TW: This episode talks about attempted suicide, mental ill-health and injury. If you are struggling and need to talk, please reach out to someone who can help.
Contact The Samaritans free on 116 123 (UK) or 999 if you feel you are a danger to yourself or others.
Episode 001 - Show notes
Episode Title: How Cycling Saved My Life, with record breaker Josh Quigley
Episode Description:In the very first episode of The Idea Junkies Podcast, host Laura Richards sits down with endurance cyclist Josh Quigley, whose journey from personal despair to professional triumph is, quite frankly, remarkable.
Josh opens up about how a breakup in 2015 plunged him into a mental health crisis, leading to a suicide attempt that became the catalyst for change. Inspired by Sir Chris Hoy, he bought a bike - despite not having cycled since childhood - and set out to cycle around the world.
During their conversation, Josh reflects on the highs and lows of his journey, including six failed round-the-world attempts, battling mental health struggles, and surviving a near-fatal accident in Texas where he was hit by a car travelling 70 mph. He also shares how cycling became his lifeline, taking him from his darkest moments to breaking world records and becoming a professional athlete.
This episode is an inspiring testament to the power of resilience, determination, and finding purpose in the face of adversity. Whether you’re chasing your own dreams or simply need a reminder that anything is possible, Josh’s story will leave you motivated to push beyond your limits.
What We Cover:
* Josh’s decision to cycle around the world after hitting rock bottom.
* The near-death accident that became a turning point in his journey.
* Breaking world records for the North Coast 500 and the greatest distance cycled in seven days.
* How cycling helped Josh overcome alcohol dependency and transform his life.
* His dreams of competing in the Tour de France and the challenges of professional racing.
Links and Resources:
* Follow Josh Quigley on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
* Watch the BBC documentary Cycling Saved My Life.
* Resources for mental health support: Mind, Samaritans, CALM.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who might need a dose of inspiration.
Episode 001 - Full Transcript
🎵 Music 🎵
Laura: Welcome to The Idea Junkies Podcast, where we dive into the ideas—and the incredible people behind them—that are changing the world. I'm your host, Laura Richards.
Get ready to be inspired by the innovators, visionaries, and disruptors who are pushing boundaries across business, science, technology, sports, spirituality, politics, and more.
In today's episode, I'm joined by Josh Quigley, an endurance cyclist whose story is a literal case study in resilience, determination, and the power of getting back up after failure.
Josh didn't start out as an athlete. In fact, in this episode, he talks about how he hadn't been on a bike since he was a kid before deciding he was going to cycle around the world.
What I love about Josh's story is how he shows that even ordinary people can go on to achieve extraordinary things, pushing physical and mental limits to new heights.
In our conversation, Josh opens up about the profound personal challenges he's faced, from overcoming mental health struggles and alcohol dependency to his multiple attempts at cycling around the world, each teaching him something new. From near-death accidents—including a collision with a car going 70 miles an hour—to being stuck during lockdown, Josh's resilience in the face of adversity is nothing short of inspiring.
If you've ever doubted your ability to achieve something big, Josh's journey will show you that anything is possible with enough grit and determination.
I really hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.
Laura: Hello and welcome Josh to The Idea Junkies Podcast. It is amazing to have you with us today.
Josh: Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Thanks for inviting me onto the podcast.
Laura: I have been following your journey as you've been sharing it on LinkedIn from one of your very early attempts at cycling around the world, and I am really, really excited to be able to ask you a bit more about it today, and for our listeners to be able to find out a bit more about you.
Josh, your journey didn't start out as someone who thought they would be a professional athlete, did it? So can you maybe start by introducing yourself and in your words, how did you end up here as a professional cyclist training to compete in the Tour de France?
Josh: Yeah, you're definitely right in the sense that I wouldn't have ever believed when I was younger that I would be doing what I'm doing now. That's certainly for sure. I think that really all started for me, to be honest, coming from quite a dark place.
I'd been through a breakup with my long-term girlfriend around 2015—we'd got together in high school, kind of classic high school sweethearts, been together for about seven or eight years from about the age of 15 to just over 21. After that breakup, I was just in quite a dark place mentally. I never really expected to go through that.
Just after going through that for quite a few months in 2015, I decided to try and take my own life. I just felt that how I felt at that time, I was going to feel like that forever, and I just kind of lost all hope, really.
It was after surviving that attempt that I kind of had a wake-up call. I had been inspired by Sir Chris Hoy—had heard him at an event where he was sharing his story and journey as an Olympic champion, and I thought, "I'm gonna cycle around the world." That was really how it all began, and my life kind of changed in that moment.
Laura: And had you cycled before at all? Were you someone who enjoyed getting out on your bike?
