'My happy place was ripped away'

Champion road racer turned time triallist Jen George tells CW why she no longer feels safe to ride alone on her local roads

- By David Bradford

Jennifer George is not the kind of rider easily deterred from riding her bike. “My background is such that I know the best thing you can do is get back on as soon as possible,” she says, almost by way of introduction. That background includes growing up riding horses around the Scottish countryside and, for the past eight years, as a highly successful bike racer. Today, however, the 39-year-old is telling me about something that happened to her earlier this year that has knocked her confidence so badly she doesn’t know if she will ever again ride alone on her local roads.

“I’d been out for about two-and-a-half hours,” George begins to recount the incident in April that changed everything for her, “and I was less than 20km from home [in southeast London]”. It was a regular training ride on familiar lanes, and she was completing her final interval near Biggin Hill when she noticed an unusually positioned motorcycle. “It was on the slip road of a junction but clearly not turning off, as it was facing the direction I was going. I sensed the rider and pillion were watching me in their mirror and over their shoulders. Alarm bells – something wasn’t right.”

An intimidating encounter