Jenn Hopkins – The Queen of Singlespeed
Feature Posted: 16th February 2007
Words and Pics by Joolze Dymond
Jenn Hopkins to all those in the know is one of the friendliest enduro riders on the scene. Known throughout the enduro world as the lady on the singlespeed, who’ll cheer you on as she effortlessly churns out the laps over any time limit up to 24hrs. Her list of achievements are pretty impressive, having started racing 4 years ago, just to see what it was like, she has progressed in the most unconventional of ways to rank as one of the UK’s best enduro riders.
All this and more she does on her beloved and unconventional singlespeed. Yes that’s right a mountain bike with just one gear, sort of akin to your granny’s shopping bike (but I guess even that had at least 3 gears), but a bit lighter and oh so much faster.
For the fourth year in a row she is the reigning UK Singlespeed Ladies Champ, she’s also the European champ and very nearly carried off the crown at the World Champs in Sweden in 2006, but with half a lap to go, the previous week’s 24hr solo race started to tell. She also has the coveted title of 24hr solo ladies champion at the prestigious Mountain Mayhem event, where she rode nearly 200 miles around some pretty challenging terrain to take the title, again all on her trusty singlespeed.
Her winning streak didn’t stop there either, a win in the Marin Dusk Till Dawn 12 hr enduro later in the year was the icing on the cake and underlined her position as a respected and much-loved enduro competitor.
She lives and breathes cycling, giving up a potentially lucrative and well-paid job to follow her dream and to eat cake. Working part time in her local bike shop, putting her mechanical knowledge to good use, gives her the time (and cash) to juggle between cramming in as many rides as she possibly can on her beloved bikes, whilst carving out a notable career as a bike journo/photographer. I caught up with 29 year old Jenn on a rare day out of her busy schedule, at her home near the South Downs in Brighton, where we had a chat about cakes, work, photography, mud, girly dresses and occasionally bikes…
Q: When did the cycling bug get you?
I’ve been riding a bike for as long as I can actually remember… though I only want to recall the last 10 years as any longer than that will just age me!
I started riding mountain bikes because my brother was and I’ve never stopped really. We grew up in Dorset, so having a bike and just mucking about was what you did. We rode mountain bikes as they give you so much more freedom, up until recently that’s all I rode, now though I seem to have caught the road bug too. My main reasons now are based around the whole idea that the more I ride the more cake I can eat!
Though my first proper memory of how fun bikes are is possibly when I was much younger. I used to do a paper round and my means of transport back then was a Raleigh ladies racer, in that funny blonde colour that they made them and I remember icy mornings on that and it being really good fun to get out and ride. I kind of realised then that bikes are good fun and not something that you get kicked out of bed really early to get on.
Q: Do you see your involvement with cycling as a lifestyle or just a sport?
Oh it’s not a lifestyle; it’s my life quite literally. It’s more than a lifestyle, it’s bikes and everything I do now is kinda bike centric, including my jobs. I ride loads of different kinds of bikes with loads of different kinds of people and it all kind of occupies separate slots but it is all bike related.
I’m really not the sort of person who likes spending a day trailing round the shops or watching soaps on the TV, I just like to be on the go all the time and cycling fits in pretty well with all that and it keeps me sane. Working in the bike shop is a nice way to earn a few pounds, whilst not tying me down to much. This leaves time for me to regain and develop my passion for photography, alongside my freelance work for bike mags, product testing etc. It’s all a nice fit at the moment. Plus all the miles I do leaves me loads of room for cake.
Q What do you do to support your cycling habit?
I work odd hours, 3 days a week at my local bike shop, mainly in the workshop. I also do some bike journalism freelance for a few mags, bike testing, product testing etc I love all aspects really - I’m very lucky.
I made a decision a couple of years ago to give up a job in academia which had a proper career path plotted through it to work in the bike shop, as it was just going to work at 9am in the morning and working in an office all week and I hated it. It was an attempt to get a proper job with some proper money, but it just didn’t work. I used to ride to work everyday and was seen as the office cycling freak. Working with people who thought of cyclists as odd and if you ride a bike you can’t afford a car, was not good. I used to work with a guy called Nick, we both used to ride in and were corralled into the office, in our one section and the door shut on us ‘cos we smelt horrible, especially in the winter when there’d be bike kit hanging off the radiator and back of the monitors and stuff.