Josh: No, I definitely wasn't a cyclist at that time. I think when I was a wee boy, really young like in primary school, maybe four or five years old, I used to always have bikes and going out on my bike, but that was about it—I'd never really been on a bike since I was a wee boy.
Laura: So how do you go from that really dark place, attempting suicide, to going out and buying a bike and setting off to cycle around the world? That feels like such a huge leap, and I'm sure many people listening would be sitting there thinking, "Oh, I could never do anything like that." How did you do it? Did you train before? Was it just a case of going one day at a time?
Josh: It's a good question. I think I've always been quite an extreme person. I've always been quite ambitious as well. That says a lot about me, that I even believed I was capable of cycling around the world when I wasn't a cyclist.
I guess I just took the first step, really, which was to try and make it all happen. At the time, I was running my own business, but I wasn't really fulfilled in that anymore. So I left that and managed to get some sponsors on board and people that were helping me out. I got a bike and basically had all the things to try and cycle around the world.
I just set off and took that first step, starting from Scotland and trying to cycle around the world. I was only doing maybe about 50 miles a day at the time, which felt like a lot—it was really challenging. It's funny now, if I was to go and do 50 miles, that would be like a day off almost. That's like an easier day. I wouldn't even really think about going out and doing 50 miles as a big thing, though at the time, it was obviously huge for me.
I think if I look back at that time in my life as well, a lot of people ask me, "How were you able to do that?" I think the way that I saw life back home at that time was really challenging. There was a lot of pain. I found it quite hard living in Scotland where I grew up, because I'd kind of been on this new journey with personal development and trying to feel better.
A big part of that was stopping drinking alcohol. I came from a working-class community in Scotland where I had a huge group of friends and a huge social circle—it was all kind of predominated around alcohol and going to the pub. So when I was trying to give up drinking and stop drinking, it was quite hard to do that in that environment.
I think there was a bit of me subconsciously that really wanted to go away and get out of that environment. Although cycling around the world was going to be this huge, big, scary, really physically challenging thing, to me at the time, it felt like the lesser of two evils. I felt that it was actually harder just being at home in that environment than it was to just get on the bike and try and cycle around the world.
Laura: That's incredible that you needed such a dramatic shift to be able to move forward. So you start cycling around the world, you head off, you set off from Scotland—the first journey, the first attempt wasn't completely successful, was it?
Josh: Well, it depends how you look at it. If you look at it from the perspective of the goal of trying to cycle around the world, it wasn't successful because I never cycled all the way around the world—I only cycled around Europe and done about 10,000 miles in 14 countries.
But if you look at it from the perspective of a guy who started that cycle who was depressed, suicidal, drinking all the time, been through some tough things in his personal life... at the end of that year, after cycling 10,000 miles, I was really happy. I was really healthy. I was loving life again. I had an amazing adventure in Europe, met loads of amazing people, seen loads of cool parts of all these beautiful European countries.
So from that perspective, it felt like a huge success, although I hadn't actually achieved the goal of cycling around the world. At that time, when I decided to quit the cycle, I actually felt really good about it, and I didn't actually feel like I'd failed, because I never really wanted to cycle around the world—I think that was just what I thought I wanted to do. I think the real goal that I wanted was to be happy. I just wasn't happy in Scotland, and I thought that cycling around the world would make me happy. That's why I wanted to do it. So I decided to just quit the cycle and go back home to Scotland, and it felt like a huge success at that time because it kind of saved my life and got my life back on track again.
Laura: That's amazing. So how did that feel, coming back to Scotland then? I suppose in the grand scheme of things, a year for places and for a lot of people that have stayed in that place isn't a huge amount of time, isn't probably enough time to see a huge change. But for you, you've just had this incredible year cycling, a year where you personally have changed loads. How was that coming home?
Josh: Yeah, it was quite interesting coming home, because I think at first, initially, it was really good—it was great to be back in Scotland, to see all my friends and see all my family, and just to be back in the country where I grew up and where I loved, and to be there happy was like an amazing feeling because I had spent such amount of time before I left not being happy in that environment.
But what I did find was that it was quite hard coming home to Scotland after a little while because it was quite easy to just fall back into the old habits and patterns. When I was away cycling around Europe, I was cycling on the bike about 50 miles every day, that was keeping me fit and well. I was eating really well, meeting amazing people, seeing cool places, reading books, meditating, I wasn't drinking—I was just doing all these things that looked after myself.
Then when I came back home to Scotland, the bike was just in the shed, I wasn't doing any cycling, I was going to see my mates again, and actually that meant going to the pub, drinking again. I wasn't exercising, wasn't eating very well. I found it really difficult to come home to my old environment and still keep up all the new habits that I had when I was away cycling.
