I left my job, hired a van, and went to cycle in the French Alps

In this episode, Laura finally leaves her job to go all in on her passions. She’s kicking off this new career of hers with a van & cycling trip to the French Alps with her friend Becca. However, 2 hours in, disaster strikes. They spend a week in Annecy exploring the hikes and cycling, then drive south for some sunshine when Annecy is drowned in rain.

Timestamps:
0:00 Leaving my job to go all in on my passions
0:55 Picking up the van
1:18 Disaster strikes
1:35 Driving to Champagne
1:59 Morning in Champagne & driving to Annecy
3:23 Hiking La Tournette
4:25 Reflections in the forest
5:05 Cycling Col de La Forclaz (600m climb)
6:56 New bike day
7:30 110KM ride in the Alps (1800m elevation)
10:01 Sleeping in a storm
10:16 Cycling Semnoz (1175m climb)
13:06 Week 2
13:40 Coming back to the UK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauradoessports/
Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/43569365
DVelos bike shop: https://www.dvelos.com/

[Music] At 25, I’ve had more identities than you might expect. So, let me reintroduce myself. This time, not as a doctor, not as an entrepreneur, nor as an iron man or a consultant, or really someone who lives in London. Hi, I’m Laura, often known as at Laura Sports, and I am a [Music] creator. We’re about to go on an adventure. Okay, so just been dropped off at Road Surfer HQ, which is um next to Heathrow. Becca basically works with Road Surfer on like a content partnership and so we have got a van for like 3 weeks. Let’s go. Right, mile one of the road trip. Oh yeah. Well, we’ve had an interesting turn of events. Um my bike got nicked. It’s not funny. We literally went into Halfords for 10 minutes. Bike’s locked the back of the van. There’s loads of people around. It’ll be absolutely fine. I’m out. My bike’s gone. The left back is fine. So, yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. [Music] I’m making my plea for help. Please give me a bike [Music] real. Would that be great by the river? We’re in the van. It’s like midnight. just edited my Oh my [Music] god. So, I can’t say that this trip started in the way that I had expected. My anxiety was pretty through the roof. I was worried about my bike, the trip, money, having just left my job. We decided to continue and put faith in the universe. We stopped in Champagne. And looking back, this was actually the most beautiful camping spot of our entire trip. Quiet in the sun by the water. And despite the stress, I felt so free and so happy. It was on this day that everything really started to take off, my stolen bike Instagram reel went viral, having now 1.3 million views, which whilst it was exactly what I wanted to happen, it still really freaked me out. But it didn’t magically result in a brand giving me a bike. So when we arrived at Anacey, we parked with LA and we breathed. Oh my god. We’ve made it to Anacey eventually. We’re just finding out that we should be able to spend the night here. So that’s great. [Music] LFG, never be the same. I for always never I know we’ll always never never Good morning. It is Thursday and we don’t have a bike yet still. So today we’re going on a hike. Look at the mountains. We slept in a church car park last night. I did a poo in a bush. And we’ve just driven here. It was like half an hour away. Had our breakfast in the van. And now we’re going to go up there. So, let’s go. We’ve gone all the way up here. We’ve had a problem. The trail that’s covered in snow. Even this is snowy. So, we’re going a different way. We’ll see if we get to the top. Banana time. We have found a cool shop through the uh rock. So, we’re just getting some compon. She’s content creating. This is Becca Cam now. The site the site. But I quite like this camera though. I’ve thought a lot on this trip about regret. My biggest fear is to be 80 years old and think, “God, I wasted my life.” And I think for a long time I struggled with having that thought but not knowing how to not waste my life. And I realized the secret for me at least is to take risks. It’s being out of routine. It’s the potential of failure. It’s the potential of it all going wrong. And I think living in that is what is making me feel so alive. I guess also the thought of having the next 40 or 50 years to grow and perfect an art and not being tied down by anything is filling me with nothing but euphoria. Hello friends. Um, we are about to go on a bike ride with Becca’s bike. She went out this morning around the lake. I think I’m going to go and see if I can do a climb. Although, the only thing is is that the bike does not fit me. But you know what? A bike is better than no bike. So, we’re collecting my bike, my lovely rental bike tomorrow morning. But the weather is so nice today and it doesn’t look as good for like other days. So, going to get out, have a wrecky, and going to take you guys along. Right then, friends. Let’s go. Oh, on the wrong side of the road. Okay, other side of the road. So, we had very fortunately found a rental bike through social media for the trip, which I was able to select on day five. In the meantime, I was on Becca’s bike. We just started to climb. It is 9 km, 673 m of elevation. Wish us luck. I think linked to what I was saying earlier about coming back to places, I remember cycling the Anacey Lake Loop when I was 19 on a little city bike. I stopped at all the little beaches. I took loads of dad’s selfies. And to think I’ll be back 6 years later climbing up