A couple of years ago, Archie Atkinson sent an email to one of his old school teachers. He wanted her to know she had inspired him, but not in the way she might have hoped. "This teacher told me that cycling would never get me anywhere in life and that I should focus on my education," he recalls.
Atkinson, 17 at the time, took it as an ultimatum: it was either cycling or school. He made his decision straight away. "I told her, 'I appreciate your feedback', and I never went back to school again," he says. It was the last the teacher heard from him – until the email.
