In our series that focuses on the many people involved with inGamba, our Creative Director James Startt sat down with returning guest Dottie Bond, who joined us in Northern Portugal recently for a trip. We wanted to hear about her experiences—and what keeps her coming back to inGamba.
Dorothy Bond—or Dottie as she prefers—had never been to Northern Portugal before. And she was uncertain about the 500 kilometers of riding that awaited her, let alone the more than 8,000 meters of climbing. But she knew that she would be with friends, and she knew that she would be with inGamba, and well, that was enough.
Dottie, who settled in Boulder, Colorado, runs a fourth-generation family business in the energy industry, and practices a variety of sports in her down time. But it was only relatively recently that she discovered cycling.
“I got into cycling after having four knee surgeries from skiing over the past 15 years, and finally my surgeon suggested I start riding,” she said. “I got into cycling only about three to four years ago. I guess you could say that I got the bug, but in a very restrained way.”
After buying her first gravel bike, Dottie, who is 41, started riding with a group of friends in Boulder. “We signed up for some races like Steamboat Gravel, then I got a mountain bike, so firstly I was building up my offroad skill set. To be honest, though, I’ve never had a road bike. Sure, there is a lot of cross-over, but it is new to me.”
Despite her lack of road riding experience, she jumped at a chance to join inGamba last spring when her friend Jenny Brown organized a private group trip in Lecchi. And she was only too happy to return last October when Brown proposed another trip to Northern Portugal to celebrate her own 50th birthday.
Find out more about booking a private trip with inGamba here!
But while the general level of her first trip was more casual, she understood that the Portugal trip promised to be more challenging, not only because of the amount of climbing, but also because the group included several racing cyclists, including Laura and Ted King.
“To be honest, I was a bit intimidated at the start of the week,” she said. “But inGamba just does an amazing job making a trip manageable for everyone in a unified manner. I’m not an all-in performance cyclist. The peloton scares me, to be honest. But the two inGamba trips have really helped me raise my familiarity with the sport. These trips are a great way to really learn from people with insane resumés and experience. Be it bike handling, how to save energy, you name it, I feel like I am learning a ton. And personally, I feel like I came out of every inGamba trip a better cyclist.”
Interestingly, Dottie completed her second inGamba trip—and her most challenging one—with relatively little actual cycling training. In the summer months leading up to her trip last October, she never rode more than seven hours in a single week, but instead simply focused on maintaining a solid overall fitness level. “I think the main thing to come to an inGamba trip with is some degree of fitness, even if it is not pure cycling. That and then at least to have some lower body fitness that crosses over.”
(Check out our best preparation tips for time-crunched athletes here.)
To prepare for her first inGamba trip last spring, Dottie actually spent more time cross-country skiing, using a six-day back-country ski trip above the Arctic Circle as training. But while it might not have been the most-common inGamba prep, it proved more than sufficient.
It goes without saying that Dottie also has a lot of mental perseverance, but she also quickly understood that an inGamba trip offered her a unique opportunity to learn how to push herself both mentally and physically to become a better cyclist. “It’s been challenging physically, but there is so much support, both on and off the bike,” she added. “The guides are amazing and they really help with the pacing, sometimes even telling us when to draft on their wheels so we can catch up with a group on an easier section. As a result, we managed to all finish somewhat close together.”
But well beyond the riding, Dottie is also attracted to the social and travel opportunities inherent in any inGamba trip. “I love to travel and I love boutique, well-curated experiences,” she said. “And then I love physical challenges. inGamba brings all of those things together for an amazing experience. I’ll be back, absolutely!”
