This article was first published in Issue 138 of Rouleur

Spring has arrived in Perthshire. Not in the sense of something which has already taken place, but as something that is happening right now. The air is thick with the coconut aroma of gorse blossom. Pure white Highland calves take their first wobbly steps through lush grass. The evening sky is papered with lavender-grey cashmere long after the dishes have been cleared away and the curtains drawn for sleep.

The arrival of spring is said to saunter north up the United Kingdom at a sedate 1.9 miles per hour. I live down south and have enjoyed this moment already; now my bicycle and I have driven north to meet it again. The 300 miles of northerly movement translate to approximately one week’s progress; it’s now the final weekend in April, just a few days away from Beltane, the traditional Gaelic festival marking the arrival of summer, and that precise instant of seasonal change has settled in the little pocket of Scotland where I am headed. Having crossed the Forth and contemplated its advance into the Highlands, it has paused for breath.

Not before long, so too have I. From the tops of the Ochil Hills after about an hour of riding, I can see said Highlands looming on the north horizon. Down in the lowland before us is the reason we’re here: the Gleneagles Hotel. I have scarcely had time to explore the enormous five-star estate before saddling up and heading out.

It’s Friday afternoon, though you wouldn’t know it from the traffic (or lack thereof). Looking over it all with me, breathing in the fresh air and sharing the wide views, is Sir Chris Hoy.

We’re in the Perthshire Peloton, a three-day riding excursion from the hotel. This is Hoy’s third time hosting the ride. For a man whose cycling highlights comprise four Olympic Games and countless world championships, the event really ought to be of relatively little personal significance. Yet when he rode the inaugural event, in April 2024, he had not long completed his first round of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer in late 2023. During those dark and difficult days, Hoy’s exercise had been limited to 30 minutes a day on his Zwift bike. Three days of riding in the Scottish hills and a combined distance of 215 kilometres (and over 2,000 metres of elevation) were, quite understandably, going to be a challenge.

“You know, I could have turned up and ridden on an e-bike, done the dinners, sat in the car and met at the lunch point,” says Hoy. “I could have ridden at the back.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do a four-hour ride and get around without really struggling. So I thought I need to work for this and I want to have that physical goal or that physical challenge and have a goal to aim for.”

Today Hoy is every bit the tireless host, riding through the peloton and making time for each of the 18 other riders. But once we pause at the foot of the first climb and the four ride leaders explain there will be a regrouping by the support vehicles at the top, Hoy wastes no time in putting that training to the test.

“It’s not about being competitive and saying I have to be the first at the top of the hill, having to race somebody; it’s all about myself and pushing myself and wanting to be the best that I can be on that day,” he later tells me.

“I wanted to be able to enjoy riding around, I didn’t want to suffer around, I knew that I wouldn’t just take it easy, I knew that I would want to go as hard as I could.

“For me, I want to be able to still come here and be fit enough to get round and enjoy it and still be able to chat and not just be absolutely gasping on the climbs. I want to be able to be sociable but come in and go, ‘God, it was a great day’ and not be absolutely broken.”

Many of today’s riders have returned from that first event, or the second, which was held in September 2024, and that evening I begin to understand why. Perthshire is not really a cycling destination at the top of anybody’s list – it certainly wasn’t at the top of mine – but the Perthshire Peloton isn’t just about being on the bike. Being here is, in Hoy’s words, “like meeting old friends again”. After returning to the hotel and showering, I wander over to the hotel’s wellness facilities. I had an inkling that this was about more than just ‘the ride’ and thorough journalistic inquiry demanded I explore the onsen, the sauna, and the various swimming pools to make sure. Just before 7pm we assemble in the lobby and a fleet of Land Rovers circle the front lawn to take us a few minutes up the road to the Shooting Lodge.

It’s described as a barbecue, but this is quite different to the last BBQ I had attended; a sausage baguette and cone of chips inhaled outside a Peugeot garage somewhere in the middle of France while covering last year’s Tour. This evening, two long tables, soft lighting and the timber interior conjure images of mead halls as we communally feast on some of the best food I think I’ve ever tasted. But what really makes the evening is the company. The Perthshire Peloton is composed of cyclists of all sorts of backgrounds and abilities. There are dedicated club cyclists, ex-rugby players, old hands, those who have recently discovered cycling, and plenty of WAGs and HABs among them, too. Once we have tackled the cheese board (it’s clear this weekend is also set to be a test of gastronomic stamina), Hoy sits down with BBC sports reporter Eilidh Barbour. You know from his sports punditry that Hoy is a natural raconteur, somehow blending a golden Olympian status (in physique as well as character) with a down-to-earth approachability. But his is not the story he, or anybody else, was ever expecting him to have to tell.

