A West Lothian cyclist has told of the amazing few months that has seen him smash a World Record and be nominated for an award alongside some of his biggest heroes.
Josh Quigley broke the world record for the greatest distance cycled in a week in September and raised over £12,000 for charity in the process.
It was a remarkable comeback story for the 29-year-old, who was forced to pull out of his initial attempt earlier this year due to injury and has twice been involved in horror crashes in recent years.
Two years ago while attempting a round-the-world cycling challenge, Josh was struck from behind by a car travelling at 70mph in America, sustaining a fractured skull, ankle, heel, pelvis and ribs as well as puncturing a lung.
In February, he was flown home after a collision during winter training in Dubai in which he fractured his spine and pelvis in two places, broke his elbow, shoulder and four ribs, while two spinal vertebrae were misaligned.
Josh has also been open about his struggles with mental health over the years and credits cycling with turning his life around.
The 29-year-old from Deans said he is delighted all his hard work has paid off with the World Record and a nomination from Cycling Weekly magazine in the Greatest Achievement category.
He told the Courier: “The last few weeks have been a bit crazy but absolutely amazing, it’s been good to get it done.
“There has been a lot of difficult moments along the way, but I’m so glad I persevered and kept on with it.
“It was worth it in the end.
“For the last year I’ve been doing these world record attempts, because during covid there’s not much else you can do, I couldn’t travel anywhere to finish my round the world cycle and a lot of the racing and competitions and events were all cancelled.
“The world is opening up again so my plan just now is to start racing and transition away from the ultra endurance to road racing, that’s my plan at the moment.
“I’ll be spending most of the winter in Spain and overseas at least, doing some winter training camps and things like that, just trying to get ready for the 2022 racing season, that will be my immediate plan for the next six months.”
Josh has made no secret of his struggles with his mental health and in his young life has fought addiction and depression which led to him trying to take his own life.
He said: “I have been sober for three years now.
“I got into cycling in the beginning because of my mental health. It was really bad and I was depressed and there was the failed suicide attempt, so that’s really why I got into cycling to try and feel better and that led on to be being quite good at it and becoming a full-time cyclist and doing the world record and things like that, so mental health has always been a big part of it.
“It’s always going to be part of the story, but I’m in a pretty good place these days in terms of my own mental state and I think that has a lot to do with the amount of training I do and looking after myself.”
Josh said he’s also getting used to being a celebrity in West Lothian and was delighted to see his story on the front page of The Courier.
He continued: “I was walking up to Morrisons and I usually have a wee scan of the papers and I saw it and it was nice to see.
“The support back home has been incredible and there are a lot of people who have been following the journey from day one from when I first got on a bike back in 2016 so it was wee bit like being a local celebrity just now, people have been stopping me to say well done and things like that.
“There have been a few people in West Lothian who have succeeded in sport and there’s always good support for them and people have been behind me as well.”
Josh said the icing on the cake was being nominated for an award alongside some of his all-time heroes.
He said: “Cycling Weekly, which is one of the biggest cycling magazines, have an annual awards and there are loads of different categories where people get nominated for awards and we’ve been nominated for outstanding achievement.
“That will be announced in December and the list of the people who are in that; Jason Kenny, who is the greatest ever living Olympian, Dame Sarah Storey, greatest ever Paralympian, there are two people who won Olympic gold medals in Tokyo this year, the list is incredible and to even be nominated is just a huge honour.”
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