the mountains that I was hiking back then is pretty mad. I guess it just really makes you realize how much you’ve grown as a person. Um, this climb was stunning and when I renovate my own van, I’m totally going to spend a long time in the French Alps exploring every climb that I can. We made it. It’s busy up here. It’s um very pretty. Yeah, I think I can just descend down this side and then I think I can come back along the lake. This descent was stunning. Apart from me getting stuck behind a lorry, I cycled back down by the lake. Went back to the campsite and then we got an early night ready to collect my bike the next day. you. We are at Devel’s waiting for it to open and to meet our new friends. We’re going in the shop. We’re in bike heaven. There she is. We have got the new setup. Absolutely incredible. We’ve got a track ME. Okay. Yeah. Mone. We’ve got a Garmin setup. Jing ting jing. And I won’t film her. Isn’t that good? Hi everyone. Hi friends. Yeah, you just pressed go. Got a bike going on a ride. We are 2.5 km in climb out of Anacey and apparently we’re doing an old busy section. Then we’re going to be on the open roads. New bike’s dream. It’s a good day to be alive. So I got into cycling like probably a year ago. Before that, I’d like bought a bike to commute to work and then wanted to like challenge myself to a chest for an iron man. And then since then, just kind of got obsessed. Guys, have we just started the climb? It is 11.5k, 800 m of elevation, whatever. That makes the average gradient. NFG. This is the view. Oh yeah, there’s a deep we both jumped in feet first when it was sink above. God, I’m dripping. We’re halfway. [Applause] [Music] God, this is like when I feel most [Music] alive. got 80 m of elevation left and hopefully we made it. So, this ride was probably my favorite of the entire trip. We’d picked up a bike thanks to Seb and Devel’s shop, who I will link in the comments if you’re ever looking for a bike in Anacey. And we met up with a guy called Ollie who’s from the UK but currently lives out here. They went through some of the beautiful towns and climbs just outside of Anacey. It was 110k route that I could not recommend enough. The sun was out. The roads were incredible. The company was stunning. I literally have nothing to say other than just get yourself out of here. On the final climb. It is 200 m elevation. The engine [Music] cent climb complete. Now we descend. It’s like 40k downhill. Although I will say that the climbs out here are no joke. I only really started climbing properly this year when I went to Spain and I still do not really class myself as a climber. But I am getting better and climbing and descending is now just one of my favorite things to do. On the home straight Becca all aboard the Laura train. [Music] every [Music] day. Good morning, my friends. So, we slept up here last night in on top of the mountain. We’re on the top of Seor, I think it’s called. Um, it’s finally stopped raining, so I’m going to do a little ride. Think I’m going to The thing is now I’m going to have to go down seven knots to come back up it. So, I’m going to do that and then maybe do like a little lake wrecky. Um, and yeah, should be a good day out. Probably going to take me a while. This climb this way. Um, I think this climb is quite long. So, yeah, going to be fun to be fair. At least you guys will get to see the descent on both sides. So, you are welcome. So, we stayed on top of Seo’s Mountain in a storm the night before this. Then, we had a very slow morning whilst I hyped myself up to get out in the cold and the rain. Right, we’re at the bottom now. So, guess we’re going to go back up. Took me Okay, took me 25 minutes to get down. 16.6 6k. Let’s see how long it takes me to get back up. I won’t lie, it was freezing. It took me 25 minutes to descend on the undersy side. It probably would have been faster if it was dry, but then like an hour and a half to climb back up. Um, I don’t know. Cycling just makes me feel great. And if I’m able to live a life like this and make enough money to cover my expenses, God, I feel like I have hit the [Music] jackpot. Wowee. So currently at 10% gradient it hit like 17 no 18 down there which is a bit steep. It’s mad cuz I only got into cycling like roughly last year. Before that I done little poodles but not like proper riding. And then I only went abroad last summer for the first time. Did a bike packing trip but we were cycling like 40 to 70k a day. Like not that much. And then training camp in Spain in January like completely changed perspective. I bloody wish I was into like this type of stuff when I was there cuz like content would have been so cool but wasn’t quite at that stage of my journey yet. That’s where I first of climbs and then now I’m just like where are the clims? Search the climbs. [Music] [Music] So the weather in Anacey took a turn. It got very cold and it started raining. So, we drove south. We found a campsite in the forest where we parked for a few days. We cleaned our laundry. We cooked a lot of food. We did quite a bit of work. And obviously, we explored a bunch of the cycling. We went on a 250k bike packing adventure. I climbed Mont Ventu. And then we decided we wanted to come back to the UK. The weather in London was glorious. So, we began the long journey back to England. parked up on the beach in Dova at sunset and said goodbye to the trip was one of our favorite [Music] activities. Yeah. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music]