Karen Cox can’t walk around her garden in Lossiemouth. But she can cycle up a mountain.
The 57-year-old has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes chronic pain and means she uses a wheelchair. She also has fibromyalgia, which causes pain all over her body and extreme tiredness.
Despite this, on a beautiful sunny day last month, Karen stood at the top of Cairngorm, the sixth-highest mountain in the UK, after pedaling uphill for three hours.
Ask her what she thinks of it, and she’ll laugh.
“Ridiculous, huh?” she says with a snort.
There is slightly more to the story than that, though.
Karen, who was raising money for youth adventure charity Outfit Moray, was assisted by a support team that included her husband Rob. Plus, she rode her way to the top on a three-wheeled recumbent eBike.
“It just ate up the rocks all the way up,” she says of the bike. “It just laughed at it.”
Why do some people not like eBikes?
It would be an understatement to say that, in some circles at least, eBikes have a bad reputation.
Firstly, they are more expensive than regular bikes, with high-end models selling for several thousand pounds.
They also seem to be the favoured steed of delivery couriers who zip around town and city streets on high-speed versions, frightening pedestrians.
And they tend to attract the opprobrium of touring and road cyclists, especially when they are passed on steep hills.
For people like Karen, however — people with disabilities or health issues, or those for whom riding a regular bike is no longer possible — eBikes are something else entirely. They are a key to a whole new world.
“Cycling literally changed my life,” says Karen, who first got on an eBike in 2020 after two decades out of the saddle and who blogs from her Wobbly Cyclist Instagram page.
“I can reach places and go to places that I have never been able to get to before, and it’s just been amazing.”
The mystery ailments that plagued Karen’s life
Karen has had Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome her whole life but, growing up, the aching joints, sprained ankles, dislocations and bruising that are the condition’s common symptoms were passed off as growing pains.
Later, after she had the first of her three children in 1999, she was told the symptoms were because she was a new mum or hormonal.
In 2004, she was diagnosed with myalgic encephalitis, or ME, and in 2009 with fibromyalgia, the chronic pain condition that caused Scots TV presenter Kirsty Young to walk away from hosting Desert Island Disks in 2018.
But it wasn’t until 2016, when the indefatigable adventurer signed up for flying lessons as part of a disabled initiative, that she found out the full extent of her health problems.
“The doctors checking me for my flying medical, said, ‘Have you ever been tested for Ehlers-Danlos syndrome?’ And I’m like, nope. She said, ‘I recommend you look into it’ and I got diagnosed through the genetics department in Aberdeen.”
In many ways, the diagnosis was a relief for Karen, who had suffered her whole life with mystery ailments.
“All my life, it’s been, ‘Of course you’re tired, you’ve just got a new baby’ or ‘you’re a woman, you’re hormonal’ — all these things.
“If you just did this kind of exercise or if you just got out more. If you ate turmeric, if you went to therapy — if you really just tried, you’d get better.
“So all these people over the years that have accused me of being lazy, or just in it for the blue badge, and all of this kind of thing, it was validation.
Karen saddles up on her first eBike
The diagnosis made Karen realise she couldn’t cure herself, but she could make herself stronger.
Even then, when the opportunity to start eBiking arrived, she didn’t immediately take it.
She works for Outfit Moray, a Lossiemouth youth charity that organises outdoor activities, and the rest of the team spent many months trying to convince Karen to try one of the eBikes, with little success.
“I said, absolutely not,” Karen laughs, “I can’t balance on two feet. I am not going on two wheels.”
In March 2020, however, three weeks before the Covid lockdown, Karen relented and tried out a Volt Metro bike with a low-step frame that makes it easier for riders to climb on.
It was a revelation.
“It was just like, ‘I can move the pedals. The bike is moving forward, and I am making the bike move forward’,” Karen recalls. “It was absolutely amazing.”
After that, there was no stopping her.
She bought her own eBike during lockdown and her rides around Cooper Park in Elgin turned into cycling to the top of Ben Rinnes in 2021.
Last year, she completed the Cairngorm to Coast, before trumping the lot last Saturday by making it all the way to the top of Cairngorm.
The eight-kilometre route, undertaken with permission from the national park’s authorities, went via the Ptarmigan Restaurant and up past Marquis’ Well.
It was a beautiful day at the summit, with clear views to the Moray Firth, Inverness and Ben Rinnes itself — an opportunity for Karen to reflect on how much she had achieved.
“It was just one of those surreal moments,” she says. “I felt fantastic. But at the same point, I was asking, am I here? Is this real?”
What do you need to know about eBikes?
Karen admits eBikes do have some drawbacks. There’s the price, of course, plus they are heavier than regular bikes, which can make them difficult for those with health issues to lift up.
Karen says she always rides with a partner in case she needs help, and also makes sure she has a kickstand so she doesn’t have to lift it off the ground.
But, she adds, there are so many different bikes available now, and the technology is advancing all the time. The ICE Trike she used for the Cairngorm ascent is designed to be lightweight and durable, enough to withstand rocky mountain paths.
And as for running out of charge, that’s not a problem for Karen.
“The bike’s battery lasts longer than my own battery,” she laughs.
Why Karen’s eBike ascent may be her last adventure
Karen’s adventure this month, made possible by support from Grantown-on-Spey-based Able2Adventure, was the latest in a long line of fundraisers she’s braved for Outfit Moray.
As well as the eBike rides, she’s abseiled off the Forth Bridge (despite a near-crippling fear of heights) and from the — slightly lower — Grampian Furniture Store in Lossiemouth.
A deterioration in her health, however, means she’s unsure whether she will be able to undertake any more adventures.
The Cairngorm ascent was cancelled once, and a few days before the rescheduled climb Karen doubted she had enough strength to make it up.
“If things carry on the way they are, then yeah, that’s my last,” she says. “It’s not something that I’ll be able to do in future.”
Take that with a pinch of salt, though, as Karen is already making tentative plans for her next quest.
“A friend has convinced me that I might be doing a parachute jump,” she says. “I can’t walk but, heck, I can fall out of a plane.”
Follow Karen’s adventures on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram by searching The Wobbly Cyclist, or click on this link.
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