Now I earn far less than I used to but I’m so much happier.
Q How did you end up living in Brighton?
I came down for college; it was either here or Blackpool. Both places offered excellent riding as well as colleges that did the course I wanted. I trained as a photographer. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, I thought it would be very much like a foundation course but it was very, very intense, kind of hothouse - very focused, which in the end stifled all my creativity and my passion for photography. When I graduated I couldn’t bear to pick up a camera for about 3 or 4 years after. It was just a horrendous experience. The cycling was all that kept me sane.
Q And now your cycling is helping to rekindle your passion for photography?
Yeah I guess, though I have mixed feelings about using my riding to take photos, as that can be a bit stifling. Also riding with camera kit is no fun. While its useful to ride and write and shoot and kinda of gives a whole package, it’s not necessarily an enjoyable thing. And it’s exhausting. But it is kinda nice to combine my two passions, sometimes, especially as it earns me some money and it means I get to work outside, I can’t cope with working in an office and the lack of daylight and the set hours, I’m really bad at keeping time.
Q What sort of riding do you do purely for enjoyment?
All my riding is for enjoyment, even the racing. At the moment I’m really into my road bike, doing loads of miles. I love my road bike - its great. It’s time to myself where I can listen to my tunes on the iPod that I never usually get time to listen to. A 4 or 5-hour road ride is about 4 or 5 albums, so that alone justifies the CD habit. I don’t want to be in a position where I think I have to ride every day, I’ve been there before and it’s not long before I just don’t want to ride anymore. It’s all about enjoyment for me, when the enjoyment goes then I stop riding.
Q What do you find so rewarding about riding a bike?
Er, um, hmm. The freedom to move through the landscape without constraints, the opportunity for immersion in the physical effort and hardship that's lacking from modern life, the mental toughness that riding through all weathers and seasons breeds as well as the obvious physical benefits, oh and of course the cake...
Q Do you do most of your riding with friends?
No, unfortunately I don’t have the time with all my commitments, to spend 5 hours doing a 2-hour ride, which is generally what happens on group rides. So I do a lot of my riding on my own. One of the good things about racing is that I see a whole group of friends who I would very rarely see otherwise. I see them every other weekend throughout the summer because of racing. Dusk 2 Dawn was very weird saying goodbye to loads of people thinking, um I’m not going to see you until May now. Which is quite odd.
Q Do you have non-cycling friends?
Yes loads, who just don’t understand it at all. They get pretty excited about the racing especially now I’m the UK & European singlespeed champ (Well I have been for the last 4 years (UK) 2years (European)) what they don’t realise is that I’m a UK champion in a very small field so to speak. Singlespeed is a small section and being a British Champ at it doesn’t mean that much but they’re still very impressed. I guess it’s because it’s so far removed from what they do on a weekend. I’ll go and see them and spend Sunday morning reading newspapers, eating croissants and drinking coffee and its great but by lunch time I start thinking, “Right, where’s my bike? Let me out there!” I can’t do it at all; I have to be out riding.
Q Your passion for riding is a good thing isn’t it?
Yeah it is generally. Sometimes it can be all consuming and quite weird, as I can’t go very long without wanting to get out and ride. I suppose it’s a bit like an addiction, a habit. I’m generally a busy person and the bike just keeps me sane.
Q What you riding at the moment?
On the road it’s an Omega Helix, it’s super comfy and just so nice. I kind of appreciate the lack of mud that riding on the road gives you. It’s so mucky here during the winter. To be honest I used to ride all year round, but now I’ve stopped even riding the singlespeed so much in the winter as it’s just so horrible down here. So now I spend a lot of the time on my own riding the road. Off road its Kona Unit or Kona Jake the Snake.
Q What ifs your favourite trail at the moment?