Josh: Coming back home was ultimately quite a hard thing, and I wasn't able to really settle back home. I think that year on the road had just really changed me in so many ways—it just kind of opened me up to a whole new world.
I kind of got into this habit and pattern of just getting back on the bike and saying, "Right, I'm going to go away again, I'm going to try and finish it." But then I would come home after a few weeks, and then I would say, "No, I need to go away." I was just a bit all over the place for quite a while, maybe about 18 months, where I was going away on the bike and coming home, going away on the bike and coming home. There was something within me that wanted to do this challenge and finish this challenge, but there was also something within me that was just stopping me. I went through that kind of internal battle for a little while.
Laura: What was it in the end that let you overcome whatever it was that was stopping you, whatever it was that was holding you back, to go and seriously attempt the round-the-world cycle, and then ultimately complete it?
Josh: I think there was a couple of things. The first thing was, my dad passed away, and I found that quite hard. Anybody that's lost a parent knows what that's like. That kind of made me just think a lot about what I was doing with my life. At that time my dad passed away, I was off the bike, I wasn't really doing anything, I wasn't really committing to anything.
I think all those failed attempts I'd had at cycling around the world started to play in my mind. The fact that my dad's just died, he's only 51 - what if I die young as well? I need to go and do something with my life.
But even once I got back on the bike after that, I still had another couple of failed attempts where I was just a bit mentally unstable. I think the final thing that made me just go for it was this realisation that I'd been trying to cycle around the world for all these years, and I technically had six failed attempts. Six times I'd left Scotland saying I'm going to cycle around the world, and six times I came home having not done it.
I just realised that's what I'd been like my whole life—always had big ideas, always had a lot of ambition, always had self-confidence, but I just couldn't seem to commit to anything or couldn't seem to finish anything. I just knew that it was time for me to pick one thing, commit to it and finish it, just for the sake of finishing it.
Josh: It obviously had been six attempts at trying to cycle around the world, and I just knew there was only ever going to be one thing that I was going to do, and it was time to just cycle around the world once and for all. I got back on the bike for a seventh attempt, and I made a promise to myself: I'm going to cycle around the world no matter what, no matter what happens along the way, no matter how many times I want to come home, no matter what obstacles I face—nothing will stop me.
I can honestly say from that moment that I just never looked back, and that was really the thing that really changed my life and took me from that guy I was in the past that was so unsure of himself and so unstable to being the guy that eventually cycled around the world and broke world records and became the professional athlete that I am today.
Laura: I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. That must have been awful, but what a legacy and what an achievement to turn that into the catalyst for achieving something so major. And you said at this point you'd had six failed attempts, you set off again, this was going to be the big one, the time that you finished it no matter what. But it wasn't smooth cycling, was it? The seventh attempt? You had quite a major accident on this journey.
Josh: Yeah. So I set off on April 14th, 2019, and had quite a few obstacles along the way. The first one was getting to London six days later—my bike got stolen. Quite a big obstacle, because I found that was hard enough to cycle around the world with a bike, never mind without one.
It was quite a cool story though, because I put a post on Facebook about it and it went viral. All these new followers and supporters heard about the story and my journey, so we managed to get a new bike.
For most of that journey, I cycled all the way across Europe, right across Asia, right across China, Japan, right across Australia, about halfway across America. Most of that journey was just such a fun and beautiful experience. I think just from committing to it and just really going for it, it just changed my life in so many ways.
When you're trying to do something in your life and you're just starting and stopping and starting and stopping all the time, it's really hard to make progress because of the constant nature of the stopping and starting. But because I had the commitment and said to myself I'm going to do this no matter what, it just meant that I had to keep moving forward every single day.
Josh: Because I was cycling every single day consistently without all those stops, I started to get really good at it, and I started to really fall in love with cycling in a way that I hadn't done before. The guy that started off doing 50 miles a day, by the time I was going across Europe, I was doing 70 miles a day, then 80, then 100 miles a day, then 150 miles a day. By the time I got across Asia and Australia and America, I was doing like 200 miles per day.
I was absolutely flying, and I just felt so clear in who I was and what I was here to do. And it was like, this is my thing. I think that kind of made sense in a lot of ways, why I resisted it for so long—I think because it was quite scary as well.
I really just fell in love with the bike that year, and it was an incredible experience going around the world. I felt like I really found myself. In all those failed attempts, I was always wondering what I was supposed to do with myself, but I really felt like the way that I was enjoying the cycling, the way I was progressing, and how good I was getting—I just felt like this is what I was born to do. This is what I'm here for.
It was all going amazing until I got to Texas and then had my big accident. It's quite funny looking back at Texas, because I know people think I'm a bit crazy when I say this, but the accident that I had in Texas was one of the best things that's ever happened to me in my life—it ended up being such a hugely positive experience.
