Louise Sutherland

Who was Louise Sutherland?

Louise Sutherland was a New Zealand cyclist.

Born in Dunedin, New Zealand, she was the eldest of five sisters. At the age of 19, having grown-up with cycling as a primary means of transport, she moved to Oamaru Hospital to begin four years of nursing training. To visit her parents in Dunedin required a 7-hour, 100-kilometre ride; this was the beginning of her taste for long-distance cycling adventures.

In 1945, the Otago Daily Times reported that Louise Sutherland had completed a 700 kilometres ride from Dunedin to Invercargill to visit an uncle and also cycled back, all at the beginning of a bitter Southland winter. By the age of 21, Louise Sutherland was enjoying regular cycling holidays, such as a 6-day ‘Mount Cook trip’.

In 1949, working as a nurse in London, Louise set off to cycle to Land's End, Cornwall. However, this journey was only the inspiration for a much bigger and longer trip through Europe and into India. All of this was done on a bike bought in a jumble sale for £2.10s. Later she received bikes for her trips from Raleigh and then Peugeot.

In 1978, despite still knowing relatively little about bicycle mechanics, even how to fix a puncture, Louise Sutherland set out alone on a 4,400 km ride through the Amazon jungle. The self-planned trip was far rougher than any Tour de France, and something one Brazilian official publicly considered “Quite impossible!” especially considering that much of the Trans-Amazon Highway had only recently been completed. She was the first person to cycle the route and wrote a book about her trip, aptly titled, The Impossible Ride.