The South Downs, without a doubt. I’ve lived here for nearly 10 years and I know the trails pretty well now and they’re all pretty good so it’s difficult to name just one.
Road wise you can only really go one way here, North, which takes you out over the Downs, pretty hilly but a lovely place to ride, none the less. And it gets you into that zone where you feel as one with your bike and nothing else matters. The synergy is just amazing. I can sustain that for about 2.30hrs and I can usually get quite a way from here before reality sets in I turn back and then head home.
Q Do you prefer riding with the boys or the girls?
Both really, I enjoy the speed that you get on the guys ride and the women’s rides are just a real eye opener. The atmosphere with the girls is just so different, much more supportive and encouraging. I find the talk of curtains although very refreshing, a tad boring, they just ride along and natter, which is great. Whereas the guys ride head down, flat out, stop at a gate and then proceed to talk about bike parts for 30mins.
Q You’re very much associated with singlespeed now, why did you start riding one?
That started really because where I live, near the South Downs. Winter is hellish around here it gets very sticky and it clings to everything wearing out drivetrain and gears, so I thought I’d give singlespeed a go and just haven’t looked back. It’s lovely and it’s fun.
Singlespeed is easy, you don’t have to think about it, you just pedal and there’s a point where you can’t pedal so you get a rest. It sort of paces you as well, if you had gears you’d probably be turning the biggest one until it stared hurting then it’d be straight to the granny ring, fighting with the gears and if it rains there’s all the mud to think about. Nothing like that effects you on singlespeed.
Q With the amount of racing and excellent results you get you must have to do a lot of training?
No not really. I’ve tried doing a proper training schedule, tried going down all the proper routes but it’s not me I just can’t do it. I can’t cope with somebody telling me how and when to ride my bike, I just ride when I want to, which is most days and seems to work. It’s a very unconventional approach and I don’t know if my results would change if I did conform, but it’s not something that really interests me. I ride and race for the enjoyment not the competition. 24-hour races are all about getting to the end and finishing; if you end up on the podium as a result it’s a bonus.
Q What do you do to relax when you’re not actually riding?
Eat, talk… No I really, really like cooking, something I don’t really get much time to do in the summer as I’m riding all the time so I just grab any meals then. But in the winter I love to create in the kitchen. I also love gardening, when I can; again it’s a pastime that suffers a bit at the hands of my cycling. Though growing your own veg and cooking it is a wonderful way to be, its absolutely ace. I like all sorts of cooking; I don’t have any real favourites. Baking is dangerous, as you end up making these really yummy cakes and then eating them.
Q So when you’re not riding you’re eating, cooking, sleeping, eating?
Yeah all that stuff and listening to music when I can too. Though again music has suffered this summer, but when the racing season was over I rushed to the local music shop found loads of CD’s I’d never heard of, bought them and am now slowly going through them all, it’s something I do quite regularly when I can.
Q Is there one track/one album that you could say underlines your experience of cycling?
(Rummages through iTunes) It's so hard to pick just one, this would be a lot easier if I just had two sides of a TDK90 to pick from instead of 20gb of files! Okay - can we say Portishead's Roseland NYC album? Dummy's been around since I started riding, so has lots of memories attached to it and the live version is a great way to while away a few hours on the road bike - not too leg-rippingly frantic, and like cycling its, endlessly absorbing, and spine-tinglingly intense. It's either that or The Bends, anyway, and for exactly the same reasons...
Q Talk me through a typical ‘”Jenn” day.
If it’s a workday I usually get up late, pick up a bag that’s already been packed. If I’m riding after work there’s a change of kit already at work so I haven’t got to take a huge bag in with me all the time. Ride to work, sometime via the croissant shop sometimes not. A nice 5-mile jaunt right along the seafront. I usually do that on the fixed gear bike just for fun, trying to see how far I can get before I have to touch the ground!