It's quite weird to say that about such a big traumatic event. I basically got hit by a car travelling 70 miles an hour and spent five weeks in hospital in intensive care. I had a long list of injuries: broke my skull, seven broken ribs, fractured spine, pelvis, broken ankle, shin, heel bone. I had three major surgeries to put me back together again.
But I can honestly say that through all those injuries, it just made me more determined, it made me more resilient, and I just always knew how good a story it would be if I could recover from that, get back on the bike and finish the challenge finally.
Texas was a really incredible experience, and I was really lucky to meet loads of amazing people—a lot of amazing doctors and nurses and medical staff in Texas, and also a lot of people in the area. The story had been online, in the BBC, on local news and stuff like that. Honestly, hundreds of people from Texas came to visit me in hospital, and people that I'm still friends with to this day.
So leaving hospital, I was in a pretty bad way physically, but I just knew I'm going to get back on my bike and I'm going to keep going. I'm going to finish this.
Laura: That's amazing. Did you end up going back and starting from Texas to finish the cycle?
Josh: So what happened was, I got released from hospital in Texas in February 2020. By the time I rehabilitated and was back on the bike, it was at the start of March 2020, so it was literally just before lockdown. I got stuck in the UK for a couple of years.
That was actually one of the reasons why I started doing the world record attempts and doing some of those challenges, because I wasn't able to do the thing I wanted to do, which was to go back to America. So that was when I started doing some of the bigger challenges on the bike in the UK, because I wasn't allowed to go anywhere.
Then at the end of 2021, almost a couple of years after the accident, when America had finally opened its borders again, I managed to fly back to Texas. I got to go and visit my old hospital and see all the doctors and nurses and spend some time with the people that came to visit me in hospital as well, and then I cycled from Texas up to New York and finally finished it.
Laura: That's incredible. How did that feel? Not only after the attempts and the personal journey you'd been on, but then to be essentially shut down—the world shut down—and that was preventing you. You were in this really great place mentally, you knew you were going to finish the challenge, and then COVID happened and you were stuck. So that must have felt incredible to be back in Texas and finishing that last leg of the journey.
Josh: Yeah, it was quite interesting actually, because I think my memories of lockdown are quite positive. It was quite a happy time in my life. I think because I was coming back from a huge injury, and I felt so determined to get back on the bike. The world had kind of shut down, so there were no distractions, and I was able to just focus on training and focus on my diet.
By the summer of that year, I was just in really good shape. I'd managed to get in amazing shape, I'd recovered from injuries. Then I managed to go and break the record for the North Coast 500, and then that led on to the seven-day world record as well.
To finally get back to America was a real relief as well. It wasn't easy for sure—I never had any doubts I would ever do it, but it was actually quite hard going back to the American roads again. I think there was always that bit of me thinking about how it's quite a dodgy place to cycle.
I love America, I love the people in America, I've always loved it as a country, but the infrastructure for cycling is just not the best. They don't really have a culture for cycling as much as Europe, so the roads can be quite scary sometimes. I think after the accident it was quite scary as well.
But that moment, riding into New York and seeing the Manhattan skyline for the first time—that was basically five years after I first set off to try and get there. After all those failed attempts, after all the obstacles, after the accident in Texas, to ride into New York and finally finish it was such an amazing feeling.
Laura: I've got such admiration for anyone that perseveres, who addresses the adversity, different challenges, when life puts things in your way, particularly over that length of time. This podcast is called the Idea Junkies podcast. I'm a self-professed idea junkie. I like new things—I've been accused of having shiny object syndrome in the past. So the idea of actually persevering over five years to complete a challenge, I just think it's incredible. What do you think it is? What did it take to be able to keep going five years, through injuries, through lockdown, through the mental health challenges that came with being away and coming home—what was it that eventually got you over that finish line?
Josh: It's a really good question. I don't think anyone's ever asked me that before, but it's a great question. Do you know what I think it was? Honestly, this whole journey for me kind of became quite a spiritual thing, and I really truly believe this is what I was born to do.
I think that's it honestly—I don't think I would be doing this if I never believed that. I truly believe this is just who I am, this is what I'm here for, and what I was born to do. There was only ever one option, which was to finish it. I just couldn't see myself doing anything else.
I think for me to just quit on that and just walk away and do something else, I would have to give up my entire spiritual beliefs about life, about who I think I am as a person—there would be so much involved in not doing it. And I just couldn't honestly imagine what I would do in my life if I wasn't doing this. I just truly believe this is what I was born to do, and finishing it was the only option, really.
Laura: That's amazing. What an inspiring story. And I know you share your story in schools, with young people. You've shared the story quite frequently. When did that start? When did you decide that actually you wanted to inspire other people?
