“I just want to show to my Mum and my Dad what it means to be alive”: GCN sits down with Ottilie Quince

After a blossoming football career was curtailed by kidney failure, Ottilie Quince has undergone a kidney transplant and battled through two bouts of cancer - but nothing can keep a good woman down! Celebrating the 15th anniversary of her transplant, Ottilie is on a mission to ride a mammoth ‘Grand Tour’ of her own that will see her cycle from Luton to Mallorca. On the eve of her trip, GCN’s Nancy Arreola and George Poole sat down with the extraordinary athlete to hear all about her transition to cycling, staying positive through health issues and the Vuelta a Casa Grand Tour!

Shortly after 9:30 BST this morning, Ottilie Quince rolled out of Luton on the trip of a lifetime. With 2,600km to cover over 21 days - and that’s if she doesn’t get lost along the way - she turned the pedals alongside her wonderful support crew and our very own Hank! But turn the clock back 16 years and Ottilie would have been happy to ride a bike again, let alone cycle from Luton to Mallorca.

In 2006, a regular checkup at the doctors discovered that Ottilie’s kidney function was at 12%, leaving her with two options: dialysis for the rest of her life or a kidney transplant. Just a few months prior, she had played what would turn out to be her last-ever game of competitive football for Luton Town Belles. But her time on the pitch was now over and her close-knit family swooped in to offer their support. In time, it was decided that Ottilie would receive one of her mother’s kidneys and thankfully the operation was a success.

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This year marks 15 years since the transplant operation.

“I couldn't play football anymore because my kidney is in my lower abdomen and if I got kicked or elbowed as a football player, it was really dangerous,” Ottilie explained. But for a woman who grew up trying to keep up with her older brothers in all of their sporting endeavours, it wasn’t going to be long until Ottile was putting her new kidney - nicknamed ‘Poppet’ - into action. “I was getting married in 2008, I didn't ask my husband what he wanted, I said, ‘I want a bicycle!’ I was watching the Beijing Olympics and I was a big fan… my Dad's friend owned a bike shop in Norfolk - he was like ‘I'll get you a bike!’ and because I knew of some cyclists in the area, I then joined my local cycling club.

As all pedal-pushing lovers know, once you’ve thrown your leg over a bicycle, it is hard to go back. “It was like a drug! You start it and it just becomes very addictive and it just gave me something new. To have a new sport and something new to kind of get into and to try to master… Once you're told you can't do something, it becomes a real negative and so I wanted to find something new and that's when cycling came along.”

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Ottilie’s first race as a transplant athlete took place in Bath, the home of GCN!

Unfortunately, whilst the kidney transplant was a success and Ottilie was soon riding competitively with the Great British Transplant Squad, life after the operation comes with its own risk. “The type of cancer I have is caused by the medication I take to stop the [transplanted] kidney from rejecting,” revealed Ottile. “I have to get my head around that every single morning and night I take medication that caused the two cancers.”

Ottilie suffered her first bout with cancer as she was preparing for the 2013 World Transplant Games in South Africa, which left her with a decision to make. Not appetised by simply resting up for her operations, Ottilie threw herself into training and left Durban as not only the World Champion, but as a record breaker for women’s time trials. One week later she would be in hospital in Stevenage to remove the cyst on her kidney.

The operation was an impressive feat in itself. “My first cancer surgeon was David Cranston, he’s based in Oxford. When I was diagnosed with my first cancer, the only person out of four hospitals who was willing to do anything was this guy in Oxford and he was just like ‘we can do it, we’re gonna save your only kidney - all will be good.’”

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Ottilie’s bike shop in Mallorca, OQ Service Course, runs guided tours around the island that are for riders of all ages.

Not only was the operation on Ottilie’s first cancer a success, but it had given her a new lease of life and one that had encouraged her to move abroad. “I had what everyone perceived as everything you need, but yet I had nothing, I wasn’t happy. I was going to buy another house here in England [after the split from her husband] and I thought, ‘why am I buying here when I don’t want to be here?’ I used to train in Mallorca in 2012, so in 2015 I thought I could be a physiotherapist anywhere in the world - people get broken everywhere - and if they get broken in Mallorca, I could fix them there.”

After moving to Mallorca, Ottile opened up her own bike shop. Whilst there were only over 20 bike shops in Port de Pollença alone, she knew that she could offer something different that would allow her to stand out from the crowd. “Most bike shops, as a woman, you walk in and people don't really speak to you or talk to you like you’re crap or that you're dumb. I wanted to be the opposite, so I’m lively and silly! I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t speak any Spanish, so I just moved there with my two cats - Cav and Wiggo! Little Wiggo died a couple of years after and now I have ‘Indy’ (after Miguel Indurain) - she’s Mallorcan so she has to have a Spanish name!”

A second struggle with cancer came in 2019, but through it all, one of the most glaring traits of Ottilie’s personality is her warmth, smile and optimism. Never letting her struggles get the better of her for too long, she has achieved 18 British titles, 6 European titles and 11 World titles as a transplant athlete. She is currently the reigning World Champion and captain of the Great British Transplant Cycling Team.

“I just think that any day you could lose your life and any day it could all go wrong,” is what Ottilie offered up when we asked how she keeps her spirits high. “How do I do it every day? I kind of think I've got to. My Mum saved my life. My Dad was my Uncle’s kidney donor in 1985, I’m on borrowed time, so I’m here for a good time, not necessarily a long time. You don’t get another chance [at life], it’s not a rehearsal, you’ve got to make the most of what you’re doing and if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, change it, do something else.”

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“My Mum always says, ‘if someone's not smiling, you lend them one of yours’ and then hopefully they smile and it becomes the norm.”

