‘Ask me how I train for hills,’ says Rikke Laursen. ‘My husband is 90kg; he hangs onto my saddle and I have to pull him up the short climbs we do have.’
It’s an unorthodox method, but it clearly works. Rikke was 2019 Masters World Champion, beating off high-altitude rivals despite living in the eighth flattest country on Earth: Denmark, average elevation 34m. (Pub quizzers: the Maldives is the flattest country on the planet, just 1.5m above sea level.)
Along with being a highly accomplished cyclist, Rikke runs a coaching company, a coffee-cum-bike shop, a PR agency and various race teams, and from time to time commentates on Danish TV and radio. Obviously, some people just don’t need to sleep, otherwise how else has Rikke found time to guide me round Copenhagen today?
Local authorities, and even schools themselves, can