Josh: The public speaking part of it, and the social media and trying to inspire other people—that's always been a part of it, that was a part of the thing from day one. The original idea that I had way back in 2015, I can remember it was a period of my life where I was going through a lot of changes. I'd just started to get interested in personal development.
I remember being out running one night and thinking to myself, maybe I should take on a huge, big challenge to raise awareness for mental health. That was the original idea. And then Sir Chris Hoy inspired me, so I thought, why not do it on a bike? Why not do it in cycling? And I thought, I'll cycle around the world.
So that was kind of always part of it. It was always part of the challenge to tell my story, to raise awareness of mental health, to try and raise some money for mental health charities. And naturally, because of all that social part of it, I was always doing public speaking—doing talks for companies and schools and events and conferences and stuff like that, just sharing my story.
I really enjoy doing it. I love sharing my story. I think it's actually, selfishly, quite good for me to do this stuff as well now, because I am guilty of just kind of being in my own head a bit too much sometimes. Sometimes I forget all this stuff that I've been through the last 10 years, like good and bad, and just telling my story—going into a school, doing a talk, doing a conversation like this for yourself today—it just reminds me actually where I came from, and just makes me actually feel good about myself.
Because I think sometimes I forget all that stuff that I've done because I'm so focused on the future now and where I'm trying to go, and that's been quite a difficult, challenging journey for me as an athlete. But sometimes I forget why I actually started cycling, where I came from, and I think if I had that perspective, I would probably feel a lot better, but it's quite a hard thing to do as well.
Laura: Yeah, I think quite a lot of us are guilty of that. It's very easy to forget just how much we've achieved, particularly when life is busy. People are on social media, there's all that comparing yourself to other people—actually just taking that moment to stop and say, "Oh no, actually, like everything that's happened until now has been, well, good or bad, but the journey has been worth it anyway. I have achieved something up until this point." It's quite a powerful thing to stop and reflect on.
So I do want to ask you a little bit about some of these other big challenges. You talked about the cycling challenges—so you hold two world records, is that right? You have a Guinness World Record and the seven-day cycling record?
Josh: I wish I did, but unfortunately, I don't. I don't hold them anymore. They have since been broken. But we did set them.
Laura: So can you tell me about breaking them then? At the point where you did, you set yourself two new challenges.
Josh: So basically, this was during lockdown. It was in the summer of 2020—I'd kind of recovered from all my injuries from America and was getting really fit. I was kind of just looking for a new goal because I'd realised I wasn't going to get back to America at that time with just the way the pandemic was going.
Somebody suggested, "Why don't you try and break a record for the North Coast 500?" which is basically a 516-mile route around the Scottish Highlands. So that was what we did. We went and cycled that in 31 hours and 19 minutes, which was at that time a huge thing for me—I'd never done anything like that on a bike before. And I think it was quite special for me personally because it was only nine months after America, nine months after all those injuries that I had, so to bounce back and do that just felt like a really special thing to do.
Laura: And you also have the—is it the furthest distance cycled in seven days?
Josh: Yeah, and so that one kind of came after a bad accident as well. Just a few months after I'd done the record for the North Coast 500, I was out in Dubai doing some winter training and had an accident out there—came off the bike and had a lot of injuries and broken bones again.
So rehabilitating from that, I was looking for another challenge to set myself. We were still in the pandemic so I couldn't really go anywhere except from the UK, and I decided to go for the greatest distance cycled in a week. Basically, I cycled 2,179 miles in seven days to set that world record. And that one, we got an official Guinness World Record for, which is on my wall—I can see it right now. Even though we don't hold the current record, we've always got that record on my wall.
Laura: That's incredible. So how did that cycle differ from the around the world cycle? Was it the same mental blocks and mental challenges? Was it physically—how did it differ?
Josh: I think the big difference with the world record cycles was when I was cycling around the world, it was just literally me on a bike on my own, riding around the world, having to find somewhere to stay at night, having to find all my own food, having to fix my bike, having to sort all the travel and logistics. Literally everything that had to be done was done by me.
Whereas with the world record cycles, I had a huge team of people around me who were basically doing everything, and I had one job, which was to just ride the bike. That was quite a cool experience for me because that was the thing that I used to hate the most when I was cycling around the world—I felt like I was always having issues with my bike, having to fix my bike and having punctures in the desert in Arizona, and there were loads of times in China where I was just broken down in the middle of nowhere.
But with the world record cycles, I was able to just focus on the one thing which I was best at, and the thing I loved, which was just literally riding the bike. That was quite a cool experience for me, and I just had an amazing team of people around me. On the second one, for the Guinness World Record, we had a team of about 20 people, with a huge crew on the ground, a lot of people behind the scenes working on online things and the back office stuff. We had a crew of people on the road who were working in shifts, like four hours in a van beside me, and that was just an amazing experience working with them on that. Still got so many good memories of that experience working with those guys doing that.
