Three Years Ago, She Got on a Bike for the First Time. This week, she is cycling across Europe. 🚵🌍
,Dr Sarah Ruggins started cycling three years ago. On Friday 5th June 2026, she set off from the southernmost tip of mainland Europe with the goal of reaching the Arctic Circle faster than any person in history. That sentence requires a moment to sit with, because the distance between those two facts is not just kilometres. It is one of the most extraordinary stories in sport right now, and most people have not heard it yet.
Ruggins began her attempt to become the fastest person ever to cycle the length of Europe, from Tarifa in southern Spain to Nordkapp in Norway. The route covers more than 6,000 kilometres across nine countries with around 35,000 metres of climbing. To break the current record, she expects to ride an extraordinary 22 hours a day, navigating extremes of heat, cold, fatigue and constant decision-making, from 35 degrees in southern Spain to minus ten inside the Arctic Circle, while continuing to make clear decisions hour after hour. She will sleep for less than 90 minutes a night. For over two weeks. Before any of that, there is the story of how she got here.
As a child, Ruggins was a promising track athlete with aspirations of the Olympics and representing Canada. At 15, she was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, known as one of the world's most painful diseases, which ended her running career and left her bedridden for years. She lost the ability to walk, was transferred abroad for urgent care, and spent years fighting to recover. CRPS is a neurological condition that causes the nervous system to produce extreme, unrelenting pain signals with no corresponding injury. There is still no cure. In her own words: "The pain was so bad. I just cared about getting through the day. I felt fear, and I felt like it would never get better for me."
It got better. After years of fighting to recover, she rebuilt her life, finished school, and earned a PhD in financial economics from the University of Edinburgh before finding her way back to endurance sport through cycling. She bought her first bike in 2023. Six months later, with almost no cycling experience, she entered the Transcontinental Race, a self-supported 4,000-kilometre ride across Europe, and finished near the front of the field.
In May 2025, she broke the outright record for cycling from John O'Groats to Land's End and back, completing the 2,700-kilometre route in 5 days, 11 hours and 14 minutes, beating the men's record by 6 hours and 43 minutes and the women's record by over four days. A record that had stood for nearly a decade. Gone, by a woman who had only been on a bike for two years.
For the One Way North challenge, Ruggins is backed by Crep Protect as the official title sponsor, whose Gel Insoles she will be riding with across every one of those 6,000 kilometres. For an athlete covering 500 kilometres a day in the saddle, the margin between comfort and injury is razor thin, and the support infrastructure around her reflects just how serious this attempt is.
The challenge also supports World Bicycle Relief, with Ruggins aiming to raise £60,000 to fund 500 bicycles for communities in need. In one of the most competitive and visibility-driven eras women's sport has ever seen, Ruggins represents something that does not always get the platform it deserves. Not a polished brand ambassador or a social media phenomenon. Just a woman who was told, in the most brutal terms imaginable, what her body could not do, and decided to find out for herself.
She is four days into that ride right now, somewhere on the road north. You can watch her move across the continent in real time via the live tracker below, and follow her progress daily on Instagram at @sarah_ruggins. If you want to support the challenge and help fund bicycles for communities in need, the donation link is at own2026.com.