“What do you mean you’ve got a whole year off?”
Riding bikes every day means meeting people with all sorts of backgrounds. Some of them have jobs that look pretty cushy. Many of them don't. So when I tell people that I have a year's sabbatical, I get some pretty mixed reactions.
The funny thing is that the idea of a sabbatical terrified me. Other institutions either have no sabbatical option, or tie academics to the heaviest of deliverables. It had always felt safer to stay in the office over the summer and keep that 'Academic Studies Program' application unsent.
But UC is a little different. Sabbatical here is framed purely as a chance to step back from teaching, marking and administration and concentrate on research. You write a plan (that needs to define clear benefits to the university, and to be accepted), but you don't need to commit to bringing in 3X your salary in research income or face expulsion on your return.
Despite this, I still didn't really intend to apply. I like teaching. I like supporting our students. I don't enjoy working long hours on my own, and I didn't have a plan in mind that wasn't doing isolated bits of engineering design consultancy.
But then I was at the Sports Engineering conference in Loughborough, listening to the work of The International Society for Snowsports Safety, and thinking: why don't we have something like this for mountain biking?
So I put a proposal together. I asked for 9 months (I still have a shed load of teaching to worry about), got told it was 12 or nothing, and here I am. A whole year 'off'. After nearly 13 years in teaching-heavy roles, this is more research time than I've had in my whole career.
My plan is to kickstart a multi-year research programme on the sustainability of mountain biking. The scope covers how trails are designed, graded and looked after, how risk and injury are managed, and how communities and landowners share responsibility for the places we ride.
The project is intentionally broad, goal setting, and future focussed.
It's November now. I'm writing retrospectively after a dear ex-colleague and grassroots racing legend suggested a research blog might be interesting (we'll see about that). This blog is where I'll write down what I'm up to. It might be interesting. It very likely won't be. The plan is to be honest. To keep myself accountable to more than a daily todoist task list (though I would heartily recommend todoist if you have a mind like mine).
So no, it isn't a year off exactly. It's a chance to build some real momentum in an area that deserves more attention, to support a community that has given so much to me, and to co-create a roadmap for impactful future work.