Sarah Strong has lived in the South-East of England most of her life and been living in London for over 20 years. She first ‘discovered’ cycling while recovering from a severe depressive episode in 2003. Helping out at a local mountain bike race was the catalyst for everything cycling related that happened after. She’s experienced mountain biking, a little cyclecross, road riding and racing, sportive and audaxing, touring, bmxing, turbo training, track riding and racing, and has been a marshal at the London Tweed Run for the last few years. The bike has become her main coping mechanism for low mood, lifelong anxiety, and depression. Her blog is currently on hold but in the past she has initiated evenings of panel discussions around cycling and mental health – the most notable being at (the sadly now closed) Look Mum No Hands cycle café in London in 2017. In the last decade she had been working in mental health and is currently supports a team of peer workers who use their own lived experience of mental health to help others in their recovery. Not one much for organised events and racing much these days, she uses the bike as a way to connect and have conversations around wellbeing. She has been talking and writing about cycling in relation to mental health for 10-15 years and has more recently become involved in cycle campaigning and is in her second term as a Trustee of London Cycle Campaign. Currently, she does a lot of solo riding – a way of finding headspace from an intense job role at the Maudsley Hospital in South London.
Sarah Strong