Laura: So was that the moment that for you, that you went from being like a guy from Scotland who decided to cycle around the world to a professional athlete?
Josh: Yeah, I think you could say that in a lot of ways. I think I've been lucky to be cycling basically full time since I'd done the cycle around the world, because I was basically away cycling around the world, doing that all year on my own, and then as soon as I came back from that, because of the world record, I had the sponsors and the people supporting me, and I've been doing that ever since.
And so, yeah, I think probably in my own mind, that was the point where I felt like I'm now like a professional athlete, I'm now like an elite cyclist, because I was breaking world records. That was definitely, I think, a big moment for me, because I think up until that point, I probably just thought I was just a guy on a bike trying to cycle around the world. But I think the world record really kind of gave me the validation in my own mind that I'm a world record holder, I'm a professional. Nobody's ever kind of put it to me like that as well, but I think that was like a real turning point for me in my own mind.
Laura: So what does that look like then? Obviously, when you're cycling around the world every day, you're cycling like you said, 50 miles and 70 miles, 100 miles, 200 miles. So what does a day now that, now that this is full time, now that you are a professional athlete, what does your day-to-day look like? How has your training changed? What are the big changes you've seen?
Josh: A lot of it kind of revolves around what I'm doing. Like, for example, because I do my public speaking and my school talks, maybe like once or twice a week I'll be going travelling to a school, or I'll be doing a talk or going to visit a company to speak for them. So I kind of work things around that.
But my typical schedule usually is, I'm usually off the bike on a Monday, that's always my rest day. Tuesday's a big Training Day. Wednesday will usually be just an easy cycle, like an hour. Thursday is a big Training Day. Friday's an easy cycle, and then Saturday, Sunday will be big training sessions on a Saturday and a Sunday.
That's kind of like my schedule at the minute, and I'm lucky to be doing that kind of full time, and being able to put most of my time and energy into it really helps. And I think it's changed a lot from when I was doing the world record cycles—that was kind of like endurance based, so I was going out and riding just a lot of miles, really. That sometimes would be like 20 or 30 hours a week on the bike. But now that I'm racing and competing and doing a different style of cycling with the road racing, maybe only doing about 15 hours a week on the bike now, but it's a lot more intensity in there, not doing these bigger days, but it's like a lot harder just trying to get faster for the races, basically.
Laura: And so you're training for your next—the next goal you've set yourself is to compete in the Tour de France?
Josh: Yeah, that was a crazy, big goal I set myself about five years ago. And it's been a real struggle to be honest. I'm not really getting anywhere near that goal yet, and I'm kind of getting at a point where I'm almost like, I think I'm going to need to either start achieving something within racing sooner, or I'm probably going to have to accept that that was maybe just a step too far.
It's been really challenging these last few years since I've started racing and competing, because I've not really been able to have many results—it's been quite tough. But I think the reason that I started it, and the reason I set myself that goal, was because I truly had the self belief that that was what I was capable of doing. I think I wouldn't have ever started it, or I wouldn't ever be doing it unless I believed that I could do it. So I think that I'll keep going with it—I just believe in it too much. But yeah, it has been tough.
Laura: I mean, from your story and from everything you've shared, you've overcome so much, and from where you started as someone who—you weren't even a Sunday cyclist, right? Like you were someone that hadn't been on a bike in years, and in a relatively short space of time, you've gone from being someone who didn't cycle to someone who cycled around the world, broke two world records, to now your life, your career's as a professional cyclist. I think if anyone's going to make that leap up to Tour de France level, it will be—you've certainly had the grit and the determination out of everything.
Then what would you say has been the proudest moment? What's the achievement you're most proud of, or that means the most to you?
Josh: My proudest achievement actually is my sobriety—the fact that I've not drunk alcohol in six years, that's genuinely the thing that I'm proudest of. Because I think if you go back like 10 years ago and you'd seen me when I was younger, seen me when I was 18, 19, 20, 21, there's no way that guy would ever be sober.
I just loved drinking so much. It was just such a big part of my culture, my identity, who I was as a person. There was no way they would have ever believed that I could ever stop drinking. And I think just because where I come from as well, and the culture I grew up in, I think it's quite a hard thing to do, and I'm still to this day, that's the thing that I'm proudest of everything, because that's the thing that would be the easiest for me to just keep on doing, and just do what I was supposed to do, coming from where I come from.
I don't really have to try to not drink anymore—it doesn't take any effort. I'm just so far past it, but it's still, for sure, the most important thing in my life, and it's like the absolute foundation, bedrock of everything that I've got now.
