YOU ARE A REAL CYCLIST

In a sport hung up on rules and details, it’s easy to feel you’re falling short of the mark and failing to fit in. Dr Josephine Perry goes to work on impostor syndrome

- Dr Josephine Perry

We tend to think of cycling as brilliantly accessible. It takes us on adventures, provides the backbone of our social life and, if you commute by bike, saves thousands on motoring expenses. But cycling is not always as accessible as we like to think, and newcomers often feel shut out. From the obscure ‘rules’ that we only know exist when we’re mocked for having broken them, to the ‘secret squirrel’ developments in technology, to the multitude of acronyms and arcane language combining French, Italian and English words referencing a history that it takes years to learn. Hardly surprisingly, then, that none of us is immune from occasionally feeling like an outsider.

This has an impact, often a very painful one, which as a sports psychologist I encounter regularly in the people who call me for support. Typically they tell me they love cycling and believe they are competent riders, before adding a caveat: “But I’m not a real cyclist”. This inability to regard oneself as a ‘real cyclist’ is the result of impostor syndrome. By any objective measure, you’re a successful rider and part of the cycling community, but self-doubt persists and you constantly feel as though you’re about to be exposed as a fraud. If you feel this way, you are not alone – a meta-analysis involving 14,000 participants found as many as 82 per cent of cyclists have experienced these feelings.