I had listened to his audiobook on the drive up (paper copies were also waiting for us at the table before dinner). It begins: ‘There’s a pain in my shoulder.’ Hoy recounts how his post-cycling life was dealt the monumental sledgehammer blows of his own cancer, followed shortly by his wife Sarra being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It is a heavy listen. One quote had stuck in my mind on the cruel irony of Hoy’s diagnosis: “In my career I’ve always had a plan, a target. There’s always been a finite point to aim for. With this diagnosis, the end point is absolutely the thing I want to avoid.”

Tonight, alongside Barbour, Hoy recalls how the former British Cycling psychologist Steve Peters, one of his key mentors in his successful pursuit of six Olympic gold medals, provided guidance and support for his new reality. Again, the irony of one of Peters’ past mantras during Hoy’s racing career – “it’s not a matter of life and death” – is not lost on anybody. He draws laughs when he recounts his duel with a hill named Mount Nakkerd in Thailand. His struggle to ride up the steep climb to the ‘Big Buddha’ statue in his first post-chemo holiday symbolised his new two-wheeled reality; his ultimate success before leaving was a physical and psychological milestone. He later explains to me that his message to those who ask him is simple: to try to live in the present moment.

“I feel like you have a choice of how you react, you don’t have a choice as to the situation. So my choice was: I don’t want to waste the time I’ve got and I don’t want to keep fast forwarding to the future because that’s where most anxiety and stress comes from,” he says.

“As you’re trying to predict the future, you’re worrying about it, so you’re stressing about it… there’s no point in putting yourself through that until that situation arrives, and it might not arrive.”

Hoy’s initial prognosis was two to four years. Owing to his medication, which has to date helped many cancer sufferers live well beyond that initial timeframe, Hoy lives in the belief, and the hope, that he might have many more than what doctors initially foretold. In September, Hoy will host the inaugural The Tour de 4, a set of bike rides that aim to raise money for cancer charities and demonstrate that it is possible to live well and lead a happy life alongside such a devastating diagnosis. For now, his treatment has given him health, energy, and stability. Cancer is not going away, but it does not define who he is and it does not run his life.

“My good friend David Smith, who’s been living with this benign tumour on his spine for the last twenty years of his life, living just on a knife edge the whole time… his way of coping, his tagline, is: ‘Be where your feet are’. So, don't be thinking about what’s coming next or tomorrow. You’re here right now, enjoy the moment.

“We’re in a beautiful room here, we’re having a nice chat, we’ve been out on a lovely ride today, aren’t we lucky, we’re not in pain, there’s nothing bad happening right now, I’ve had a wonderful weekend, this is technically working for me, but I’ve been riding my bike and meeting new people. As chaotic and busy and hectic as life can be, it’s attempting to slow it down and also not feel the pressure to do the big things.

“There’s a lot of us, and certainly I’m guilty of it sometimes, of thinking life is about these big moments and achieving big things. I’m a big believer in having big targets and working towards those targets. But the key thing I think is appreciating the here and the now on that journey towards the end goal. It’s such a cliché but it’s so true.”

Gleneagles began life 101 years ago as a glamorous destination for high society’s pursuit of luxury, built by a railway company at a time when taking a train in Britain could be a luxurious experience. In the past decade it has been restored, updated and loved without losing that identity of 1920s sophistication. Everything is vast in scale: broad staircases, long corridors, heavy doors, and grounds stretching out to the horizon so that it’s a misnomer to call it a hotel. (Can it be a hotel if it comes with its own map?) Yet that scale does not come at the expense of a cosy warmth to the place. The Strathearn dining room, styled on first-class dining carriages, possesses a breakfast buffet that would have you quite delighted by a delay on the line.

The whole estate includes the famous Gleneagles golf courses and venues to practise a range of traditional country pursuits you’d expect up here in Scotland: shooting, fly-fishing and so on. But the hotel is broadening its offering; it now boasts brand new indoor racquet courts and climbing walls and its fifth great adventure race (kayak, mountain run, bike) took place this year. This is where the Perthshire Peloton comes in. Gleneagles sits in a beautiful landscape and it would be remiss not to offer guests opportunities to get out there and enjoy it.

I can’t say as a journalist that I have made a habit of staying at this kind of place in my career, but in a former life I did a bit of work in luxury travel and two pieces of professional advice have stayed with me. Number one: take care of people. I feel very well looked after, and I can see why many riders bring their partners here for the long weekend and indeed bolt a day or two on either side of the three-day cycling itinerary. Number two: it’s the little details. When I arrive back from the first afternoon’s ride I find on top of my room’s not-so-mini-bar a hand-written note from the hotel manager and a wooden board displaying five chocolates devised and created by the hotel’s in-house chocolatiers. Each represents an element of the riding experience: sky, sun, mountains, river and land.

I have completed the ‘Chocolate Journey’ before the next morning when we leave for the longest ride of the trip, heading west from the hotel and making a beeline towards the Trossachs. The first couple of hours are rolling country and the peloton rolls together, offering space to move around and chat with different folk. One of the five elements is missing (lemon shortcake chocolate, otherwise known as the sun) but the moody weather seems to fit in Scotland. We can’t see the mountains surrounding us, but as we cruise up the sweeping bends of Duke’s Pass it feels like they are making their presence felt by sighing their misty air down on us.

