Ultra-endurance athlete
David Bainbridge
· Ultra-endurance athlete
· Adaptive cyclist
· 58 years old
Classical Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
· 19+ years in a wheelchair
· Still riding
In December 2022 I was ending my 19th year as a full-time wheelchair user. Three months earlier I'd been up Snowdon in that wheelchair for Pulling Together Up Snowdon. On June 16, 2023, I rode the BHF London to Brighton — 54 miles in 4 hours 45 minutes on an old self-adapted hybrid bike. Three months after that I rode 197 miles over 4.5 days from Great Yarmouth to London for Race the Ship. I clocked 1,800 miles that year. I'd begun 2023 having to rebuild my leg muscles, learning how to adapt my bike so I could ride with my physical constraints.
For most of my adult life, I was told what I couldn't do. By doctors, by specialists, by a body with 360,000 lifetime dislocations and a pharmacological profile that should have killed me.
I spent over two decades in a wheelchair. I was surviving on an escalating stack of opiates: fentanyl, methadone, morphine, OxyContin, at doses that kept me near-comatose around the clock. In 2019, I faced a binary choice: stop all of it, or don't make it to the following year.
The detox took 256 days. No shortcuts. Reducing 10% at a time, with continuous withdrawal symptoms comparable to cold turkey heroin, stretched across eight months. I lost eight stone in nine months. I came out the other side with better pain control than I had on the strongest medications medicine could prescribe.
I can't take oral medication. My gut doesn't absorb nutrients reliably. I manage one of the most complex multi-system physiological profiles in endurance sport: Classical Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, dysautonomia, CRPS, gastroparesis, structural baroreflex failure, coronary heart disease, and narcolepsy among them, and I ride anyway. Not despite the pain. Within it.
In under two years at 58 years old, I took my VO2 max from 30 to 55. My resting blood pressure from 198/141 to 108/61.
The medical system failed me for decades. Cycling didn't.
What I've built isn't a mindset. It's a system.
I call it Prosthetic Physiology — a six-component framework that replaces the autonomic functions my body can no longer perform reliably. Cognitive anticipation substitutes for reflexes. Continuous motion acts as a circulatory pump. Precision timing governs nutrition, effort, and recovery. Data replaces the symptom signals I don't receive.
This is not about pushing through. It's about engineering around the gaps.
Anticipatory decision-making replacing absent autonomic reflexes. I do not rely on symptoms as warning signals.
Continuous cycling as circulatory and muscle-pump substitute. Stillness is a haemodynamic gamble.
Precision scheduling of effort, rest, nutrition, and heat exposure within defined physiological windows.
Micro-feeding as controlled infusion. GI absorption unreliable. Fuel managed to prevent haemodynamic shocks.
Heat, cold, posture, and compression as active regulatory tools. The environment is part of how I regulate.
HRV, heart rate, and trend patterns replace subjective sensation. I do not trust how I feel. I trust the numbers.
I've clocked over 6000 miles since 2023, my first year on a bike. In December 2022 I was ending my 19th year as a full-time wheelchair user.
197 miles over 4.5 days, Great Yarmouth to London, racing the tall ship SV Tenacious. Mixed-ability team. Human-powered. Three months after his longest ride: 54-mile London to Brighton. after 19 years in a wheelchair.
Read more →Kings Cross to Norwich via the Dynamo route. 12 hours 28 minutes. Pre-ride HRV 17ms. HRV 65ms within 72 hours.
Read more →3,560 feet of ascent in a wheelchair. Tore my rotator cuff in the first mile. Raised £20,100. Twelve months later I rode 197 miles on a bike.
Read more →Barry to Gloucester Quays, coast-to-coast. Mixed-ability crew. All riders completing the same route as equals.
View all rides →Pre-ride HRV 11ms. 1 hour 38 minutes sleep. SpO2 at 92%. Four hours at threshold. The system held.
Read more →54 miles in 4 hours 45 minutes on an old self-adapted hybrid bike. Six months earlier I was a full-time wheelchair user.
Read more →A non-stop, unsupported ride to test the limits of the framework. Navigated rough gravel and glass-strewn bridleways; Not sure what I said to the wind gods…but they clearly took it personally. 23mph headwind. All. Day. Long. On the bright side, I now know what it feels like to tow a parachute for 8 hours. 😅.
Read more →Started with a significant cartilage tear caused by a bad knee subluxation the night before. Forced to shift the neuromuscular load to protect the joint; pre-ride HRV 17ms. No riding for five months after.
Read more →Freezing rain and a sustained headwind. A right hip subluxation 20 miles from the finish caused severe sciatic nerve pain and incomplete relocation. The pace was adjusted, the load redistributed, and the ride continued.
Read more →The first major ultra of 2026.
In 2025, 35 riders started and none had a chronic illness. That changes in May 2026.
Wheels for Tenacious is the inclusive endurance initiative I founded and lead. Inspired by the voyage crew ethos of the tall ship SV Tenacious, it brings that model ashore: mixed-ability teams, real distances, no performance gap between disabled and non-disabled riders. The same road, the same challenge, the same finish line.
In September 2025, six of us completed the 144-mile Cantii Way in Kent over two and a half days. In September 2026 comes the most audacious event yet.
RideTogether 200 (Beicio Gyda'n Gilydd 200) is a 221-mile coast-to-coast from Liverpool to Cardiff Bay — the UK's most inclusive long-distance cycling event. All riders, regardless of experience, wheels, or circumstances, completing the full distance together as equals. Over 100 miles traffic-free. Shared pace. Collective finish.
Learn more about RideTogether 200 →Listen Now
Defying Limits Podcast
Real conversations about endurance, mindset, and life with chronic illness.
Speaking · Media · Inclusive events · Prosthetic Physiology framework
info@thetenaciouscyclist.com