INSPIRATION
Meet Adela…
Adela Mei 52, Somerset A business coach by profession, Adela spends her working life helping environmental leaders develop stronger mindsets to allow them to achieve their goals – and she used her own mental strength to help her overcome setbacks to realise her dream of riding a Triumph Street Twin.
If you’re struggling as alearner, WoMCN reader Adela Mei is here to tell you that you can do it my CBT instructor in tears,” Adela Mei confides as she recounts her early steps into the
‘ I had world of two wheels. The statement seems unlikely given the aplomb with which she pulled into the carpark of our meeting point, swiftly reverse-parking her Triumph Street Twin like she’d been riding for years.
“No, believe me, I was bad, really bad. I don’t think the poor guy knew what to do with me – but he wouldn’t pass me until I could do everything properly and – at 8pm one Friday evening, after we’d been drenched by a massive hailstorm, I got my CBT!”
The biking bug bit Adela just a few years ago; the first nibble came after looking after a friend’s Bonneville in her garage while its owner worked at the nearby Glastonbury festival. But with each passing day, biking’s teeth sank ever deeper. “I had never thought it was possible for me to ride a bike, but after sitting on that Bonneville in my garage, I started envisioning myself riding it. I’d just turned 50 – which got me questing whether I was too old to start ridingthen I just thought, ‘you know what? I’m going to do it.’”
After her two attempts at the CBT, then a year on a Yamaha YS125, it was time to prepare for the tests. “I started to learn on aBMW F750GS and it was a complete disaster at first,” remembers Adela. “I came off twice and there were lots of tears – but I persevered – I had a singlepoint focus; my phone screensaver had a picture of me sitting on a Triumph Street Twin and I used to look at it thinking, ‘I don’t care how long this is going to take me, I’m going to get on that bike!’
“It took the best part of a year but I finally did it,” smiles Adela.
Becoming a fully licensed motorcyclist hasn’t just been a dream come t
