Extreme endurance cyclist, survivor and Laureus Sport for Good Ambassador, Grant Lottering, faced an unknown battle bigger than the famous Tour de France mountain he set out to conquer 20 times in his recent Im’possible Tour – and wants to caution others.
“Pay attention to the symptoms and seek preventative medical advice as soon as possible”. – Grant Lottering
There are a lot of things extreme endurance cyclist Grant Lottering was never supposed to do. For a start, he was never supposed to get back on his bike again after smashing his body into a rock wall at over 60km/ph during a cycling race in the Italian Alps in 2013.
Lottering had to be defibrillated twice at the scene to get his heart beating again. Doctors told him that his riding days were over after fracturing 22 bones and suffering extensive internal trauma. Yet, just 11 months later – after six surgeries and close to 100 rehabilitation sessions – Lottering was back on the start line in the alps, facing one of the most demanding amateur cyclosportive events of its kind.
The annual La Marmotte spans over 170km and 5,000m of climbing, finishing on the feared Alpe d’Huez mountain.
Conquering the challenge gave Lottering the confidence he needed to tackle the Leggendaria Charly Gaul in Trento in Italy two weeks later – the very race that had nearly taken his life the year before.
Somewhere between the beautiful Cathedral Square in Trento, the wonderful lakes of the Valle dei Laghi, and the enchanting and decisive bends of Monte Bondone, Lottering birthed the idea of his extreme brand of fundraising events, the Im’possible Tour.
In retrospect, it seems uncanny how the jigsaw pieces of Lottering’s incredible comeback fell into place after literally ‘seeing the light’ that led to him gaining a reputation for defying death and overcoming 12 surgeries, cancer, hypothermia, failures and setbacks. But he never backed down or gave in, gaining respect and a global following for giving people a new perspective on overcoming and persevering.
Fast forward almost ten years later, and Lottering is now facing another major setback, having been recently diagnosed with nervous system dysfunction.
“Sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way you want it to, but strength comes from not looking back,” said Lottering on his recent diagnosis. Understandably, he admits he’s nervous about the road ahead, but he’s braved turbulent terrain before – and won.
In August, Lottering embarked on his third Im’possible Tour this year, #20onHuez. Backed by Mercedes-Benz South Africa V-Class (Lottering’s sponsor since 2016), the tour was held in celebration of Laureus Sport for Good South Africa’s 20th year of changing the lives of young people through the power of sport. In honour of this milestone, Lottering planned to cycle up and down the feared Alpe d’Huez mountain 20 times in one ride, a feat no one had attempted before.
The strategy was straightforward: ascend and descend the mountain three times every five hours, followed by a thirty-minute respite. This should take Lottering close to 33 hours, plus approximately six hours of stop time to accommodate for fatigue and unplanned delays.
It was a hard push up the slopes of Alpe d’Huez, famous for its 21 hairpin bends which regularly feature as a challenging stage on the Tour de France. Lottering spent two months in the Alps training for this extreme attempt, determined to cover the distance of 551km, climbing a staggering 23,500m.
“After completing four laps into the first night, I felt super confident, having climbed the mountain comfortably, keeping my heart rate between 130 – 140 bpm. After a 45-minute rest, I descended back into the valley in the dark before making a U-turn at the bottom and resuming the agonising climb for the fifth time, adding 1,080m in elevation with each rise. I was climbing the hardest section of the mountain, the first 3km, averaging over 10% gradient, when suddenly my heart rate dropped to 109 and wouldn’t go above 120bpm. My speed dropped slightly, but as my breathing became more and more shallow, my heart rate remained around the 115bpm for at least 6 km. That’s when I knew something wasn’t right.”
At the famous ‘Dutch Corner’, Lottering pulled over and lay down in the road. “I honestly had no idea what was going on. Suddenly I was struggling to breathe, and my heart rate was low. I didn’t feel tired, neither were my legs sore; there was simply no power, no response from my body,” he said.
“Bizarrely, my fastest lap turned out to be lap number six, near midnight, when my heart rate averaged the lowest. Out of utter frustration, I would sprint out of the hairpins, trying to get some reaction out of my body, pushing myself to the limit up the climb.”
At noon the next day, after he’d just reached the summit for the 10th time after a staggering 10,830m climbed in only 227km, he got off his bike and slumped onto the pavement. It was expected that his body was calling a time-out. And when unexpected things happened to Lottering, he always bounced back.
However, this time things were different. Lottering was battling not only a formidable alpine mountain but also an invisible and potentially lethal mountain within himself. Lottering’s support team knew something was wrong. Despite his mind telling him to get up off the road, back on his bike, and push on to the finish line, Lottering’s body refused, forcing him to abandon his attempt at the halfway mark.
“Having already completed two extremely tough Im’possible Tours in 2022 in only six months, I started searching for answers. Was I still fatigued from my 51-hour Southern California tour only two months ago? Or did I perhaps overtrain in the alps? Could it be the nature of this attempt, climbing for 1hr30min followed by only 20min respite while descending back down?” said Lottering.
While disappointed, Lottering would later be told by highly regarded biokineticist Dan Grobler, who also specialises in neuromuscular dysfunction, that his achievement was phenomenal in the face of a medical condition unknown at the time, which was attacking his body’s command centre – his nervous system.
“Reflecting back, there were red flags as early as March this year. I even remarked to family and friends that something felt off and thought I needed to see a neurologist. I was dropping things, my concentration span was very short, my memory was fuzzy, and I often ran out of breath. Of course, fatigue can do all those things, so that’s what I originally thought it was – fatigue from my 37-hour Im’possible DreamTour in January from Plettenberg Bay to Stellenbosch along the Cape Cycle Route. I didn’t take it seriously and just gave myself more time to rest in my training schedule as I prepared for my first US Im’possible Tour in June. I remember thinking, ‘I am an intelligent rider, I know my body, I have almost ten years of experience at this, surely I am not overtrained’?”
After returning to South Africa in September and seeing several specialists, including a neurologist, nervous system dysfunction was identified as the most likely cause of Lottering’s unusual symptoms, and Alpe d’Huez was the tipping point. Lottering’s autonomic nervous system no longer regulated his involuntary functions correctly, like his heart rate, breathing, muscular power and other cognitive functions.
The significant danger of this irregularity is it could lead to stroke and other potentially life-threatening cardiovascular conditions. “I hope my recent diagnosis serves as a caution for other healthy endurance sportsmen and sportswomen to pay attention to the symptoms and seek preventative medical advice as soon as possible.”
Lottering’s nervous system impairment stems from the severe internal trauma he experienced from his accident in 2013 and the 12 surgeries he underwent while putting his body through prolonged physical and mental stress year after year as he takes his extreme brand of fundraising across the globe.
“Stress is a killer if left unattended. Fortunately, the condition is treatable, but it takes time,” says Lottering. “This time, the mountain won. My body said ‘stop’. No matter how headstrong we are, we must listen to our bodies and seek professional help as soon as possible.”