A quick coffee stop from the back of the Land Rover (little details) and we head down another sweeping descent: just like yesterday, largely traffic-free and a rare opportunity in the UK to really let it rip. Not even the weather can dampen the mood. Admittedly, it helps not having to think about anything (take care of people) and when we arrive at the lunch stop we discover that the staff from the hotel have driven out and laid on a feast. Dryrobes and towels and various delicious picnic savouries and cakes try to drag our bodies into a rest-and-digest reverie but, alas, it turns out we do actually have to ride the remaining 55km ourselves. The peloton begins to split and the guides peel off to accompany each gruppetto. I find myself riding with James, wearing bright pink kit and possessed of far too much energy for a man whose day job and young family demands he’s up before dawn each morning to train. Before we know it we have ourselves a speedy little group with a former Olympic champion for company.

“During the early stages of the diagnosis, going out on the road, I found it difficult because I would have so much time to think, I would start to get into a bad place mentally. I could get quite emotional at moments by myself riding along and having too much time to ponder stuff,” Hoy later says.

“But if you’re going hard, if you’re going up a climb and you’re gasping, you’re not thinking about anything other than just, ‘Oh my god when’s this going to end?’”

We probably all recognise this flow state from our own cycling. It’s not down solely to terrain or location, there’s just an unspoken consensus that we’re going to push on until we reach the hotel or we’ve all run out of steam. It’s a wonderful way to end the longest ride of the trip.

“It is like meditation in that you’re totally engrossed in what you’re doing to the point that your brain has just had this calm reset. Physically you get that wonderful feeling, that post exercise feeling of the endorphins,” says Hoy.

“Coming in at the end and you’re just thinking, ‘I could just sit up here and cruise in,’ but it’s like, ‘Oh no, I want to empty the tanks, I want to have nothing left.’ That was the case. I kind of gave it a dig at the end and then it was just like, ‘Right, yeah, I'm pretty tired now.’ It’s a nice way to finish.”

Back at the hotel I reflect that somehow, despite all this grandeur, the hundreds of rooms and all manner of comings and goings, Gleneagles sort of feels like a family. It feels like a home. And this afternoon I promise myself that nothing will get in the way of what is an overlooked aspect of cycling: time lounging around doing nothing and feeling good about yourself. A massage, a sauna, a bubble pool with no off switch (you’re going to stay here and get bubbled until we’re done, it says), another sauna, and then just a nice lie down. How rarely does modern life allow us a nice lie down? After another fine dinner in the Birnam, a winter garden of a dining space set aside for our group, I think to myself that I could stay here for a very, very long time.

About riding in the rain. Often the worst bit about it is worrying about getting wet. There’s the anxiety about what kit to wear, what to bring, the weather forecast. Will you be under or over-dressed? Return boiled in the bag, or a hypothermic wreck? As we rise for the final ride of the weekend, the weather systems from the west are petering out over the Highlands and the uncertain outlook does nothing for the rain anxiety.

Out onto deserted lanes, up steep climbs through pockets of old-growth forest, our single-file peloton is bordered by mossy stone walls. The road heads up onto a moorland pass and a big-sky landscape of rusty tussocks and huge vistas. It’s at this point that all the rain-based anxiety disappears. Because at this point I get soaked. And I stop worrying. Things cannot get any wetter. I’ve got with me what I’ve got with me (actually I put a bag of spare kit in the Land Rover, but that’s not the point). The point is: you crack on. Be where your feet are. Even if your feet are in little buckets of water.

After this weekend, Hoy will be driving to a track day at the Nürburgring before hot-footing it back to the UK to give a keynote speech. He realises he has a platform and he is determined to use it. “The biggest purpose now is just knowing that more men are getting tested and hopefully as a result of my situation fewer men will die from prostate cancer in the future,” he says.

That hope is in fact a fact: there was a 700 per cent increase in visits to the Prostate Cancer UK online risk checker in the days after Hoy went public with his diagnosis. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in the UK, and the highest in men (you’re at a higher risk if you’re Black, aged over 50, or have a family history of the disease).

“I think a lot of men are put off going to the doctor’s, they think they’re going to have to get the digital examination. Just go and get a blood test and if your doctor says no just keep pushing or pay for it yourself, go and get it done. Because as expensive as it is to go and get a private blood test done, it could save your life. It’s that simple.”

It’s an important message, albeit a sombre one. So let’s leave the story at Sunday lunch, the sort of lunch that somehow goes on until tea time without anybody realising. Time paused before we go our separate ways. Spring floating around us. Living life in the moment. Good people. Good times. Right now. Where our feet are.

Chris Hoy will be leading the Perthshire Peloton in April 2026, see more details: Perthshire Peloton Led by a Legend