Then it’s straight to work when I get in, a mixture of workshop and shop floor, depending on what needs doing where. I much prefer being in the workshop, especially building wheels. You can just sit in the corner quietly building up a set of wheels, it’s very therapeutic, but I don’t get to do that a lot. It’s satisfying as you start with a bunch of parts and end up with something useful. Normally though it’s boring stuff like changing bottom brackets, changing transmissions etc as we live near the sea, a lot of bikes that we get in are corroded due to the sea salt so we spend a lot of time getting peoples bikes to actually work again. On the way home I usually take a longer route, back along the Downs, it’s quiet and in the summer you get some gorgeous sunsets, in the winter it’s just dark. And then home, a very big bath with lots of scrubbing to get rid of all the dirt and oil from the bike shop, then supper and usually polish off something I’d been working on outside of the shop, like a magazine article or review. Oh and then bed!
If it’s a day off, I’m usually found working on an article at home or out riding a bike somewhere. I’m not very good at having proper day off; when you’re freelance you just seem to end up working everyday. I’m not very good at working from home; it’s something I’m trying to improve. You do tend to do anything but what you’re supposed to be doing. Rummaging through your CD collection, changing them over and wandering away from your desk to find yourself 3 hours later with a very tidy collection of spokes but no real work done… I do work better when there’s an impending deadline.
Often on the whole doing I’m usually doing something else somewhere else. Usually driving huge miles to meet someone have crappy coffee; some cake and then we usually end up riding. Though it’s riding for work not riding, riding. And when it gets hard you just have to remind yourself that hey you could be stuck behind a desk. And it’s usually exhausting.
It is a great life. Sometimes it does get difficult when everything’s dirty and covered in mud and you just think why - but then you remember why and it’s all right again.
Q Would you say your bike experience is akin to a Hollywood blockbuster or a TV soap opera?
Oh, soap opera for sure. On every day and repetitive tedium to all but those involved.
Q Is there anything you’d like to change about your life?
Oh sometimes I just wish my hands weren’t so grubby, from working in the shop and I look at my wardrobe and see jeans, t-shirts and more jeans, bike kit and just sometimes I think I’d really liked to get dressed up in a ball gown and go out and do something really posh, just once. I’ve never done it. You can’t do it in the summer as your arms are covered in scars and in the winter you have that silly tan that only cyclists get. It would be fun to do. But that’s all really.
Q What are your short term plans at the moment?
I’m kinda interested in audaxes at the moment. It’s enduro riding without racing and it’s on the road, no mud.
Things like the Trans Alp or the TransRockies really don’t appeal, as they’re more team events. I really like the solo effort and looking after myself. I know what I want and trying to explain that to someone else at 3 in the morning, its not easy. I’m too single minded, stubborn and independent.
Riding to race has been interesting this year, but to be honest I want to get to just riding for fun. You don’t put any pressure on yourself and you still get to eat cake!
Q If someone asked you why should I start cycling what would you say to them?
Well definitely the cake issue comes into it! Its one of the reasons I ride so much in the winter. I really like food and the kinda food that I like is not salads n stuff, its butter eggs flour milk, chocolate stuff really. You get to eat as much as you like, you keep fit and you’re out all the time, why wouldn’t you want to cycle. Plus you get to see places you wouldn’t normally see or appreciate stuck in a car.
Q Would you recommend your style of life to anyone?
To a certain degree, until it ends up with too many people out there doing what I do…. Go and play football or something instead! No it’s a great way to live, it wouldn’t suit everybody as it’s quite a precarious way to live and you can’t afford big holidays and flash cars, but if you can cope with that then I recommend it to anyone.
Q What would be your one bit of advice to anyone starting out?
If it’s women, find other women to ride with. It makes a huge difference when you’re just starting out.
Also, don’t take on more than you can chew… start gradually, don’t jump in and overdo it, it’ll soon get boring and probably hurt. I’m like that with running unfortunately, I don’t do anything for ages then I blast off and wonder why it hurts. I run far too fast, far too far then I can’t walk for 2 weeks and don’t run for 2 months…
Learn to fix a puncture; it’s a very useful thing to know how to do.
Buy an OS map of where you live. It’s always interesting to look at your area in a different way and suddenly find loads of riding possibilities you never realized where there.
Q And finally, which actress would you want to play you if your life was made into a film?
Am I allowed Tank Girl? It's the boots and the guns...