It’s hard to remember back to a time when Jensie was once a young man chasing the dream of becoming a professional. When you think back to his career as a professional cyclist, you remember a man stomping on his pedals, grinding his teeth and pushing himself to the limit as the peloton hunts him down.

Two years ago, a mom walked up to Jens and asked him to say a few words to her camera to encourage her young cyclist at home, her son who is chasing the very same dream Jens did all those years ago.

He gave her son three pieces of advice: Self-belief, no shortcuts and remember your roots.

Louis Perry was 14 when he received the video. Two years later, he says he is more motivated than ever and still keeps the video on his phone. When we spoke to him, he was visiting his grandparents in Switzerland. The trip gave him an opportunity to train in the high mountains, something he doesn’t have back home in the UK.

But two days into his self-imposed training camp, Louis broke his collarbone.

“That really demotivated me,” he said.

It left us wondering: How does a 16-year-old overcome the mental stress of an unwanted injury while lying on the roadside in a foreign country?

“I just think of the Tour de France. They crash and they just get back on. I saw Simon Gerrans crash in the Tour this year on a fast descent. He broke his collarbone and he got back up on the bike and tried to keep going. It’s moments like that that motivate me to keep pushing on. Professional cyclists are just badass.”

Louis first caught our attention through a comment on the Facebook page. He told us the story and followed it up with #shutupcollarbone.

It made us think that might be something Jensie would have said at that age.

Whether Perry will one day turn professional remains to be seen but in terms of the advice he received in that video, self-belief is something he’s not in short supply of.

by Xylon van Eyck
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