Laura: How is that then, if you are spending time with people that—you've talked about the friends, the challenges you had when you felt like you needed to leave Scotland and the community you grew up in—does not drinking, how has that impacted those relationships, those friendships?
Josh: Yeah, it's a tough one. It was one of the hardest bits of this whole journey. You know, I had a group of mates, like 10, 20, 30 of us. That was what we done every weekend. We were all super close. We were all going out three, four nights a week. And I just had to remove myself from that group.
It was a really tough thing to do at the time, and it's tough now, because I still don't really see them mostly, or don't really speak to them, or just kind of living different lives. I've got maybe like three or four people that I still maybe speak to now and again, but most people don't really speak to at all.
Josh: I think that was just something that I had to do. I think your environment is a really big thing, and if you're not drinking anymore, it was kind of hard to be in that group because drinking is like a core part of that group, essentially.
I think for me, I had to try and surround myself with people that were doing things more like I was trying to do now. And to be honest, I've not really been able to do that—it's been quite hard. I've kind of lost all these relationships and never really replaced them with other ones, because it's just quite a challenging thing to do.
No, that's definitely been quite a hard thing. But I think if you're somebody that realises you have to make a change in your life—like for me, I realised I had to stop drinking because it was becoming too destructive. I just had to make that choice, because I was going to end up dead, I really was. It was just every time I was drinking, I was suicidal and I was wanting to end my life, and there was going to come a time where it happened if I kept drinking. And so I just had to make that choice. And yeah, I've made my peace with it.
Laura: Thank you for sharing that. That sounds tough, but again, seeing where you are now and the way you talk about your mental health cycling to make you happy, it sounds like you're in such a good place now compared to where you were at the start of this journey. Watching your journey has been massively inspiring to me. I'm not the only one that you have inspired. You have lots and lots of followers on social media. You've had the BBC documentary about cycling saved your life. How does it feel to know that your story has touched so many people and inspired so many people?
Josh: Yeah, it's a nice feeling. I wish sometimes I could appreciate it more, because I don't. My life day to day now is usually just a combination of frustration at my racing career and beating myself up that I'm not further forward in my racing career.
I think sometimes I need to just think more about where I came from, you know why I started cycling, things that I've already achieved, people that I've inspired, money that has been raised for charity. I think that's why conversations like this are good for me as well, selfishly, because they kind of make me look back and see all that, because I'm just constantly looking forward and just kind of beating myself up that I'm not further forward and where I would like to be.
Laura: So a couple of more personal questions, if that's right—what is next for you? What does life look like at the moment for you?
Josh: Yes, it's a hard one to know, because I've been a little bit undecided at the minute. Obviously, the journey with the racing hasn't really been working out, and it's kind of got to the point recently, this year, where it's just been really starting to wear me down mentally and emotionally, to the point where I've just been really kind of slipping back into a darker head space.
I think sometimes I need to remember, as I said, that I started cycling to try and feel better and to improve my mental health. And it's a bit silly to get to a point where, because you've set yourself these goals and targets and you're not reaching them, that that's then the thing that's impacting your mental health.
I think sometimes I need to remember why I started riding a bike, and I think that's so important. I've had a few issues with my health in the last year or two—I had quite a bad virus last year, so I was off the bike for a lot of time. This year as well, I've had a few illnesses and sickness. I've had a bit of time off as well.
There's a wee bit of me that's thinking about maybe just taking some time off over the summer to just not have any goals, not have any races, just ride the bike for fun and try and just get back enjoying it again, and just find out what I actually want to do. Do I want to keep going with this racing journey, or do I want to maybe go back to what I was doing before, doing some fun challenges and world records and stuff like that?
I'm not actually sure, but I think I'm going to find out for sure in the next three to 12 months what path I'm going to take. Whatever way it goes, I'm excited. I think both options are really exciting. Even if I don't reach the level that I wanted to reach with racing, there's still a lot of other things I can do on a bike that'll make me really happy and will bring a lot of joy to other people as well through being able to follow them.
Josh: We'll see how it plays out. But I think if I look back at my journey over the last maybe 10 years, one thing that I have shown is that when I've got a goal, when I've got a dream, I can make it happen, and I've got the mental strength to just keep going and keep persevering.
So I honestly think that I will keep going with the racing journey, because I just believe in it too much, and I just know that I can do it, but I think I may just need a wee bit of time over the summer to just get riding for fun again and just get back enjoying it. But I think I will keep going with it, for sure.
Laura: You said something at the start of this conversation on your first round-the-world cycle attempt that you had said you were going to do it, and then it was almost like that was the goal that you thought you should want, rather than the goal that you really wanted. And I think that's really—again, that's something that's really easy to slip into in an era where we're all online, where everyone's showcasing the best of their life, and maybe less of us are brave enough to show the downsides as well as the positives. But I think it is really easy to slip into a headspace where you are doing the thing that you think you should want or you ought to achieve, rather than the thing that really does light you up and the thing that really does make you want to get out of bed in the morning.
