‘I found love for motorcycling in my 50s, now I help other menopausal women do the same’

As mid-life crisis cliches go, getting into motorcycling is often one of the most denigrated. However, a woman from Dover who discovered a love for riding bikes at 50 is showing how motorcycling can transform lives, no matter the age of the rider, and is helping other mid-life women enjoy the thrill of being in the saddle through specialised motorcycle mindset coaching.

Claire Jones, 52, loved hopping on the back of her then-boyfriend’s motorbike in her 20s. She had all the gear and found the excitement of biking thrilling, but she never learned how to ride herself.

When she met her husband Rick in 2002 at the age of 29, her biking gear got lost in a house move, but she thought she would never need it again any way.

Fast forward two decades and Claire, a certified life coach who had built a successful career in confidence and weight-loss coaching, felt the urge to get back on a bike. When she turned 50, Claire began thinking about what else she would like to do with her life, and “a big light bulb went on, like ‘Ooh, motorbike’,” she said.

She imagined the joy, freedom and adventure that could come from being on two wheels and, having recently seen Rebecca Ferguson looking super-cool on a motorbike in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, she wanted that for herself.

Little did she know, however, that getting up to speed with motorcycling would be a bigger challenge than she had anticipated.

On August 27, 2023, Claire had her first motorbike riding lesson – and “it was an absolute disaster”, she told PA Real Life.

“Realising that there’s an engine attached to this thing with two wheels, and if you open the throttle too high you’ll lose control and you’ll hurt yourself, I suddenly became acutely aware of that as soon as I sat on this thing,” she said.

“My menopausal brain just went ‘Nope’.”

According to the NHS, anxiety and low self-esteem are common symptoms of menopause and perimenopause. The hormonal fluctuations can also cause problems with memory and concentration, including so-called “brain fog”, and physical symptoms like heart palpitations and difficulty sleeping can have a stark impact on daily life.

Claire found that these symptoms of menopause affected her ability to learn to ride a motorbike – despite how much she wanted to learn, she found her mind was getting in the way.

“As you get older, you become more aware of your own mortality,” she said.

“So your nervous system, I think, is on higher alert compared to when you’re young and you think you live forever.

“Being menopausal, that does raise levels of anxiety, generally speaking. So I had all of that going on. And also, when we’re older, it takes longer to learn things.”

During her first hour on a motorbike, Claire fell off three times, and she felt out of control and nervous.

“It was a very difficult early few months where I had to really battle with myself,” she added.

“Is this something I really, really want to do? Why did I even think that I could do something like this?”

However, this negative self-talk was something Claire had faced before. A keen runner, she completed her first marathon, the London Marathon, in 2009, but considered the race a “disaster” as she was underprepared and had underestimated the mental strength needed.

But, she said, “I picked myself up, went back and did it again”.

“And as you can see, I got a few medals,” she added, pointing to the display of some 250 sporting medals on the wall behind her.

“That experience really proved to me that if you keep showing up, and if you want something enough, you’ll succeed.”

While completing a CBT course, which enables a rider to ride a moped or motorcycle up to 125cc with L plates, usually takes just one day, Claire did not get her CBT certificate until October 28, 2023, some two months after her first training session.

It was not until December 30, 2023 that she felt confident enough to get out on her own motorcycle for the first time.

Everything changed when Claire lost her beloved dog April, a 15-year-old Hungarian vizsla. April was Claire’s “shadow”, and losing her on January 26, 2024 was devastating.

“I couldn’t sleep that night, so I was just like ‘I need to do something to take my mind off this’,” she said.

“I decided to map out a route in my mind of where I was going to go on my bike, just get out of my 20 mile-an-hour estate, because I’d never been out on my own.

“That Saturday morning I got up, I had to go through really big mental preparation to build up the courage to do it, and then I did it, a 10-mile route.

“The view opens up and you see the Port of Dover, you see France in the distance. (The fact that) I did it felt amazing. That was my way of coping with losing her, throwing myself into my biking.”

April has been honoured ever since through her biking, with Claire’s first full-powered bike, an orange Honda CB500F, named Spirit of April after her golden orange dog.

When she upgraded last December to a black Honda CBR650R sports bike, which “looks very, very similar to the bike that Rebecca Ferguson was riding in Mission: Impossible”, she named it Shadow of April, and has since developed the courage to “ride all over the place”.

Now, Claire helps other people who want to overcome their anxieties around motorcycling and discover the joy that she feels on her bike.

In February 2025, she launched YourOneLife Motorcycle Mindset Coaching, an off-shoot from her weight loss coaching business, which helps other would-be riders get over their mental barriers to motorcycling to enable them to enjoy the hobby safely, without fear.

While she’s not a motorbike instructor, she can work with training providers and schools to help nervous riders make the most of their training and overcome mental barriers to learning.

The majority of her clients are women over the age of 40, which shows how many mid-life women would love to get into motorcycling but feel too nervous, embarrassed or self-conscious to learn. She offers free resources on her Instagram page, @mindsetmasterywithclaire, as well as offering online workshops and one-to-one sessions for those keen to embrace life through motorcycling.

Claire has discovered that, ultimately, it is not just about motorcycling, either. Often, her clients’ nerves and anxiety stem from other parts of life, and she has found she can use biking as an outlet for these anxieties, while also helping to tackle them head on in everyday life.

Claire’s perseverance and dedication to learning how to ride a motorbike, building the confidence to feel the wind in her hair on the winding Kent roads, not only proved the power of mindset, but gave her a new lease of life in her 50s.

“I do biking because I just love it,” she said.

“It’s that exhilaration, that next level feeling of accomplishment and freedom, and I would have missed out on all of that if I hadn’t done it.”

Find out more about Claire’s Motorcycle Mindset Coaching at www.motorcyclemindset.co.uk.