The nature of Ottilie’s second battle with cancer played a part in her decision to undertake the challenge of riding from Luton to Mallorca in aid of her surgeons’ charities. This time around the cyst was inside the transplanted kidney and gave Ottilie a glimpse into what life may become should she have to be placed on dialysis. “The tumour was deep inside the kidney and I really wasn't that hopeful that it would work. But this guy Tim O’Brien [her second cancer surgeon] was on the phone being passionate and somewhat arrogant - but in a really good way! He said ‘we can do it, yeah, why not?’ I loved his passion for it and I’ve said to both of them - ‘I want to thank you.’

Faced by another brush with death, Ottilie was determined to plan something incredible to not only test her body, but to give back to the surgeons who had saved her life. “Poppet, the kidney that I received from my Mum, will only last so long. They said it would last 10-15 years and in August it will be 15 years, so that’s why this year as I turned 40 in April I wanted to do something epic and pretty special.”

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Ottilie Quince: 'Both of them [David Cranston and Tim O’Brien] just say exactly the same thing, that it’s their job, but I don’t think they quite realise what their job entails! Their job entails saving people, or certainly saving me from a life on dialysis.'

Throughout her time living in Mallorca, between running her bike shop, giving sports massages and delivering guided tours, Ottilie has had to fly to and from the UK for her regular cancer checkups every few months. These checkups continue to this day and on Wednesday, Ottilie received the good news that she remains cancer free. However, this latest check-up coincided with her charity ‘Grand Tour’ that will see her ride all the way back from Luton!

“I always joked about riding home one day from hospital checkups and so I said to my first surgeon [David Cranston] that I’d love to support his charity UCARE (Urological Cancer Research and Education, based in Oxford). He founded it 13 years ago and through Covid, they got very little support and they are run by a small number of volunteers. I thought, it would be my honour to support Tim O’Brien’s charity as well, if I can support two charities - fantastic! His charity is the Urology Foundation and they do the type of research that he did in order to do my operation, research that isn’t done in Spain and even now, the Spanish doctors are mystified by the fact I had it done!”

Beginning from her home town of Luton, the ‘Grand Tour’ - termed the London Bridge OQ Vuelta a Casa - is set to be 2,600km in length and will take Ottilie through seven countries. With two rest days sprinkled throughout, she will even take a detour in Grenoble to head east and climb Alpe d’Huez.

When we mentioned this excursion to Ottile, her face lit up with the beam of a woman who can’t wait to get stuck into the challenge. “Obviously I’m looking forward to the Queen stage of Alpe d’Huez because that’s going to be amazing. It’s going to be really hard coming through Germany, Switzerland and climbing into the French Alps! I have never done the Alps before and I’m not a climber!”

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With 35 medals to her name, Ottilie has been incredibly successful as a transplant athlete, but this may be her biggest challenge yet!

At the time of writing, Ottilie is south of London and plotting her way to Folkestone, but she will soon be clocking up the miles as she passes through France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Spain. “There's a lot of things I’m looking forward to! At the top would just be learning about myself, I don’t like long-distance rides, I’ve never ridden more than six days in a row,” Ottilie admitted with a chuckle. “When I ride six days in a row, I then have two or three days off and then I perhaps only ride for two or three days! So I’m hoping I’ll lose some weight! I want to see how deep I can dig!”

But hopefully, it won’t just be Ottilie and her riding pal Steve who will be out on the roads between here and Mallorca, as the team have strapped themselves with a GPS device for those ‘dot-watchers’ who might want to tag along. It was a term that Ottilie had not been accustomed to until a couple of weeks ago, but she is more than aware of the phenomenon now. “I think people are going to be tapping their screen going ‘she’s not moving! Why’s she not moving?’ Obviously I'm going nice and slow, I’m not racing it!”

Since she got her first road bike and began riding competitively, it seems as though Ottilie has not got off two wheels, with her racing taking her across the globe to countries such as Argentina, South Africa and Sweden. She is hoping that her adventure will inspire more people to take up cycling and share the enjoyment that she has discovered. “Mallorca has saved my life but cycling has given me the biggest therapy,” Ottilie expressed. “If I feel crap one day, I ride my bike, if I feel tired, I ride my bike, if I feel happy, I ride my bike. There’s never a circumstance where I don’t want to ride my bike.”

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Ottilie Quince: 'The whole point of this trip for me was to ride with as many people as I know who usually come to Mallorca. They come to us in Mallorca, so I want to go to them and see what they experience!'

Although Ottile turns 40 this year, her kidney Poppet is at the grand age of 72 and having overcome two cancer scares, Ottilie is out to show what it means to live life to the full. Raising both money and awareness for two charities very close to her heart, she will be giving back to the two surgeons who have helped to guide her to this stage.

“I just want to show to my Mum and my Dad what it means to be alive and what their support means! I want to show to people that if you’ve got a chronic illness or you’ve got a chronic condition and you want to try something a bit different, then why not? We’re only here for one time and one time only so let’s give it a good go eh!”

At the time of writing, Ottilie has raised a whopping £11,000 on her GoFundMe page, and she only set off this morning! She has set a target of £20,000, but more than anything she is keen to support UCARE and the Urology Foundation in any way she can. “The money [I raise] is amazing, but to just get those names out there - if that is all we do - to raise awareness for UCARE and the Urology Foundation will be amazing in itself.”

As she heads towards the Channel Tunnel, we would like to wish Ottilie all the best on her journey and we can’t wait to catch up with her over the coming weeks! You can follow her dot live on her website, or visit her social media channels to keep on track of her updates. Ottilie is on the GCN App, so look out for her posts throughout the trip!

Should you wish to discover the full story behind Ottilie’s love with cycling, make sure you check out our exclusive GCN+ film, ‘Cycling Changed My Life: Ottilie Quince.’

Go well, Ottilie!