Josh: I think I should just hire you and have you as my life coach, because seriously, you've said like two or three things in this conversation that have just really made me think. Even as I was giving you some of my answers, my head's going a million miles an hour, like, "Oh my god, I think I've just realised something."
And you know what? I think you're onto something there. I think the whole thing with the Tour de France, for me, I think it was like—it's obviously the biggest possible thing that I could do in cycling, it would be such an amazing story. But there is always that wee bit—I'm starting to think, is that the actual cycling that I enjoy, or is it because I think it's such a cool story that I want to do it? Is it the external achievement and what that brings me versus what I actually enjoy doing?
Because one of the things that I've had to give up in this journey with racing is basically the cycling I was doing before, which was long distance—I was going out and doing these really big cycles. I don't really do them anymore because I'm training for these races, and it's a lot different training. So yeah, there's definitely something in that for me to think about.
Laura: Whatever path you decide to take, hopefully we're gonna have a conversation in six or 12 months time, and you can come back, join the next season of the podcast, and you can tell us you'll have found the thing that you do want to do, and you'll be really clear on that.
Josh: Yeah, no, I would do that for sure.
Laura: Amazing. Last question, just because we've obviously touched on mental health a lot today, and so I just wanted to ask if anyone's listening who is struggling, who maybe has found themselves going to a dark place themselves for whatever reason, what would your advice be to them?
Josh: I think that the first thing that I would say is that when you're going through something really tough, it's so easy to make the assumption in your mind that how you feel now is how you're going to feel forever. That was really the reason why I tried to end my life—I believed that how I felt in 2015, that was how I was going to feel forever. I never had any hope that things could get better.
So I think the first thing is just like, although you can't believe it right now, and I know you can't see it right now, but I promise you, things can get better, but you just need to keep going. For me, I was in that really dark place in 2015 where I didn't think it was possible to ever be happy again. I couldn't see how that would ever happen, but I just somehow managed to find something which really helped me, and that outlet was cycling—that was the thing that really helped me.
Most people are not going to just jump on a bike and cycle around the world, and that's not what you need to do. I'm just an extreme guy, and that was kind of my way of doing it. But I think what needs to happen to try and feel better is some sort of action has to be taken. I think you have to do something—for some people that might be going to see a therapist and doing therapy and counselling, that's something I've done a lot of, and I would always recommend. It can be doing something physical—that was huge for me. For me, it was a bike. For other people, it could be walking or running or swimming or some sort of sport, something that gets your body moving.
There's so many things that we can do to take action, like reading books or trying meditation, speaking to people. I think just taking action, just trying to do stuff and make changes, is something that can really help. And that was a lot of what helped me as well.
Laura: Amazing. We'll add some links in the show notes in case anybody is struggling and wants to take action—we'll signpost some places you can go to for support.
Josh, thank you so much. I've been asking every guest on the show as a final question: if there is one idea that you could leave our listeners with, one thing that you'd like them to take away, what would that be?
Josh: One thing that I used to say to people online, and it's the thing that most people have messaged me and told me that helped them the most, is this wee thing where I used to say there was like a wee motto or a mantra, and it was basically, "act the way you want to feel."
So like, if you wake up and you feel terrible, you feel depressed and you feel really horrible, the actions that you're going to take in that morning, in that moment are probably all going to be quite negative, because you're just wanting to change how you feel. So if you wake up and feel terrible, you might just start scrolling on your phone, or you might go and eat something unhealthy, or you might just sit and watch TV to try and escape.
But if I was to think about how I would act if I was to wake up and I felt brilliant—if I woke up in the morning and felt amazing, I would just go out and go training on the bike or go for a run. I'd go and do something really positive. And I kind of worked out that if you wake up and you don't feel good, but you just pretend that you do and act the way that you want to feel—imagine how you would act if you were happy. And you can actually just kind of trick the brain into actually thinking that you're happy, because you've just taken the actions that you would usually take when you're happy, and once you take those actions, you start feeling a lot better in your head. That just gives you a bit of positive momentum. So "act the way you want to feel"—it's just like a wee thing that has really worked for me over the years, and a lot of people have told me that they found it effective as well.
Laura: That's awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time out. Thank you for sharing your story and for your honesty about some topics that obviously quite—not all, not every part of your journey has been positive and easy, and I really appreciate you coming on and talking about all of it. So thank you so much. And yeah, we'll make sure that the links to all your socials are in the show notes as well, so that anybody who wants to keep up with the next phase of your journey, whatever that looks like, will be able to come and find you.
Josh: Yeah, thank you. Really enjoyed that.
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