the British time trial scene. Would possibly we see her and Bigham, who’s retiring from the nationwide squad, taking over some membership 10-mile occasions subsequent yr? “I would not be stunned it it occurred,” Lowden mentioned. “Weirdly, I fairly like the concept of doing a 100-mile time trial.
“You simply choose little challenges for your self. I feel Dan would fairly wish to go and break a load of information. After all, he loves breaking a file. It’s not a plan, but when I used to be to be transported a yr or three years and that’s what we’ve performed this yr, I’d be like, ‘Yeah, OK. Sounds about proper.’”
