I thought a ride with a 66-year-old grandmother would be easy, but she dropped me like a sack of spuds - I'd underestimated a world-class cyclist

Here’s to a delightful afternoon in the Chiltern Hills, I thought. A charming little bimble taking in the area’s quaint contours, I’d spin my legs at a leisurely touring pace while having a nice chinwag. I was in the safe hands of the perfect riding companion for such an outing, I thought: Linda Dewhurst, a 66-year-old grandmother who, whatever her athletic background, surely wasn’t going to cause me any problems. After all, I was 20 years younger than her and my Functional Threshold Power (FTP, the power a rider can sustain for an hour) was the best it’d ever been, at nearly 370 watts. What could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot, as it turned out.

Dewhurst is no ordinary mid-60s grandmother, having taken silver in her age group at the 2024 Gravel Worlds in Flanders as well as a gold at the 2023 UCI Gran Fondo AG Worlds in Glasgow among a host of impressive National time trial achievements. En route to the Chilterns [southern England], I was undoubtedly naive in my expectations.

Upon my arrival, a clear blue sky lit up the fading shades of autumn, fields of forage rape stretching towards distant woodland – the scene was set for my envisaged gentle spin. But the script in my head was about to get torn to shreds. Right from the start, it was clear that it would not be me doing any of the pace-setting. Linda Dewhurst, you see, is an absolute machine.

A master class

Suspicions I may be in trouble were ignited a few minutes into our ride when the super-strong 66-year-old rode me off her wheel on a benign length of flattish blacktop. They were confirmed moments later when she dropped me like a sack of spuds on the following ascent, pedalling ahead with a souplesse rarely seen outside of the pro peloton. Try as I might to keep up, clambering all over my bicycle in desperation, my heart rate rocketing towards the red zone, it was futile. I was getting my backside handed to me by a woman two decades my senior.

We crested the first climb and my ballast temporarily evened the playing field on the descent. My heart rate began to settle and clarity of thought slowly returned. “Blimey,” I thought out loud, the shock still sinking in.

Later, much later, I would realise I should have known better. Dewhurst has serious pedigree. Growing up in Worcestershire, she competed in middle-distance running from a young age, and went on to twice get selected for the England cross-country team, as well as recording a blisteringly fast 33-minute 10k. Achilles problems and family life took her away from sport for many years, but at age 50 she recognised she had become “very unfit”. It was time to make a comeback.

“I decided to join my eldest daughter on the coast-to-coast ride in 2013,” Dewhurst casually explained, barely breathing. “I thought this would be a good way to try and get fit again.”

Finding that cycling didn’t aggravate the niggling injuries she had picked up as a runner and that she enjoyed it, the part-time physiotherapist joined Team Milton Keynes and became a regular on their Saturday social rides. It was through the team that she first found out she had an innate ability against the clock.

“Back in 2017, a friend of mine said she was going to compete in a charity time trial and asked me if I was interested in taking part,” Dewhurst said. “It was a sporting 25 course and I used my road bike.” Clocking a solid 1:04, she had opened her account. Her next race was at the VTTA [Veteran Time Trial Association] Nationals on a course near Tring, Hertfordshire, UK. On fitness built exclusively from weekly club runs, no interval sessions, she won a subsidiary category on a borrowed TT rig. But it was only when she came third in the Masters National 25 [mile time trial] in 2018 that Dewhurst decided that borrowed bikes and unstructured training might be selling her talent short.

Power to burn

On our outing, she rode the same Canyon Grizl gravel bike she used in the Gravel World Championships. Tapping out a rapid pace along the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal, I was just about able to keep up thanks to the flat nature of the terrain. For a brief spell, I had enough air in my lungs to ask questions. The power with which she was putting me under pressure, well, just how much does she have? “I think my FTP is about 250 watts,” she said, almost bashfully. Being the one on the back foot, I figured I didn’t need to be tactful about weight: she was clearly lean and mean, in top shape. “Yes, around 60kg,” she confirmed.

I attempted a quick calculation in my head. Two-fifty watts divided by 60 was well over four watts per kilo. At 66 years old, that’s seriously impressive.

As we swung off the canal and began a steep climb into the Wendover Woods, I asked what kind of training a masters athlete undertakes to sustain top-tier fitness. It was then we hit a hill and Dewhurst was left talking to herself. From 50 metres back, I was sure I heard something about two times 20 minutes at 105% FTP before she disappeared out of earshot.

By 2021, although she garnered consistently good results, Dewhurst noticed that her form was stuck in a rut. “My results had plateaued and I realised I probably needed to do some structured training to get better,” she explained when I finally caught up on another flatter section. “I started with Ride Revolution coach Gavin Howell, and he has been training me for the past few years.” Howell has a lot to answer for. He was partly responsible for turning what was meant to be a leisurely outing into VO2 max hell – for me, at least.

A rolling section of the route saw me clinging on to Dewhurst’s wheel, unable to take in the (presumably pretty) scenery as I target-fixated on a narrow corridor of asphalt, dimly aware of the last traces of my dignity disappearing over a hedge. By now everything was a blur. Worryingly, Dewhurst was still not riding particularly hard. We stopped at a crossroads and while I tried to stave off a vomiting episode, she was still barely breathing. She was making my fastidiously cultivated threshold power look like it couldn’t punch its way out of a paper bag.

In 2023 Dewhurst took to the start of the UCI Gran Fondo AG Worlds in Glasgow alongside the likes of the legendary Jeannie Longo, who bossed women’s cycling in the late Eighties and Nineties. “I had no expectations going into the race,” Dewhurst said, “except thinking a top five would be fab.” She surprised both herself and Longo in Glasgow, winning the road race gold and taking second in the time trial. As a first foray into agegroup racing, it served as a powerful catalyst, giving her confidence that she had talent on her side. By the end of 2023, Dewhurst had amassed a haul of medals including VTTA 10, 15 and 25-mile TT Nationals, in the process setting two new age-group records, 20.41 for the ‘10’ and 33.33 for the ‘15’. I thought back to my own 10-mile PB of 24.36 – where I’d tried so hard my face remained contorted for several weeks afterwards. Linda Dewhurst has got it. I have not.

A stellar year

After hitching a ride on the Dewhurst Express through the villages of St Leonards, Cholesbury and Wiggington, we eventually alighted at the solace of a tearooms in Aldbury. I breathed a sigh of relief. Our ride was over and it was my time to shine in the cake-eating contest. We continued our chat. The Gravel Worlds triumph, it transpired, was the culmination of a few years of steady progress.

Last year, Dewhurst defended her road race title at the Worlds in Denmark and also rode to gold in the time trial. Not content with her brace of world titles, she popped over to Belgium’s Gravel Worlds on a whim and, as already mentioned, struck silver. “I’d thought things couldn’t get any better than 2023,” she tells me between sips of breakfast tea, “so 2024’s results were blinking fantastic.” In addition to her gravel glory, she successfully defended her VTTA titles, which included a new national record of 55.34 for 25 miles. To call it a good season would be an understatement.

It was an honour to ride with such an exceptional athlete, even if I was thoroughly humbled by the experience. It taught me an important lesson too. Clearly, older age need not be spent sipping Horlicks in front of Songs of Praise. We might not all have Linda Dewhurst’s level of talent but we can take inspiration from her undimmed motivation and willingness to keep working hard.

So what does Dewhurst have on the agenda for her 67th year on the planet. Sitting on her laurels, she is not. “Not sure what 2025 will bring, but I’m aiming to go to Australia to defend my worlds titles,” she says. May we all grow old as gracefully as this multi-talented Super Gran, master of gravel, gran fondo, TT and road.