This is my bike (battery not pictured). It’s a Kalkhoff Agattu C8 Impulse.
When I’ve spent the last five years of my life explaining that I am in daily pain, I can tell people are thinking:
If your pain is so bad how come you can manage to cycle every day?
The answer doesn’t seem obvious at first, but after my first year of cycling now I can confirm that for me getting on the bike every day keeps my pain at a manageable level and has made my body stronger and more able to cope when the pain is at its worst.
It’s hard to imagine how that might be the case when you’re still in the worst throws of endometriosis pain, but I want to do my best to explain why cycling might be a manageable activity for some of us with endometriosis, and how it can be successfully accomplished despite pain and chronic fatigue. Crucially cycling has helped my mobility, fitness and independence massively alongside improving my sense of wellbeing.
I want to talk to those of you today who think an activity like cycling is impossible, too hard, too painful. The exact thoughts I had not one year ago, and why that might not be the case for every single one of you. If at the end of it it still seems too hard – that’s fine – but put this away for one day when that might not still be the case.
Lots of people say they’re willing to do anything to rid themselves of pain. So what I’m about to explain works for me. Ultimately though only you and your doctor know what treatments are best for you.
